How To Build Spiritual Resilience

Are you dealing with some hot conditions at work that match the temperature outside? If that's the case, this week's blog is about spiritual resilience and how it can benefit you as a leader. This month, I've been discussing Rollin McCraty's four resilience domain model.

Before You Continue...

Do you know what is your soul number? Take this quick quiz to find out! Get a personalized numerology report, and discover how you can unlock your fullest spiritual potential. Start the quiz now!

The ability to keep a positive attitude in the face of hardship is referred to as spiritual resilience. In order to get through challenging conditions, you can seek support from a “higher” power (independent of your religious membership). Then, to overcome failures in your personal or professional life, call on your own set of beliefs, principles, or values.

Do I need Spiritual Resilience as a Leader?

You must exercise all four qualities of resiliency to be a strong leader (physical, emotional, spiritual and mental). To help you thrive as a leader who delivers positive energy to others, build a foundation of joy, hope, compassion, gratitude, and trust. “Spiritual resiliency is a daily activity that needs to be fostered by creating strong relationships and having a devotional center,” stated US Forces-Iraq Chaplain Col. Mike Lembke.

How to Build Emotional Resilience:

1. Create a Positive Attitude:

Practice positive thinking and gratitude for what you have now and the experiences you've had.

HTML tutorial

2. Be adaptable:

You can bend without breaking if you have flexibility.

As new situations arise, it assists you in remaining open, receptive, and adaptive.

3. Have Faith in Yourself and Let Go of Your Expectations:

Allow yourself to trust yourself and let go of attempting to control your life.

4. React vs. Respond:

You have no power over other people, but you do have control over how you respond to them.

5. Seek assistance:

6. Develop a lighthearted attitude

HTML tutorial

The ability to laugh at yourself can lead to a life of ease and grace. Don't be too hard on yourself. You will be able to find more comedy and delight at work and at home as a result of this.

Spiritual resiliency is essential for happiness, joy, and leadership effectiveness. Combine this resource with the other resiliency domains we've discussed so far this month. You'll see how the four domains interact to help you become more resilient as a leader. How spiritually resilient are YOU? Please send me your story! I'm looking forward to hearing from you and hearing about your spiritual perseverance stories!

What is spirit of resilience?

Furthermore, whether referring to one's health or their quality of life, the phrase “well-being” is frequently used interchangeably (George, 2011). Examining well-being in older persons is especially important. Spirituality is frequently regarded as a source of happiness in and of itself (Schwarz & Cottrell, 2007). Spiritual well-being has been found to become more important as a source of strength as people age (Schwarz & Cottrell, 2007). Positive health outcomes, discovering meaning and purpose, and facilitating coping techniques are all advantages of maintaining spiritual well-being (George, Kinghorn, Koenig, Gammon & Blazer, 2013).

Spirituality's role in the context of older individuals' mental health, like resilience, is poorly understood (Vahia, 2010). Spiritual beliefs and practices, according to previous research, have the ability to improve human strengths and help growth and healing (George, 2000). Spirituality can also be beneficial to one's health (Nakashima, 2005). Spirituality appears to increase with age, especially if an older adult is active and engaged in their own spiritual development, according to research (Wink & Dillon, 2002).

We uncovered the role of spirituality in dealing with adversity and hardship for older persons when researching the relationship between spirituality and resilience. We also looked at how this differed by age group for participants in the study. It's critical that we keep looking for new ways for older people to be resilient, especially those related to spirituality. Many tales of internal and outward spirituality arose from our narratives, many of which appeared to be present throughout the persons' lives. We looked examined how these different types of spirituality might fit into a resilience paradigm. The remaining parts go through the fundamental concepts and conceptual foundation.

Many individuals utilized faith as a source of resilience, as seen by these vivid narratives. Participants employed faith in a variety of ways to create resiliency throughout their lives, as seen by their responses. Spirituality is defined as a set of ideas, practices, and experiences centered on the search for meaning and purpose. It enables humans to make sense of complex experiences in their quest for meaning while also allowing them to connect to something bigger than themselves (Atchley, 2009; Nelson-Becker, 2006; Pickard & King, 2011). Resilience, in its broadest meaning, is a fluid, dynamic, and poorly understood process of rebounding back. This process demonstrates a person's ability to adapt well in the face of adversity and recover from traumatic events while coping with the consequences (Manning, 2013).

