Resilience In Your Life

Until last year, I never thought of myself as being resilient. Resilience is an attribute that I have but never really thought about until it was difficult for me to bounce back. I had to learn to be resilient at a really young age. My mother is addicted to drugs and alcohol. I was lucky enough to grow up with my dad with limited visits with my mother. I still had to consistently deal with the consequences of her actions. Learning to bounce back was easy for me, until I had to be more intentional about how I did learn to create resilience within my life. At the point where I was low on energy and not able to bounce back, I found myself completely shutting down me emotionally. It took time, a lot of processing, and some behavioral changes to feel back to normal. For me, resilience takes the form of self-care, actively monitoring thoughts that could be harmful to moving forward, and asking for help. …show more content…
How can you learn to move past whatever trauma or event if you don’t learn to take care of yourself? For me, self-care looks like taking time to create. This gives me time to allow my mind to wander away from my current situation. Frequently, I find allowing myself a break allows me to refresh my mind and move forward with full force. Another act of self-care is making sure I am getting enough sleep. If I go long periods without sleeping well, I shut down completely. I have noticed during times of stress, sleep is one of the first things to go in my life. I have had to learn to clear my mind before I go to sleep so I can stay asleep. Last year, I implemented a way for me to go back to sleep if I woke up stressing about something. I just write down whatever is bothering me at the moment on a sticky note, promise myself I will come back to the worry in the morning, and head back to bed. Writing, even if small notes, helps me sort through my thoughts and begin to decipher what is going on in my