Resilience, what it is?

Stress is inevitable but suffering is our option. Learn to bounce back as quickly as possible during hard time.

Resilience is the capacity of people to effectively cope with, adjust, or recover from stress or adversity.

Resilience reflects the ability to

  - bounce back

  - beat the odds 

  -  transform one’s emotional and physical pain into something “positive”

  - evidence a relatively stable trajectory of healthy functioning across time

  - move from being a victim to being a “survivor” and even to becoming a “thriver”

  - be “stress hardy” adapting to whatever life sends, and for some, even evidencing 

    “post- traumatic growth”

Pathways to resilience (Meichenbaum).

 a)  The perceived availability of social relationships and the ability to access and use social supports;

 b)  The degree of perceived personal control and the extent to which individuals focus their  time and energies on tasks and situations over which they have some impact and influence;

 c)  The degree to which they can experience positive emotions and self-regulate negative emotions;

 d)  The ability to be cognitively flexible, using both direct-action problem-solving and emotionally palliative acceptance skills, as the situations call for;

e)  The ability to engage in activities that are consistent with one’s values and life priorities that reflect a stake in the future;

Psychological Characteristics of Resilient Individuals (Meichenbaum).

1. Experience  Positive Emotions and Regulate Strong Negative Emotions

Be realistically optimistic, hopeful, ability to laugh at oneself, humor, courage, face one’s fears and  manage emotions. Positive expectations about the future. Positive self-image. Build on existing  strengths, talents and social supports.

2. Adapt a Task-Oriented Coping Style

Ability to match one’s coping skills, namely direct action present-focused and emotionally-palliative  acceptance with the demands of the situation. Actively seek help and garner social supports. Have a  resilient role model, even a heroic figure who can act as a mentor. Have self-efficacy and a belief that one can control one’s environment effectively. Self confidence. Seek out new and challenging  experiences out of one’s “comfort zone” and evidence “GRIT” or the perseverance and passion to  pursue long-term goals.

3. Be Cognitively Flexible

Ability to reframe, redefine, restore, find benefits, engage in social problem-solving and alternative  thinking to adaptively meet changing demands and handle transitional stressors.

4. Undertake a Meaning-Making Mission

Create meaning and a purpose in life; survivor’s mission. Use one’s faith, spirituality and values as a  “moral compass”. Be altruistic and make a “gift” of one’s experience. Share one’s story. General  sense of trust in others.

5. Keep Fit and Safe

Exercise, follow a routine, reduce risks, avoid unsafe high-risk behaviors (substance abuse, chasing “adrenaline rush” activities).

Resilience core (Gail M. Wagnild)

Resilience core, which is made up of the five essential characteristics of resilience:

1.  Meaningful life (purpose)

                Having a sense of one’s own meaning or purpose in life is probably the most important characteristic  of  resilience,  because  it  provides  the  foundation  for  the  other  four characteristics. Life without purpose is futile and aimless.

2.  Perseverance

                The  determination  to  keep  going  despite  difficulties,  discouragement,  and disappointment…that’s  perseverance.

3.  Self reliance

                Equanimity means balance and harmony. Resilient people learn to avoid extreme responses.

4.  Equanimity

                Self-reliance is a belief in yourself, with a clear understanding of your capabilities and limitations.

5.  Coming home to yourself (existential aloneness)

                While we all live in the world with other people, resilient individuals learn to live with themselves. They become their own best friends. This is what ‘coming home to yourself’ means.  We  must  face  alone  much  of  what  we  face  in  life;  if  we  are  content  with ourselves,  this  is  easier.

Being more resilient improves the quality of life. Understand your resilience core, know where it is weak, and take steps to strengthen it, and then go forward boldly and live resiliently.

Promoting resilience in youth (Edith Henderson Grotberg)

1. Build trust.

2. Focus on the individual, not the problem.

3. Keep the accent on the positive.

4. Set high expectations and provide the support youth need to meet them.

Put resilience to the test by doing the following:

1. Provide opportunities for meaningful work and community involvement.

2. Pull in the parents.

3. Create a sense of community.

                           Resilience concept is powerful influence on how we think about physical health, psychological well-being, and social functioning. Learn to develop your resilience characteristics. 

Mindfulness in stress reduction

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly – Buddha

Mindfulness is usually defined to include bringing one’s complete attention to the experiences occurring in the present moment, in a nonjudgmental or accepting way. Mindfulness is more than a meditation. It is “inherently a state of consciousness” which involves consciously attending to one’s moment-to-moment experience.

