Resilience – An individual’s ability to bounce back from adversity, and grow as a result.
#1 thing that impacts our resilience is how we make meaning about the situation. We all have our narratives based on our past experience and emotional intelligence (EI).
EI point of view
- Positive/negative orientation impacts our view on adversity and the degree of difficulty to handle it. For example, positive-oriented people see a half cup of water as half-cup full, and negative-oriented people see it as half cup empty. When we view adversity in a positive light, it encourages us to handle it and bounce back more quickly.
- Self/other orientation impacts our judgments on adversity and determines our actions. Highly self-oriented people tend to focus on internal emotional state and experience to interpret situations and highly other-oriented people tend to see the world as outside of themselves and feel like victims of some situations. A balanced self/other-oriented person can set boundaries well and have a more objective view of adversity.
Life experience
Our past experiences also shape our sense-making. These include our youth experience based on attachment theory or some significant life events, such as trauma.
Reflecting on our narratives helps us raise self-awareness. Rewriting our narratives helps us see adversity from a fresh perspective and that’s cognitive reframing.
Learning cognitive reframing techniques will help us see the new possibilities in a difficult situation so that we will be better able to bounce back, grow, and move through the challenges.