We talk about mental resilience, but what is it?
Mental Resilience is about being able to accept and adapt to change. Having a well-balanced mental state means you can react and respond successfully to all of life’s challenges.
Even before Coronavirus, modern living has led to a great increase in anxiety and stress. Consider this…
From the day you were conceived everything that has ever happened to you has gone into a bucket and you carry this bucket with you all the time. This bucket is rarely or never emptied, it just keeps on filling with ‘stuff’. The problem is compounded when our bucket is full and then something else happens, big or small, and our bucket has no more capacity. The contents of the bucket spill over and we are left feeling overwhelmed and unable to cope. Now our life is impacted.
Every day, I help people to increase their mental resilience. We start with the bucket and we:
Make the bucket bigger
Take out some of the old, useless beliefs and behaviours
Maintain it regularly
You make your bucket bigger by doing things that make you smile, laugh and relax. Things that lift and energise you.
If your bucket is full then you clear out some of the old resentments or negative, unhelpful feelings and behaviours. This is when you may need to see a therapist.
Finally, think of your mental health like you think of your teeth. You clean them at least twice a day and sometimes you need to see a professional to give them a deep clean or do some repair work.
We need to be mentally resilient because when something happens, expected or unexpected, major or minor, the bucket may already be full.
When you are mentally resilient you get your life back.