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The Get Wrong Do Right Emotional Health Newsletter
This month: What we get wrong about Emotional Resilience, why we get it wrong and how to do it right. Plus book recommendations, the monthly poll and
announcements. |
What We Tend to Get Wrong about Emotional Resilience We tend to think of emotional resilience as how we respond to challenges in the moment, whether we cry, lose hope, become paralyzed or numb. But emotional resilience has many
factors (12 according to this recent study), and by far the most important of them is how successfully we bounce back. Why? Because many of us might shed a tear in the moment or feel initially demoralized or overwhelmed but then pick ourselves up and keep
going, while others might be stoic in the moment but never continue on the path thereafter. So, the initial snapshot of our reactions do not convey the full or the more meaningful part of the story. |
Why we get it wrongOur understanding of emotional resilience is fundamentally distorted, with one of the main culprits being popular culture. Action heroes (who we consider super resilient) are always
portrayed as stoic under extreme pressure, while protagonists in rom-coms or dramas ('regular' people) are more likely to cry, crumple, or give-up under pressure (only to recover later during an inspirational belted-ballad montage). These visible cues of 'strength' and 'weakness' are not only simplistic, they tell us nothing of the inner psychological-emotional processes that actually determine resilience, and they bias our perception of resilience toward immediate reactions and away from how
well we bounce back over time. This leads to us making three incorrect assumptions: |
Misunderstanding #1We believe that crying indicates a lack of emotional resilience.
Crying is complicated. It's determined by factors such as the context and subjective meaning of the situation, gender (men are socialized to avoid crying and therefore tend to cry less), empathy (higher empathy can make you cry more easily ), general stress levels, personality traits such as extraversion, and others. But crying has also been found to be a highly effective mechanism for restoring emotional and psychological balance--and that's what resilience
is all about. Misunderstanding #2 We assume the resilience a person displays in one scenario implies how resilient they would be in another. It doesn't. A trained marine might be amazingly resilient in combat situations but become extremely dysregulated (e.g., anxious and overwhelmed) when having a stressful 'relationship talk' or confrontation with their spouse, and struggle to manage and express their feelings. Misunderstanding #3 We think our emotional resilience is set and stable but it's neither. The research demonstrates that resilience can be built by both positive and negative experiences. But--and here's the key part--it's how we process such experiences that
determines whether they end up making us (resilient) or breaking us. Indeed, in last month's poll, 60% of you said you'd like to improve your resilience but 40% said you didn't know how. |
How to Improve Emotional Resilience:There are many established evidence-based approaches to improving resilience such as, gaining emotional support, deepening connection to others,
having purpose, optimism, mindfulness, enhancing our emotional vocabulary, and others. Since it would take an entire book to cover them, I'm going to focus on a single factor that is both critical and typically neglected in resilience research and that is the story we tell ourselves about the hardship we went through and what we tell ourselves about how we got through it. The scenario I'm going to illustrate the how-to aspects of building resilience is one we've all been through in some
form--the pandemic. In last month's poll, the same number of you said the pandemic strengthened your resilience as said the pandemic weakened it. |
Boost Your Resilience by Editing Your Story:Imagine two immune-compromised people in New York City (where I practice
and where the epicenter of the pandemic was located) who each spent months alone in a small apartment, lying awake at night listening to endless sirens, seeing makeshift morgues on the sidewalks, wondering what would happen to them if the brave people working in grocery stores stopped coming to work and there was no way for them to buy food. One of them looks back at that period and thinks: "Those were the scariest, loneliest, and
hardest months of my life. No way could I get through something like that again." The other thinks--"Those were the scariest, loneliest, and hardest months of my life. If I can get through that, I could get through anything." Which of those two people is going to build more resilience? Yes, the second. Because they acknowledged their ability to manage a terrible
hardship. The first person emphasized how they cannot manage that same hardship (even though they did). To build resilience, you have to be able to acknowledge your strengths (and be specific about them) so you can draw on those same attributes or coping mechanisms during future hardships. It's hard to draw on your coping mechanisms when your story is that you don't have any.
Step by step guide to improving emotional resilience: Resilience is built by (1) getting through hardships and (2) recognizing the resources within us and around
us that helped us do so. Let's look at your own pandemic story. Complete the following sentences (in writing preferably). 1. For me, the hardest moments of the pandemic were (name several): ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. List the things you did that helped you cope or contributed to moments of better coping (e.g., support from friends/family, sticking to a schedule, tackling a project, connecting with people you hadn't been in touch with for a while, exercise, nature walks, meditation, self-compassion, asking for help, helping others, distraction, promising yourself a reward if you get though a task or a hard day (e.g., listening to an episode of the Dear Therapists podcast), etc.. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. Choose one of the 'coping' items you just listed and write a short paragraph about how you felt at the time, why the strategy was helpful and how you could use it when facing future hardships (of any kind). ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. Do the exercise every day (one short essay a day) until you finish your list--while adding items to the list as you go (because writing about the experience will remind you of other coping mechanisms you used). 5. When you next face hardship, go through your list and select the coping strategies you could adapt to
the new situation.
6. Now Change Your Story Look at your (growing) list of coping mechanisms and remind yourself that when challenges come, you'll be upset and distressed and even shut down for a while, but you have a whole list of tools
and resources that helped you bounce back when the entire world shut down and life as we know stopped. If you could recover from that--you can recover from anything. |
Announcements1. Dear Therapists will be returning for Season 4 on June 13, 2023! Look for the trailer on June 6, wherever you get your podcasts. This Season we have some great sessions for you, including one taped live in front of 250 therapists and
other surprises. If you enjoy Dear Therapists, please leave us a review on apple.podcasts, as those really help others find the podcast. You can find Dear Therapists on whichever platform you get your podcasts. 2. I welcome any feedback about the newsletter, including requests for specific topics in future editions. Negative feedback is always considered and when framed constructively, appreciated. Write to
[email protected] |
This Month's Poll: Self-Esteem |
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