Resilience is the ability to get back up after adversity. Due to the unpredictability of life, there will always be joys and sorrows. Resilient people are able to greet change and difficulty as an opportunity for self-reflection, learning, and growing.

Characteristics of a Resilient Person

• “Bounces back” quickly during hard times; recovers from traumatic experiences.
• A “where there’s a will, there’s a way” approach to things.
• Ability to persevere and navigate through the fallout after a crisis.
• An ability to manage strong feelings and impulses.
• Can manage distress or anxiety effectively and convert it to problem-solving energy.
• Bolsters optimism, takes chances - embraces life, as opposed to engaging in harsh self-criticisms and dwelling on negative self-images.
• A tendency to view problems as opportunities, and make the most of those opportunities.
• Strong communication skills and a healthy social support network (e.g., significant other, family, friends, work colleagues).
• Strong problem-solving skills; an ability to adapt and competently handle a wide variety of problems.
• Adaptive coping skills; learns how to develop coping strategies and apply them to novel future situations.
• High self-esteem: a positive view of themselves and confidence in their strengths and abilities.
• Makes realistic plans and sees them through.
• Possesses strong sense of self-efficacy: has confidence in his or her ability to cope with adversity, both independently and with assistance from others.
• Deep-rooted faith in a system of meaning; for example, the bond of marriage, spiritual, philosophical or psychological.
• An ability to process loss and grief without slipping into negative psychological states such as depression or anxiety.
• Maintains better physical health.

We all experience stressful or even traumatic events in our lives, but it seems that some of us are simply able to cope with stress and trauma better than others, an enigma that the clinical community has sometimes struggled to explain. The solution may revolve around the power of resilience.

Resilience has become a well used buzzword in recent years, often portrayed as a magical survival tool. But in order to learn how to build it, you must understand how it impacts your responses to stressors in practical ways. The terms emotional resilience, psychological resilience and mental resilience are used to describe a person’s capacity to adapt to and cope with stressors, and to overcome adversity without becoming distressed or psychologically dysfunctional. A coping skill is any strategy, technique or tool that we use to solve a problem or meet a demand efficiently and effectively.

The better our coping skills, the more emotionally resilient we are. The more emotionally resilient we are, the less likely we are to experience adverse reactions to stress and negative outcomes when we must solve challenging problems. Low-resilients often find themselves worn down and adversely affected by stressors, and the cycle tends to repeat over and over again.

Regular balancing of the inner subtle system and more specifically the left energy channel results in significantly higher emotional resilience – you are balanced emotionally and seldom over react, regardless of the gravity of the situation.

The power of discretion, that builds over time due to the nourishment of a specific energy center in the subtle energy system, combined with a calm appraisal of the situation, helps make the right moves and decisions devoid of emotional imbalances. The sense of gravity and ability to lead is granted by the establishment of the innate guru principle. Your innate wisdom, originating from your first energy centre, is a continuous compass, guiding you towards long lasting, productive solutions that ultimately alleviate the problems.

Another key benefit is developing a sense of confidence and courage in the long term by nourishing your fourth energy center or Heart chakra. You have unwavering confidence in being able to ultimately land with a solution and turn a challenging situation around. You rarely give up. You are not afraid to take risks or keep trying problems. The fact that the situation is adverse does not prevent you from trying the most remote possibilities out of fear or lack of confidence.

The power of the right channel gives necessary action and aggression to work towards a speedy resolution by taking decision action once you’ve identified the right path to take. During stressful circumstances, you can also find that body and your subtle energy system tends to heat up. This can be effectively dissipated through meditative techniques such as balancing and foot soaking – cooling of the right energy channel and liver. This ensures a constant supply of vital energy to your right energy channel that’s being drained rapidly in difficult situations. You’re able to find that extra ounce of energy nearly always to keep working towards the solution.