Spiritual resilience is the ability to maintain one's sense of self and purpose in the face of hardship, stress, and trauma by drawing on both internal and external spiritual resources. The following research questions were posed in order to better comprehend these constructs: 1. How do older people deal with adversity, and what internal and external resources do they use to cope with tragedy and hardship? 2. What is the link between spirituality and participants' resilience? 3. How did they deal with difficulties, problems, or adversity in their lives when it came to spirituality?

What are the 5 skills of resilience?

I defined stress resilience as the ability to recover swiftly and easily from stress, disruptions, and setbacks in my Stress Resilience Blueprint. With the correct tools and training, I made the argument that resilience is a composite skill set that can be learned and improved. And the cornerstone is a set of mind-body skills, as I called them.

You could argue that mind-body skills are about managing the mind-body link (the interaction between experience and biological processes in the body) such that it works for you instead of against you.

HTML tutorial

My services and programs emphasize the training and development of these mind-body skills, particularly through the use of biofeedback. The main idea is to understand how to direct your biology toward states that promote happiness and optimal performance.

Self-awareness

This is self-awareness in a specific sense: awareness of your body's responses and processes, such as feelings, desires, and urges to act, as well as awareness of your thoughts and thinking patterns, and, most importantly, awareness of how these two interact – awareness of how the mind-body connection works in practice. How your body reacts to your thoughts, and how your body's feelings influence your thoughts.

Self-awareness is required for control and decision. Your ideas and feelings have authority over you if they operate outside of your awareness. If you want to control them, the first step is to create a window of awareness, which allows you to halt and think before you choose, decide, or act.

All other resilience and emotional intelligence abilities are built on the basis of self-awareness.

Attention

In many respects, your attention, or focus, is similar to a muscle. It is possible to train and improve it. It's not evident how attention connects to general well-being, and one of my future articles will delve deeper into the topic, but one part of the explanation is this: being concentrated means being present in the moment. When you're not paying attention, your mind wanders between worrying about the future and lamenting the past. And that's when you're most stressed and unhappy: when you're thinking about the past or the future rather than the present.

Mindfulness is a powerful technique for honing a specific type of attention: receptive, accepting, compassionate, and appreciating present-moment awareness. As a result, mindfulness is an important aspect of my resilience program.

Letting Go Part 1: Physical

The first aspect of letting go is letting go in a physical or bodily sense. In the first place, this can mean letting go of muscles and tension, but I can mean calming the body, lowering restlessness and agitation, as well as physiological arousal.

I'm talking about the faculty of shifting to the left, which is exactly what you need if you're caught in the “quicksand trap” when you're to the right of the peak and heading down the slope, according to the Human Performance Curve model of stress that I discussed in an earlier post.

Letting Go Part 2: Mental

In a conceptual sense, the second part of letting go is. That implies, at the very least, distancing yourself from your own thoughts and the narratives running through your brain — establishing mental space to distinguish your thoughts, beliefs, and tales about the world from the world itself. Of course, emotions are inextricably linked to your beliefs and tales. The virtue of creating space around thinking is that it tends to take the heat out of emotions.

HTML tutorial

The focus of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) is on changing negative or unhelpful beliefs, although other treatments don't require as much effort. It's enough to create this space in the way I'm expressing it in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT. Cognitive defusion is the term used in ACT to describe this process (I explore cognitive defusion more fully in this article.)

Acceptance includes cognitive defusion, which simply means letting go of internal battle or opposition. Acceptance in the good meaning, not just surrender — forgiveness, for example, is a form of acceptance.

Here's an important point: when cognitive defusion is joined with physical letting go, especially letting go of muscle tension — an idea I'll return to later in this series of writings – cognitive defusion becomes substantially simpler.

Accessing & Sustaining Positivity

Most people, in my experience working with clients, are preoccupied with getting rid of bad emotions. But getting rid of terrible feelings isn't enough, and it's not always possible: there's always the risk of generating mental quicksand.

Positivity isn't just the absence of negative feelings, or even the polar opposite. When you divert your attention away from negativity (stop providing it energy while also not fighting it) and instead focus on positivity, the negatives will begin to naturally remove themselves. So you don't need to get rid of your negative emotions first.

Accessing optimism is a somewhat unique skill that, like the others on this list, can be learned and improved. Positive psychology has produced a number of excellent research-based tools and strategies.

Mind-Body Skills Are Foundational

Higher-level resources are built on the base of mind-body capabilities. I'd want to provide one example to illustrate my point: willpower. What I mean is that when you use your willpower, you're also using your lower-level mind-body talents.