Descriptions of mindfulness and methods for cultivating it originate in eastern spiritual traditions, which suggest that mindfulness can be developed through the regular practice of meditation, and that increases in positive qualities such as awareness, insight, wisdom, compassion, and equanimity are likely to result.

In traditional Buddhist teachings there are four areas or domains of mindfulness.

The first foundation is mindfulness of body, which typically begins with bare attention to the sensations of the breath, bringing the mind and body together and calming them. Then, other body sensations may be observed, in all the potential postures and movements of formal practice and daily living.

The second foundation is mindfulness of feelings, in which bare attention is brought to the feeling-tone of the experience of each moment. “Feelings,” as the term is used here, are not emotions. Rather, they are an immediate knowing of experience as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral before reactions such as emotions or attitudes come into play. Feelings are simply observed as they arise, linger, and pass away.

The third foundation is mindfulness of mind, which directs bare attention to the quality of the activity of the mind, registering awareness of states or dispositions, such as distraction and concentration, or one of the three roots of suffering — desire, hatred, or delusion. Again, these can be observed as they arise, linger, and pass away.

The fourth foundation is mindfulness of mind-objects, in which bare attention is directed towards all that the mind encounters within and without. Here a wonderful characteristic of Buddhism, the making of lists, shapes recommended practice, as the traditional instructions are to observe the arising and passing of the

Five hindrances

Sense-desire, anger, sloth and torpor, agitation and worry, and doubt

The five aggregates

Material form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness,

The six subjective/ objective sense factors

Eye/form, ear/sound, nose/smell, tongue/taste, body/touch, and mind/concepts

The seven factors of enlightenment

Mindfulness, investigation of reality, energy, enthusiasm, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity and, at last,

The four ennobling truths

1. Life means suffering.

2. The origin of suffering is attachment.

3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.

4. The path to the cessation of suffering.

In the traditional Buddhist context, mindfulness is embedded in an eight-fold path to alleviate suffering; mindfulness is guided and directed by seven other factors. They are as follows:

(1) The view one has of what is real, important, valuable, and useful

(2) How intention is used to initiate and sustain action in skillful ways

(3) The nature of speech that can be either harmful or beneficial

(4) The quality of action as it relates to ethical principles

(5) One’s means of sustaining oneself in the world as livelihood

(6) The degree and quality of effort employed to bring about change

(7) Concentration as a focusing and supporting factor to mindfulness.

Underlying this concept and approach are the following assumptions in psychology:

(1)Humans are ordinarily largely unaware of their moment-to-moment experience, often operating in an ‘automatic pilot’ mode;

(2) We are capable of developing the ability to sustain attention to mental content;

(3) Development of this ability is gradual, progressive and requires regular practice;

(4) moment-to-moment awareness of experience will provide a richer and more vital sense of life; inasmuch as experience becomes more vivid and active mindful participation replaces unconscious reactiveness;

(5) Such persistent, non-evaluative observation of mental content will gradually give rise to greater veridicality of perceptions; and

(6) Because more accurate perception of one’s own mental responses to external and internal stimuli is achieved, additional information is gathered that will enhance effective action in the world, and lead to a greater sense of control.

Three key components:

1. “On purpose” or intention,

2. “Paying attention” or attention,

3. “In a particular way” or attitude (mindfulness qualities).

Mindfulness Facet

Observe

Describe

Act aware

Non-judgmental

Non-react

Forms of Practice

Everyday mindfulness:

This involves reminding ourselves throughout the day to pay attention to what is happening in the moment without radically altering our routines.

Formal meditation practice:

This involves setting aside time to go to the mental “gym.” We regularly dedicate a certain period to sit quietly in meditation.

Retreat practice:

This is the “vacation” that is dedicated entirely to cultivating mindfulness. The following practice,

Vipassana

Vipassana practice is opening to the fullness of direct experience. This offers the opportunity for seeing into the way one’s world and self are constructed and interrelated, that is, for insight. Vipassana, or the cultivation of mindfulness, is the characteristic form of meditation in Buddhism — central to all its meditative streams.

