Making unfair comparisons between certain individuals and yourself is a common thinking error, and can leave you feeling inadequate. When you do this, you compare yourself with people who you know have a specific advantage over you in some area.
If you talk to your sibling about how you’re feeling, use “I” phrases such as “I feel frustrated that you…”, so you don’t lay blame and put them on the defensive.
Talking about why you’re frustrated with your sibling can help you gain some insight on the situation, help them understand where you’re coming from, and can give you a chance to hear their side of the story.
Before you react to something your sibling has said or done, take a deep breath and think about the situation. Maybe you’re angry at your sibling or frustrated by a bigger underlying issue.
If you find yourself thinking in black-and-white, instead look for the shades of grey in between. Is it really so bad? Are you taking an extreme view? Just because something isn’t completely perfect doesn’t mean that it’s a total disaster.
When you’re thinking in black-and-white, you see everything in terms of being either good or bad with nothing in between. Either you’re great, or you’re a loser; if you don’t look like a model, you must be ugly; if you do something wrong, then you are completely useless.
Thinking errors are irrational patterns of thinking that can cause you to feel bad and sometimes act in self-defeating ways. If you feel more upset the more you think about a situation, you can learn to think in a different way.
Resilience uses four basic skills: awareness (noticing what is going on around you and inside your head); rational thinking; reaching out (how we call upon others to help us meet the challenges we face); fitness (our mental/physical ability to cope with the challenges without becoming ill).
Resilience relies on different skills and draws on various sources of help, including rational thinking skills, physical and mental health, and your relationships with those around you.
“Resilience” is the ability to cope with and rise to the inevitable challenges, problems and set-backs you meet in the course of your life, and come back stronger from them. It is a life skill that anyone can learn and develop.