Willpower entails resisting impulses to act on short-term desires that are incompatible with your long-term objectives (e.g. eating a cake when you want to lose weight). You must be aware of this desire in both your mind and body since it is an embodied activity (self-awareness). Stop battling or opposing your emotions (letting go) and instead concentrate on your larger goals (attention) and motivation to achieve them (which means accessing positivity).

Finally, I hope you can see why the five essential talents I've listed are so critical in everyday life. To reiterate my mantra, with the correct tools and training, these skills can be learned and developed. That's exactly what my Stress Resilient Mind Program attempts to do.

What are 3 ways to build resilience?

When things don't go as planned, resilience is the ability to bounce back. Susan Kobasa, a psychologist, believes that resilient people have three basic characteristics. These are control, dedication, and challenge.

What are 5 ways to build resilience?

The pandemic wreaked havoc on many children's lives over the last year, disrupting practically every area of their everyday existence. Moreover, “While caregivers can't always change a child's circumstances or protect them from pain, they can give them a more lasting gift: coping skills,” says therapist and school counselor Phyllis L. Fagell for The Washington Post.

Educators, on the other hand, clearly play a critical role in helping students acquire the desire and ability to persevere in challenging situations in school and in life—this year and at any time.

When teachers assist pupils, “We help them develop resilience by cultivating a mindset that sees adversities as a necessary element of achievement,” argues Marilyn Price-Mitchell, a developmental psychologist and author. “Resilience is not an inherited characteristic. It is drawn from how toddlers learn to think and act when confronted with major and tiny barriers. ” When adults in children's lives—parents, teachers, and coaches—assist kids in developing resilience, it benefits them “They emerge from adversity with a positive view of themselves and their futures,” Price-Mitchell adds.

It's a skill that takes time to master. “We want to keep our muscles strong and flexible so we can think of many ways to solve a problem,” Mary Alvord, a psychologist and author, tells Fagell. “Resilience works like a muscle we can build through effort and repetition, and we want to keep our muscles strong and flexible so we can think of many ways to solve a problem.” “Resilience is defined as “the concept that while you can't control everything in your life, you can manage many aspects of it, especially your attitude.”

Set Brave Goals

Being able to define personal objectives and then being able to achieve them is an important aspect of growing resilience “Ryan C.T. DeLapp, a psychologist, advises Fagell to “tolerate the discomfort that is causing resistance toward that goal.” A bold goal for this year might be to engage students to think about the camera-on/camera-off conundrum and how it affects their personal and academic advancement. “Is not being on camera interfering with your studies, or will it make it more difficult for you to be visually sociable once the pandemic is over?” DeLapp wonders. “That's an opportunity for a courageous goal.”

A SMART framework is used by many instructors to help students develop personal objectives that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. “Writing SMART objectives isn't easy,” writes Maurice J. Elias, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University. “This is a skill that takes time to develop, and it's especially crucial for pupils in secondary school.”

According to Elias, a hazy objective can look like this: “On my next report card, I'll do better.” However, a more productive goal—one that is both ambitious and attainable—might look like this: “I'll take detailed notes in the coming marking period and study them at least two days before tests and quizzes so that I can ask the teacher questions about what I don't understand. I'll finish my math homework before going out with my friends, and when I turn it in, I'll ask the teacher any questions I have. When I make a mistake, I'll make a point of asking the teacher or one of my students how they came up with the correct solution.”

It's especially crucial to celebrate a child's achievement once he or she achieves a goal, according to DeLapp. “Make time to reflect on their progress toward their daring objective, and express thanks and delight when they achieve it,” Fagell suggests.

Model Learning from Mistakes

Failure is “crucial” to becoming a resilient young person, according to Price-Mitchell. Teachers can help by creating a classroom environment in which “failure, setbacks, and disappointment are expected and honored parts of learning,” where students are “praised for their hard work, perseverance, and grit, not just for grades and easy successes,” and where they are held accountable for producing work that they feel “ownership and internal reward” for.

Consider putting up a classroom bulletin board where kids can brag about their worst blunders and what they learnt from them, according to educational consultant and author Richard Curwin. “Be careful to inform the class about your own blunders, especially if they're amusing, and what you learnt from them,” Curwin, who died in 2018, wrote. Allow students to repair errors and resubmit work, and be aware of when their work improves, as “nothing indicates learning from mistakes more than improvement,” according to Curwin.

In a 2017 study, math professor Amanda Jansen and her co-authors propose explicitly labeling some exercises “rough-draft thinking,” providing students “freedom to ask questions, make mistakes, and then revise without the suffocating potential of failure.”

