Unexpected and challenging events occur throughout our lives. We need tools and techniques to help us to cope and adapt to difficult life experiences. This article considers the different types of resilience including physiological, emotional, mental and spiritual resilience and offers tools and practices to help increase resilience.
Resilience
‘Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.’ (American Psychological Association Dictionary of Psychology).
Physiological resilience
The first step is to calm down your nervous system and enter into a more relaxed state to avoid anxiety and stress and the detrimental effects it has on the body. When we feel anxious the most effective way of calming ourselves is to breathe slowly and consciously. It is also essential to take time out from our busy lives to pause and be still. This is a simple breath exercise to help calm down and relax our bodies:
The Four Step Breath exercise
- Inhale through the nose, feeling the cool air through your nostrils, for 3 counts.
- Pause and hold the breath for 3 counts
- Exhale through the mouth, feeling the warm air escape over your lips for 3 counts
- Pause for 3 counts.
Grounding and Earthing
Spending time in nature is calming and uplifting. It helps restore our inner harmony and balance. When the weather permits, try walking bare feet in grass or on a beach. Placing your hands on the trunk of a tree helps create a connection with the natural world. Here is a visualisation to assist:
The Tree
Visualise a great tree with many branches and shiny green leaves. See roots pushing down into the earth and sideways until the root system is as large as the tree. The roots of other trees touch each of the neighbouring trees to form a network so that can communicate with eachother. They can pass nutrients to eachother and messages for protection.
Now see yourself standing on the earth. Be aware of your central channel, a crystalline column of light from above the top of your head crown all the way down to the base of your spine. Expand this central channel in all direction as if you are tree expanding your trunk in all direction.
See a cord of light from your central channel coming down your legs into the earth below you. See your own crystalline roots pushing down into the earth, connecting with Mother Earth. Feel grounded like a tree, your roots supporting you. Your connection with Mother Earth is strong and you feel safe knowing that she will always protect and sustain you. You are safe and loved by Mother Earth.
In this place, visualise and also start to feel energetic strands emanating out from your auric fields reaching out into the world around you. See the etheric connection between you and your family, friends and loved ones, touching and connecting to each other through etheric invisible threads of energy forming a web between you and all life on earth. Together you are in a community both physically and non-physically – you are connected in so many ways. Your body is strong and stable, you are safe, supported by Gaia (Mother Earth) and connected to all life on Earth. The strength you have provides you with resilience to face any challenge or obstacle or extreme conditions you may face in your life.
Bring your attention back to your body. Notice the rhythm of your breath. Slowly return back to your body.
Voice of the Heart
When unexpected and challenging events arise or there are times where we need to make an immediate decision, it is helpful to be able to communicate with our inner voice and use it to guide us. This voice is from our heart rather than from our mind and is called the ‘voice of the heart’. As Gregg Braden says ‘Know that you are never alone – you have a hotline to the clearest and wisest information and all you need to do is trust what comes into your heart.’
Physiological resilience begins in the heart. There is a term called ‘Heart Rate variability’ (HRV), the neural network in our heart (low frequency of 0.1 hertz) that harmonises the heart and brain. Every emotion creates chemical neuropeptides that are released through tears, bodily fluids. Increasing HRV leads to greater resilience. We can do this by communicating with the neuro network in our heart. We can move from our ‘thinking brain’ into our ‘feeling heart’ by placing your hands on your heart centre as ‘awareness flows where attention goes’.
The Heartmath website states that Heart Coherence is ‘a state of cooperative alignment between the heart, mind and emotions and physical systems…. Learning to activate qualities of the heart such as care, kindness and acceptance increases our personal coherence… This results in less mental and emotional pressure, more effective choices and increased resilience. Because our personal coherence is communicated through our energetic field, it has an uplifting impact on others.” (https://www.heartmath.org)
Adaptive Resilience
“She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.” (Elizabeth Edwards)
Adaptive resilience is preparing for events in times of extremes and learning to expect the unexpected. We can ask ourselves the question: during times of change, how can I be honest with myself about what is happening in the world and take steps to deal with it?
Practice dealing with unexpected events, e.g. in a relaxed state, visualise certain scenarios in your mind and notice how you would deal with them.
Adopt a position of neutrality or balance. Neutrality does not cancel out the emotion but it builds strength of character within consciousness to adapt to situations where there is a great deal of
unknown.
There will be times of unexpected changes and fear of the unknown. If we accept that these moments are inevitable, then we will be more prepared to face them and still hold ourselves to hold strong and steady and not become a conduit of negativity (fearful, projecting worry etc.).
Practice for physiological resilience/heart coherence
Breathe slower than usual. Inhale through your nose as slowly as possible and then exhale through your mouth slowly. Bring your attention to your heart centre. As you breathe, expand the love in your heart. Repeat to yourself the words ‘I am safe’ and ‘I believe in this day that we are all safe.’ Inhale and release your breath slowly remaining focused in your heart.
