What Is Spiritual 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).

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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?

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What does resilience mean spiritually?

  • The ability to retain 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).

How do you 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.

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.

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:

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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

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!

How does spirituality affect resilience?

In recovering persons, higher levels of religious faith and spirituality are linked to more adaptive coping responses, higher stress resilience, a more hopeful life orientation, more perceived social support, and lower levels of anxiety.

What is a good example of resilience?

When it comes to positive mental health, there are several elements to consider, one of which is resilience.

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Resilience is the ability to adapt successfully and bounce back rapidly when faced with adversity. This stress can present itself in a variety of ways, including family or relationship issues, major health issues, workplace issues, and even money issues, to mention a few.

Developing resilience can assist you in adapting to change and rebounding from setbacks, disappointments, and failures.

According to studies, resiliency is rather prevalent. People show resilience far more frequently than you would expect. The response of many Americans following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and individuals' efforts to rebuild their lives, is an example of resilience.

It's important to note that demonstrating resiliency does not imply that you haven't faced challenges or been distressed. It also doesn't rule out the possibility of emotional distress or sadness. Emotional stress and strain are common obstacles on the path to resilience.

The good news is that you can learn to be resilient. It entails cultivating the attitudes, behaviors, and activities necessary to recover from traumatic or stressful life situations.

What is emotionally resilient?

Your ability to respond to stressful or unexpected situations and crises is known as emotional resilience. Your emotional resilience is determined by a variety of factors, including your age, identity, and life experiences.

What is social resilience?

(2008) defines social resilience as “a social system's ability to respond to and recover from disasters,” adding that it “includes those inherent conditions that allow the system to absorb impacts and cope with an event, as well as post-event, adaptive processes that facilitate the social system's ability to respond and recover.”

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.

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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.

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 the qualities of a resilient person?

Characteristics of a Resilient Individual

  • Self-awareness. Self-awareness is necessary because it allows you to perceive yourself objectively and completely.

What is the impact of spirituality?

While precise spiritual beliefs are a matter of faith, research has shown that spirituality and spiritual activities have some benefits. The findings will come as no surprise to anyone who has found solace in their religious or spiritual beliefs, but they are remarkable in that they illustrate in a scientific way that these activities actually benefit a large number of individuals.

Here are a few more examples of the many good studies related to spirituality and its impact on physical and mental health:

  • Religion and spirituality have been found in studies to assist people cope with the impacts of ordinary stress. According to one study, everyday spiritual encounters helped older persons better cope with unpleasant emotions while also increasing happy emotions.