Emotional Resilience

Emotional resilience is defined as “the ability to adapt to or recover from adversity and significant stress.” It involves gaining perspective on a challenging situation so that you can remain in, or return to, a stable state of wellbeing.

I love the words stable and wellbeing. They make me feel calm and reassured, as though everything will eventually be okay. Stability comes from maintaining a realistic, but hopeful, view of whatever we are facing while believing that we have what we need to endure it. To me, that sounds a lot like courage and faith.

The first step towards emotional resilience is to have a realistic but hopeful view of the situation. This means thinking accurately about what you are facing instead of allowing yourself to become overwhelmed. One helpful exercise is to write down the main issue that is causing stress and then draw four or five circles around it, breaking the problem into smaller parts.

For example, if every school morning feels stressful because there is conflict between your children and husband, break the situation into manageable pieces. Part of gaining perspective is describing the situation factually, without adding exaggeration or extra emotional layers. If additional worries come to mind, write them in separate circles so that you can decide whether they need practical solutions or if they are feelings and assumptions. This exercise alone can help calm you down and reveal small, manageable steps forward.

The second essential part of emotional resilience is caring for your physical body, and food plays an important role in this. Whether or not you struggle with your weight is beside the point. If you are skipping breakfast, especially during stressful times, your body and mind may already feel unstable and depleted.

Eating breakfast before 8:30 am, particularly one that includes protein, can help stabilise both your body and your brain. Stability comes quickly when you commit to breakfast and then aim to eat a pleasurable, nourishing lunch and supper.

I would love to know if these two skills provide a glimmer of hope.