ARE YOU A RESILIENT PERSON ... AND YOU DIDN'T KNOW IT? - ARTE - 2024

Have you suffered and gone through very difficult streaks throughout your life, but in the end you came out of all of them a little stronger and more mature? Do you have an optimistic view, even despite the difficulties? Do you take advantage of problems to learn, grow and improve as a person?

So… probably, you are a resilient person! Did you know? Resilience is a psychological term that defines the ability of the human being to face the adversities of life, overcome them and be positively transformed by them.

Resilient people are those who have lived through problematic and stressful situations that seem difficult or impossible to overcome, but nevertheless, they not only overcome them, but finally emerge strengthened and renewed from said situations.

They manage to adapt naturally in a positive way after adversity, with an optimistic and creative style. Resilience, therefore, has two components:

• The ability to resist in the face of destruction; that is, to protect one's integrity under pressure situations.
• The ability to build a positive life despite adverse circumstances.

Origin of the concept "resilience"

The word "resilience" has its origin in Latin, in the term "resilio", which means "to go back, to jump back, to stand out, to bounce".

In the Encyclopaedia Hispánica, resilience is defined as the “resistance of a body to breakage by a blow. The fragility of a body decreases with increasing resilience. "

In Spanish and French, "resilience" is used in the field of civil engineering to describe the ability of a material to regain its original shape after being subjected to deforming pressure.

In the English language the concept of "resilience" is the tendency to return to an original state or to have the power of recovery.

In North America, "resilience" is defined as the property of a mechanical part to bend under a load and return to its original position when that load is no longer present.

Due to the meaning of its meaning as a word, Psychology has adapted the term "resilience" to refer to people or social groups, thus creating a complex concept that has given rise to a wide field of work, with numerous materials, initiatives and research.

He was born at the end of the 70s in the field of Psychopathology, when through scientific research it was shown that some children raised in families whose parents were alcoholics, did not present deficiencies in the biological or psychosocial plane, but rather by On the contrary, they achieved an adequate quality of life.

Resilient people are not born, they are made

Resilience is not a lottery that "touches us" or "does not touch us" depending on our luck, it is not an invariable quality that has been embedded in us since childhood, nor is it a personality trait or an absolute and strictly stable personal attribute or permanent.

Rather, resilience is a process that can be developed and trained to strengthen it. Some people find it more natural or innate and others less, due to different personal, biological, family and / or social factors that influence the development of resilience.

But the truth is that each and every one of us can choose to enhance our resilience in the face of adversity in our lives.

Characteristics of resilient people

Some of the characteristics of resilient people are the following:

• Strong and flexible self-esteem
• Autonomy and self-sufficiency
• Ability to give and receive, care and let yourself be cared for
• Responsibility and self-discipline
• Recognition and voluntary development of their own personal abilities
• An open mind, flexible and receptive to new ideas
• Willingness to set challenges and goals
• Curious about life and varied interests
• Strong sense of humor
• Ease of perceiving one's own feelings and those of others
• Ability to communicate these feelings appropriately
• Great tolerance for suffering
• High concentration capacity
• Sense of hope and optimism
• Various strategies for coping with stress
• Quality social support
• A meaningful purpose in life
• Feeling of controllability in life circumstances

5 ways to build your resilience

Know yourself

Being aware of your own strengths and limitations will allow you to know the resources available to you to achieve your goals, and to propose to grow in pending areas.

A well-developed self-knowledge will help you to trust your abilities more and boost your self-esteem. A psychologist can help you in this process: remember that therapy is not only useful if you have problems, but also if you want to grow and improve.

Surround yourself with people who have a positive attitude

And, on the contrary, distance yourself from those pessimistic people permanently wrapped in a halo of negativity, who drain you of energy and contaminate you with their discomfort and their complaints.

Creating a solid network of social support, surrounding ourselves with quality relationships, is one of the most important factors in enhancing our ability to resist adversity.

Resilient people are autonomous and self-reliant, but that doesn't mean they don't need the support of others. Do not hesitate to seek the help of your loved ones when you need it, and why not? Open yourself to meet new people related to you.

Train your tolerance for uncertainty and frustration

One of the main sources of tension and stress is the need to want to control each and every aspect of our life, so that they turn out as we need.

Of course, it is useful to take the reins and change what is under our control, but it is also important to assume that portion of "uncontrollable", to understand that there are circumstances that do not depend on ourselves and that there are others that will not turn out as we expected.

Feeling comfortable and confident despite the uncertainty will help you build your resilience. To train your tolerance for uncertainty and frustration, learning meditation or mindfulness techniques (mindfulness) can be very useful.

Make the most of your creativity

Creativity is something that you can promote every day, looking for alternative ways of doing "business as usual." Creativity when making decisions and responding to difficulties is one of the main virtues of resilient people.

“The resilient person does not limit himself to trying to glue the broken vase, since he is aware that he will never be the same again. She will make a mosaic with the broken pieces, and she will transform her painful experience into something beautiful and useful ”.

Be flexible to changes

Resilient people have a strong ability to be tenacious and persistent, but at the same time, they know how to be flexible in the face of the inevitable changes in life caused by circumstances, the passage of time, others or ourselves.

Instead of holding on and not letting go of the past, they are skilled enough to adapt their plans and goals as necessary. They do not deny the changes, because they are willing to get the positive out of each one of them and grow.

Also, they know that there is never a single solution to a problem. One way to develop your mental and emotional flexibility is to read personal growth books.

Assess your resilience

After reading this article, do you still have doubts as to whether or not you are a resilient person?

This is a collaborative article by Estefanía Mónaco, contributor to www.psicologiaenpositivo.org.