Benefits

Living in the Moment

Increased Positive Affect

Reduced Stress Reactivity

Enhanced Cognitive Vitality

 Mindfulness in contemporary psychotherapeutic paradigms

The practice of sati or satipatthanna is not limited to Buddhism. This activity or elements of satipatthanna may also be found in many different contemporary psychological paradigms often under different names such as:

• Self monitoring in Behavioural Therapy

• Being in the now in Gestalt Therapy

• Present centeredness in Gestalt therapy

• Listening to oneself in Client Centred Therapy 

• Llistening to automatic thoughts in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

• Self awareness in Emotional Intelligence 

• Meta-mood and meta-cognition

• Free association and hovering attention in Psychodynamic therapy 

• Acceptance in Acceptance and Commitment therapy 

Mindfulness in psychological interventions

Following interventions those are now widely available in medical and mental health settings based on mindfulness concept.

Dialectical behavior therapy 

Mindfulness-based stress reduction 

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy 

Acceptance and commitment therapy 

Relapse prevention for substance abuse  aswell as variations on these approaches.

These interventions conceptualize mindfulness as a set of skills that can be learned and practiced in order to reduce psychological symptoms and increase health and well-being.

Mindfulness is the direct path for the purification of beings,

For the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation,

For the disappearance of pain and grief,

For the attainment of the true way,

For the realization of liberation –

Namely, the four foundations of mindfulness - Buddha

spirituality in coping with stress

I want to know how God created this world ... I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details. —Albert Einstein

Many people experience anxiety and fear as they observe natural disasters, street violence, crime, war, family disintegration, and social upheaval, all of which test people's sense of meaning and coherence in the world today. Many people have lost faith in the ability of science to provide solutions to all of humanity's problems. Spirituality takes us beyond our current way of thinking, feeling, or acting. Spiritual intelligence helps to grow our level of self to integrate conflicts and become more than we are. Spirituality and psychology share a concern with the quality of human life. They hope to offer guidance to people seeking to find meaningful, fulfilled, and even happy lives.

What spirituality / religion offer?

Levin (1995), a social scientist suggested that

1. Religious belief and affiliation provide a person with a secure sense of identity, which lowers one's average anxiety level and facilitates resiliency under stress.

2. Religious conviction may provide a sense of purpose and meaning that enables rational interpretations of life's problems, including death.

3. Positive emotions of hope, faith, optimism, and catharsis emerge from beliefs and rituals, including the process of forgiveness and the hope of healing and redemption.

4. Religious affiliation links one with a network or community of believers that provides a feeling of belonging, family, and social support in times of need, as well as a steady flow of opportunities to serve other people.

5. Religion through prayer, ritual, worship, and so forth provides inner experiences of communion between the individual and the "Higher Power" that may yield insight or peace even if there is not a Higher Power.

6. Many beliefs lead to a lifestyle that includes healthy habits and a healthy inner sense of responsibility and self-control.

Social scientist have found that the Western and Eastern spiritual worldviews have some similarities, including the general notions that,

(a) Some sort of harmony with an eternal principle or essence (with God or an impersonal One) is possible;

(b) Human beings have free will;

(c) There are moral or ethical principles or laws with which human beings should seek to live in harmony; and

(d) There are paths or ways that lead to personal and social harmony, enlightenment, growth, peace, and happiness.

Current trend in spiritual strategies

1. Many studies have provided evidence that religion and spirituality are positively associated with many indicators of mental health.

2. The positive psychology movement supports and stimulates by the current professional interest in spirituality.

3. Mental health practitioners who wished to include religion and spirituality as part of treatment.

Some of the common spiritual strategies people use

1. Prayer

2. Going to temple/ church / Mosque regularly etc.

3. Reading sacred books such as bible /bhagavad gita/ Qur'an etc.

4. Yoga, meditation, worships etc.

5. Service, charity, sacrifice

6. Attending seminar, speeches, visiting sacred places

7. Living with particular life style or values

8. Seeking meaning or truth

Some common problems with spiritual strategies

1. People worships idols not the ideals behind it

2. Dysfunctional religious and spiritual beliefs and practices

3. Cultural influence over the concept of religion / spirituality

4. Many people have doubt about the religious / spiritual concepts

5. Exploitation in the name of spirituality by the authorities

6. Commercialization

7. People using when needed not practice in their daily lives

I would suggest that learn more about spiritual concept without any bias. Explore and work through religious and spiritual doubts and concerns. Grow in faith and commitment to your religious and spiritual beliefs and values.

Recommended resource

Ocean is a free collection of the World's Religious literature managed by a unique book-centered research engine. It contains over 1000 books of 10 world religions in English as well as collections in six other languages.

Download the file below and run it to start the installation process. It contains the Ocean program and the English library containing roughly 1000 books.

Ocean installation with English Library:

Ocean_English.exe

Link to visit

http://bahai-education.org/ocean/

Happy life journey!