StudySkills@TheLibrary: Emotional Resilience
One of the most important skills you can learn is emotional resilience.
Emotional resilience is not about pushing down or away “negative” emotions but more how you manage your emotional and mental state.
Are you feeling sadness, fear, doubt or worry?
Or are you feeling more “positive” emotions like joy, love, happiness or peace?
All emotions serve a purpose and the ability to access powerful emotional states and manage debilitating emotions is crucial to living a purposeful life.
Creating Emotional Resilience
MANAGING YOUR EMOTIONAL STATE
If you are feeling stressed or anxious, you know if you are managing those feelings or if those emotions are controlling you.
Ask yourself three questions:
- How intense is this? Score yourself a number from zero to ten.
- How often am I feeling this way?
- How long does this feeling stay around before I begin feeling a little better?
You know if you are managing difficult emotions if the intensity, frequency and duration of that emotional state is getting better or worse.
Here are three simple tips that can help you “interrupt the pattern” of a difficult emotional state.
- Story – This is the story you are telling yourself about yourself or the situation or circumstance you are in.
- State – This is the mental and emotional state you experience with this problem.
- Strategy - This is the actions and behaviours you use with this problem.
CREATE A BREAKTHROUGH
Have you noticed that you can’t change or control people and events?
Often, the actions of other people and/or events are out of our control. However, despite being on the receiving end of what other people or events bring to you – changing either your story, state and strategy are within your control.
What’s one breakthrough or change you want to make in your life?
Now identify ONE new:
- Strategy you can implement. What can you do differently?
- Story you can tell yourself that changes the meaning you are putting on this situation.
- State you can bring to this situation.
One of the most powerful, simple and fast ways to change your emotional state is to change your physiology.
Have you noticed that when someone is sad or upset they tend to look down and speak more quietly and softly and their upper body is hunched over.
Compare this to when you see someone happy.They tend to look up and speak louder and faster and their upper body is upright and straight.
To feel better, be sure to move your body the way you do when you are experiencing positive happy emotions.
REMEMBER: We can’t control unfortunate events or how others behave towards us. We can however, control how we react to those events and/or behaviours.
You can access the Study Samurai Library helpful modules through the College Library page.
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