Guide to Building Emotional Strength and Resiliency

Healthy living requires wellbeing on all levels, not just flat bellies and yoga butts.

Sadly, learning how to build emotional strength and resiliency is not being taught in schools. The resulting lack of education has created devastation.

Seriously, take two minutes to look up the statistics for emotional illnesses such as depression and anxiety. You will learn they are at epidemic proportions and increasing at alarming rates.

We must combat these epidemics!

Please do your part to raise the literacy rates of living emotionally healthy lives. Here is a guide that will help:

What You Need to Develop Emotionally Strength and Resilience (Reference ResiliencyOhio.org):

The core needs for developing a healthy level of emotional resilience are:

1. To have your basic needs of food and shelter met.
2. To be in an environment that validates you where you are able to feel valued.
3. A sanctuary that offers safe people and a protected space for refuge and rejuvenation.
4. To be treated fairly, with justice.

From providing for your core needs, you are better able to move on to fill your other needs to help you develop your emotional resiliency:

1. Increasing your capabilities to handle life by increasing your life/work skills, abilities and talents.
2. Increase self awareness to better know your needs and knowing when you need a break, an intervention, recovery or when to reach out for help and how to get it.
3. Increasing your acceptance of who you are today, while knowing you can be okay with you and still work on self improvement. (Stop beating yourself up)
4. Courage and confidence. Developing your courage to state your emotions, set appropriate boundaries and increase your feelings of confidence that you are capable to handle life as it happens to you.

Connecting with others as you work to develop your emotional resiliency is crucial:

1. Surround yourself with positive people and remove toxic people from your life.
2. Join support groups or work with a professional counselor, therapist and/or life coach.
3. Volunteer your time and efforts to serving others in an area you feel passionate about, such as working with rescue pets, visiting seniors, helping the homeless….

Building Healthy Emotional Habits is also crucial:

1. Avoid ruminating about problems by thinking about what you want instead.
2. Build your hope and optimism in your abilities to create a good life/future for yourself.
3. Build your faith, whether it is through religion, communing with nature or spending time in meditation.

While this quick guide outlines what you need to do to better develop your emotional resilience, you may need to reach out for support. Talking to a trusted friend, counselor or therapist is a great choice to make.

Head on over to ResiliencyOhio.org and take advantage of the excellent resources they offer.

As your emotional resiliency strengthens, your quality of life and overall health will improve dramatically.