Encourage Responsible Risks

Daniel Vollrath, a high school special education teacher, compares perseverance to a stress ball. “A stress ball is durable,” Vollrath adds, “since it rebounds back to its original shape after being crushed.” “Similarly, when kids encounter stress or dissatisfaction, we might think of it as a form of pressure from which they must recover. The goal is that by presenting them with resilience-building tactics, they will be able to overcome their dissatisfaction and return to a state of optimal and productive learning focus.”

Recognize and compliment students who take acceptable risks and challenge themselves—even and perhaps especially when they don't get the desired results—as one method to promote resilience. For instance, speaking up during a Zoom session to answer a question, even if the answer is erroneous, or “stumbling on words when reading out loud,” according to Vollrath. “These are opportunities to increase confidence and risk-taking, as well as to maintain a resilient forward momentum while in a safe environment.”

Label Difficult Emotions

From elementary school to high school, students can learn to recognize and name emotions, which can help them “become self-aware and begin to manage their own emotional states effectively—psychologists call this labeling,” according to Jorge Valenzuela, an education coach and adjunct professor at Old Dominion University. Students who learn to recognize, name, and understand their emotions are better prepared to make reasonable decisions and deal with unsettling or disruptive emotions in their life, all of which are important aspects of resilience.

Quick daily emotional check-ins are an excellent place to start in the classroom. Valenzuela builds the foundation for these early in the year, using Plutchik's Wheel of Feelings to teach kids the vocabulary they can use to describe the emotions they're experiencing—with varied degrees of complexity according on grade level. Valenzuela explains, “I find that helps children identify their feelings and their responses to those emotions.” “In addition, students can distinguish that other emotions are made up of or derived from one or more of the eight basic emotions. This is a life-changing insight for them, as it allows them to recognize emotional triggers and prepare how to respond with effective self-management tactics.”

Write and Talk About Setbacks and Human Resilience

Writing projects focused on “sources of personal strength” in middle and high school can help students explore multiple strategies to build resilience, according to Price-Mitchell, who offers a few suggestions to get started: “Describe a person who helped you through a very trying or terrible time. How did they assist you in overcoming this obstacle? “What have you discovered about yourself?” “Write about a period in your life when you had to deal with a difficult issue,” says another suggestion. What factors aided and hindered you in overcoming this obstacle? What did you take away from this experience that will help you in the future?”

The concept of resilience, on the other hand, isn't limited to one class—for example, ELA—applicable it's across the curriculum. “There are several opportunities to link resilience to personal success, achievement, and positive social change,” says Price-Mitchell. “Extend talks about political leaders, scientists, literary personalities, entrepreneurs, and inventors beyond their accomplishments to their personal strengths and the challenges they faced and overcame in order to achieve their goals.” Through these success stories, help children learn to perceive themselves and their own talents.”

What are the 7 C's of resilience?

Dr. Ginsburg, a paediatrician and human development expert, believes that being resilient is made up of seven interconnected components: competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control. Each of these 7 C's is briefly outlined below, and our kid and youth resilience group program's sessions have been carefully constructed to contain content and group practices that will improve each of the 7 C's.

1. Competence — the capacity to deal effectively with challenging conditions. It necessitates the ability to face problems and the opportunity to practice applying such skills so that one feels competent in dealing with situations. Our groups include stress-reduction and social skills training, and by acquiring these skills in a group of peers of similar ages, your child will have the opportunity to practice them and improve their proficiency.

2. Confidence – this is the belief in one's own talents, which is based on competence. When children can demonstrate their skill in real-life settings, they build confidence. Our programs build self-confidence by finding each child's unique strengths. When children's strengths are recognized, they soar to new heights and become self-motivated to conquer their obstacles.

3. Connection — Children who have strong relationships to their friends, family, and neighborhood groups are more likely to feel secure and belong. These kids are more likely to have strong values and are less prone to engage in other damaging activities. We develop a sense of belonging in our groups, and we talk about how your kids can enhance their relationships by being a good friend, a compassionate family member, and an active part of the community.

