How Resilient Are You?

I’m officially in remission for a month now but have still been feeling really tired. I keep wondering what it will take to address this fatigue and just how much longer I’ll be struggling. I look so forward to the days where I don’t need to have an afternoon nap to survive as it really does take time out of the day. I’d love to do yoga a few times a week and be relaxed about going out more than once a day.

I’ve finished reading the book The Resilience Factor and I found it to be really helpful. In the design of a happy life, resilience is really vital. No-one can have a life without adversities, and it’s how we handle them that defines our happiness. The book provides a range of strategies to combat flawed thinking and poor responses when things go wrong. I found it to be really practical and powerful in helping to manage life’s blows, although I cannot say that I have mastered all the skills.

The book states “First you must become aware of the kind of person you are, and that means examining your deep beliefs and values about yourself, your world, and your place in it.” The authors urge us to identify the thinking patterns that are holding us back and to challenge our limiting beliefs.

As I’ve mentioned before, in designing a happy life and pursuing your passion, it is imperative that you know yourself first. Knowing yourself in this book’s context is about how you think and getting to understand your beliefs. By listening to the narrator in your head during adversities, you can uncover why you are reacting the way you are, and challenge beliefs in order to have a more appropriate response. Examples of how we think is whether we attribute problems to ourselves or to others and whether we feel that the issue affects everything in our lives and will always be there. How much control we feel we have over the problem plays a role, as does our level of optimism and our ability to accurately assess the situation. Resilient people are able to derive meaning from failure and feel empowered to take action.

Some of our beliefs are well-known to us but many are deep-rooted and difficult to uncover. Some of the self-development work I have been doing lately involves challenging beliefs that do not serve me. There are a few healing modalities such as Theta Healing® that help you to uncover these beliefs and even replace them with more constructive ones. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, the negative self-talk and our inner critic can be really harmful and needs to be addressed if you want a happy life.  

The person who has helped me the most in my healing journey has to be Meryl. She is skilled in a variety of healing modalities that appear quite complex to me. I must confess that I am confused about all the modalities that she practices but this time we worked on limiting beliefs, those that lurk far beneath the surface and that are affecting my energy levels.

The relief that I felt and still feel after visiting Meryl is nothing short of magical. In a one hour session she seems to have lifted a great burden and I feel far less fatigued. I must admit that if anyone said this kind of thing to me I’d probably roll my eyes and think them a little loopy. But nevertheless, that was my experience. I am yet to fully understand what she does and I’d love to write a blog post on it to give you more details but that will be for another time.

Boosting our resilience through challenging limiting beliefs remains a powerful method of personal growth, regardless of the method used. Since our beliefs govern our behaviours which can have dramatic impacts on our relationships, it’s worth knowing under what context we are acting. Knowing yourself allows you to be better equipped to handle life’s challenges and to manage the stress before it becomes serious.

Do you understand your thinking style? Do you tend to jump to conclusions in your thinking, or to mind read? What beliefs are holding you back from being the best you can be? What are the beliefs costing you and are you prepared to challenge them?

Are you Highly Sensitive?

In Susan Cain’s book, Quiet, she talks about two research psychologists who focussed on sensitivity. In separate studies, Jerome Kagan and Elaine Aron identified characteristics of those who are more sensitive than others. Kagan studied babies into their teenage years and was able to predict which ones would turn out to be quiet teenagers. The sensitive babies reacted strongly to stimuli such as balloons popping, bright colours and strong scents. Kagan labelled these children “high-reactive”.

Those who know me will know that I like research. When I need to know more on a subject, I read as much as I can gain access to. So when my first child was born, I read voraciously in order to cope better and to minimise her discomfort. Those of you who have cared for a small baby know that it’s quite difficult to troubleshoot the cause of crying. I used to go through the basic checklist: she has been fed, she has a clean diaper, she is not tired, she is not too cold or too hot etc. What I realised after a while is that she became overstimulated very easily. A lot of noise in the day or strong perfume from cuddling relatives led to bouts of hysterical crying in the night, for which I could do very little. I had to rock her gently in a dark room, holding her tight to soothe her as best I could.

Her sister on the other hand was a clear extrovert from the outset and had no such needs. It is quite difficult to overstimulate her because she thrives on attention, noise and fun. There is no question in our family that my oldest daughter and myself are the introverts. We prefer the volume on the TV to be lower than the rest of the family do, and we get tired from busy outings with lots of interaction.

Elaine Aron studied “highly sensitive” people who limit surprises, carefully consider consequences before acting, dislike small talk and are sensitive to strong sounds, sights, smells and coffee. The highly sensitive people have more empathy and think in an unusually complex way. An interesting aspect of Aron’s findings was that the amygdala in the brain became more strongly activated in highly sensitive people when exposed to disturbing imagery.

It would be my guess that sensitive people are more subject to stress than the remainder of the population. For those of us who think deeply about things and who are easily affected by social dynamics, we bear a larger burden. I know that I have struggled to manage stress in my life and now have a life-long stress-induced condition. It was not surprising to find that the highly sensitive test was a resounding Yes for me. 

If you are introverted or sensitive, I’m sure you've been criticised for it in the past. I've been told many times in performance appraisals that I need to build on my resilience. What I love about Susan Cain’s book is that she highlights the benefits of being an introvert. She cites many examples of famous people who did their best work alone and who were profoundly affected by events. We are not dysfunctional, we are just different, with different needs and qualities to contribute. 

Having empathy and being aware of other people’s feelings can make you a real asset to a team. Being able to think differently leads to improved problem solving and innovation. Just don’t put a highly sensitive person in a noisy office environment. Allow them to work from home or have flexible work hours without being labelled weird or a ‘loner’. And for yourself, know when to take action to restore your energy. Allowing the best of your nature to shine is more your responsibility than that of your manager.