As a human, you have the ability to choose to experience an emotion, in this moment choose to experience Gratitude to the best of your ability. Feel the gratitude for yourself and then for people you love or admire, for beautiful locations on Earth, for the activities you love and anything else you are thankful for. Allow gratitude to permeate into every cell of your body. You are now in a place of heart where you can gain intuition and insights. Notice how you feel in this moment.
Emotional Resilience
Breathing exercises, chanting and singing help with emotional resilience. Calming your emotions and thoughts and remaining in a state of balance are important tools to help navigate the challenges of a changing world or any unexpected events. Sounding the OM/AUM sound helps to clear energy from our body and align frequencies.
Connecting with Mother Earth and spending time nature. Examples include grounding and ‘earthing’, developing rituals in nature e.g. placing your hands on a tree and expressing gratitude, mindful walking – barefoot on the grass, sand or earth, sitting and meditating in a circle or rocks or stones.
Visualise the image of a tree with roots growing deep into the earth. See yourself as a tree with feet pressed into the ground, head upright towards the heavens and arms spread wide open like branches that are flexible and strong.
Mental Resilience
Mental flexibility: allow yourself to change your way of thinking. Develop listening skills, communicate your present moment experience without bias. Practice mindfulness. Take notice of your habits and routines and see whether you can change and adapt them. Humour also helps so try to stand back as an observer and bring in humour and laugh at situations.
Thoughts and Fears: be careful of what your think as your consciousness can manifest what you think. If you anticipate negative events then you may unintentionally create them. Trust in the universe to deliver what you need.
Flower Essences
The following Bach Flower Essences are recommended to help with mental resilience;
Bach Flower essence Mimulus : for apprehension and fears, this remedy helps with bravery. “Fear in reality holds no place in the natural human kingdom, since the Divinity within us, which is ourself, is unconquerable and immortal, and if we could but realise it we, as Children of God, have nothing of which to be afraid.” (Edward Bach) Bach
Flower essence Red Chestnut: for those who worry for others, anticipate misfortune and project worry, this remedy brings ‘trusting to life’. “For those who find it difficult not to be anxious for other people, anticipate trouble, imagine the worst, worry over other’s troubles, over-concern for problems of the world, fear that a small
complaint of another will become a serious problem, project anxiety. “ (Barnard: Guide to the Bach Flower Remedies).
Spiritual Resilience
Develop trust in yourself and the universe around you. Learn to listen to your voice of your heart and make decisions based on intuition. Trust that you
are no alone and that when you aligned with your purpose, the universe will support you in all that you do.
Appreciate the interconnection with all life on earth. There is an etheric web of life that connects all living creatures on Earth with Mother Earth. We are all connected.
Acknowledge you are a spiritual being encased in a physical body with a life purpose that is uniquely your own. Every human has their own blueprint and unique skillset and gifts to use on Earth.
Practice for Spiritual Resilience/Discovering your Purpose in life
Slow down your breath, inhale through the nose and lengthen your exhale as you breathe out through your mouth. Feel gratitude for anyone or anything, for your life, your family, your friends, the beauty of the world, anything, feel it to the best of your ability and allow the gratitude to permeate your being. It may help to smile and bring joy into your heart. Sink into your heart centre, inhale and exhale and continue breathing slowly.
In this moment, allow this state of awareness to be a doorway to answer the deep questions of your life. You are going to direct a question to your heart, in the silence of your mind. Say to yourself – dear Heart or my Heart, thank you for the beauty in my life, thank you for the peace, thank you for the love that I feel in my body and in my life.
The question you are going to ask your heart is: If I were to look back on all I have experienced and all I have accomplished, all that I have given, shared and taken and I could change nothing, would I feel complete in my life in this moment? Take a slow deep breath and allow the answer to come to you. If YES then give thanks with grace and gratitude. If the answer is NO, then ask another question:
Dear Heart, if I would not feel complete what would it take to say YES, what would need to change to honour the gift of my life and to feel complete? Allow the answer to come to you. Be present to what is happening in your body and be present to the answer. It is you communicating with different aspects of yourself. The greatest sense of mastery is to know yourself in the presence of your truth.
With a deep breath, anchor the answers that have come to you so you can call on them when you choose. You can name this moment when you first received the answer for example ‘The Awakening” or “True Purpose Moment”.
In the future, when you need to make a decision you can ask yourself (your heart) – will this get me closer to my YES? It can become your guide in making decisions. You are now choosing
where to put your life energy. It is Higher Source/Divinity/God within telling you what is would take to say YES.
Recommendations:
- practice grounding and connection to Mother Earth (see Earthing Movie below)
- visualise etheric connections/etheric web of life between all humans and all life on earth
- align the heart, mind, emotions and physical
- activate qualities of the heart such as care, kindness and acceptance
- have a sense of and cultivate your divine plan or life’s purpose
- recognise the divinity within
- trust in the universe
References and Resources
The Earthing Movie: The Remarkable Science of Grounding (www.goundology.co.uk, movie is available on youtube)
‘Heal Thyself: Explanation of the Real Cause and Cure of Disease’ by Dr Edward Bach
www.heartmath.org
‘Science of Resilience: How to Thrive in a World of Chaos’, Gregg Braden and Bruce Lipton on
www.gaia.com