4. Personality – youngsters who have “Characters” have a strong feeling of self-worth and self-assurance. They are aware of their ideals and are confident in their ability to adhere to them. They are capable of displaying a loving attitude toward others. They have a strong sense of right and wrong, and they are willing to make good decisions and contribute to society. Our groups strive to build character by increasing self-esteem via strengths-based work and teaching empathy and caring skills to others. Teenagers in our youth group are empowered to see that they have the potential to make decisions and that they can make good decisions “smart” decisions in the direction of their beliefs rather than away from them

5. Contribution – When children have the opportunity to contribute personally to the world, they will learn the profound lesson that the world is a better place because they are a part of it. Hearing thank yous and expressions of gratitude when your child helps will boost their willingness to take acts and make decisions that better the world, so enhancing their own competence, character, and sense of connection. There will be time in our groups for your child to consider how they may participate and make a difference in the world. We present many of ideas for projects that families can perform together in order to experience the power of contributing in our parent group session.

6. Coping – youngsters who have a diverse set of coping abilities (social skills, stress management skills) are better equipped to cope with life's obstacles and are better prepared to face them. Our resilience groups teach stress-reduction techniques as well as social skills for dealing with daily stresses.

7. Power – when youngsters understand that they have control over their decisions and behaviors, they are more likely to know how to make decisions that will allow them to overcome life's problems. Our groups strive to give youngsters the impression that they have options in how they think and act, and that these choices can lead to certain outcomes.

Watch for my next article, which will provide you with guiding questions to consider whether your parenting is equipping your children with the 7 C's of resilience.

Dr. Karen Gallaty, clinician and chief psychologist of CBT Professionals Psychology Clinic, wrote this article. Karen has created a one-of-a-kind child and youth group program aimed at helping Gold Coast families raise resilient children. For more information about our Resilient Groups program, click here.

CBT Professionals is a Gold Coast-based group of clinical psychologists with locations in Coomera and Nerang. Adults, children, and couples can all benefit from CBT psychologists on the Gold Coast.

Disclaimer: The content on this website is offered solely for educational and informational purposes and is not intended to substitute medical advice from a licensed expert. Readers should seek medical advice from a licensed practitioner for diagnosis and treatment of their medical problems.

What are the four pillars of resilience?

The ability to perform well in the face of adversity is known as resilience. The four pillars of the DLA resilience model are mental, physical, social, and spiritual; harmonizing these four components can help you live a healthier life.

What are 10 ways to build resilience?

“The ability to recover rapidly from setbacks” is how resilience is defined. Physicians, more than any other profession, are confronting “difficulties.” The bit about “recovering swiftly” is also no small feat.

Today's healthcare system faces unrelenting change, according to Wayne Sotile, PhD, “one of the world's most seasoned clinicians specializing in life coaching for physicians,” and the mismanagement of that change, along with the fatigue it brings, is causing an epidemic of costly burnout for health professionals. That sounds awful.

However, the medical profession must do far more than simply survive. It has to thrive. Doctors have a high level of trust. Some doctors are better at dealing with the stress of today's medical profession—adapting, coping, adjusting, and managing it—than others.

My physician-father was an excellent role model for perseverance. He knew how to divide and conquer. I noticed that he had the ability to maintain control, be cheerful, and seek support. In fact, I didn't notice he had lost his coping skills until he resigned from medical.

“Being resilient does not mean that a person does not encounter difficulties or distress,” according to an American Psychological Association publication, The Road to Resilience. People who have faced significant misfortune often experience emotional sorrow and grief (e.g., doctors). In fact, the path to resilience is likely to be fraught with emotional turmoil. Resilience isn't a personality quality that you either have or don't. It entails taught and formed attitudes, thoughts, and actions in everyone.”

1. Connect the dots. “Resilience is strengthened by accepting help and support from those who care about you and will listen to you.”

2. Don't think of emergencies as insurmountable obstacles. “Try looking beyond the present to see how things could be a little better in the future.”

3. Recognize that change is an inevitable component of life. “Accepting conditions that you can't change can let you focus on those that you can.”

4. Make progress toward your objectives. “Do something that allows you to move toward your goals on a regular basis, even if it seems insignificant.”

5. Make a firm decision. “Act on unpleasant conditions as much as you can rather than disconnecting fully from difficulties and worries and wishing they would just go away.”

6. Look for opportunities to learn more about yourself. “As a result of their loss, people often learn something about themselves and may discover that they have evolved in some way.”

7. Develop a good self-perception. “Building resilience requires developing confidence in your capacity to overcome difficulties and following your instincts.”

8. Maintain a sense of perspective. “Even when confronted with traumatic occurrences, strive to put the unpleasant situation into context and maintain a long-term perspective.”

9. Keep a positive attitude. “Rather than focusing about what you fear, try envisioning what you want.”

10. Look for yourself. “Be aware of your own needs and feelings.” Participate in activities that you find enjoyable and soothing.”