How to grow your resilience comes from many sources including an innate ability. We don’t often hear the word resilience. A Google search results in this definition for resilience – the capacity to recover from difficult circumstances or simply toughness.
In addition, it involves:
- Connecting to a positive attitude
- Developing a determination to work through
- Saying “Yes” to difficult emotions
- Developing the capacity to allow
Is This Something I Can Develop?
First, it’s nice to know resilience is a common occurrence in most people. However, we need to cultivate more of it. In fact, anyone can develop toughness or build upon it.
A meditation practice is key to developing all the qualities to build resilience. In fact, the capacity to recover (equanimity) is built-in to the meditation practice on Ten Percent Happier. A short meditation by Sebene Selassie is the basis for this article. Furthermore, you can watch a YouTube interview with Dan Harris and Sebene titled “The Joy of Allowing Life to Be”.
Practice
Although I recommend a set time for developing the habit of meditation, you can use these steps anytime you find yourself upset about a difficult situation. Allow your intuition to determine whether or not you remove yourself to a private location, safety first, always.
- Find a comfortable posture
- Either close your your eyes or gaze downward
- Begin with slow breathing, in through your nose, out through your mouth
- Soften any tightness in your body on the out breath
- Connect to the breath or whatever sensations in your body are prominent
- Accept anything happening right now; annoyance, distraction, ease, even pain
- Say to yourself, “Allow”
- Slowly open your eyes
Meditation practice is just that… practice. It doesn’t matter when you lose your way with distraction or thoughts. Noticing and starting again happens for everyone. Make space for exactly what’s here. Saying yes, starting over, allow.
Learning how to grow your resilience, your toughness, through cultivating a positive attitude, determination, and the capacity to allow result in working through difficult times.