Short messages on Mental health, stress and anxiety issues from Respect Yourself, the guidance site for young people to help make good decisions in life.
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.
If you accept the present moment, you can let go of resistance. If you let yourself cry it out, you can let go of sadness. These things can help you find more peace.
If you empathise with someone who hurt you, you can let go of bitterness. If you understand someone who annoys you, you can let go of judgment. If you have compassion for yourself, you can let go of self-recrimination.
You have stories, but you are not your stories. You have labels, but you are not your labels. Make a list of everything you are, maybe 200 things. Return to your list regularly: keep adding to it or cross a few things out, which are no longer true for you.
Your stories, memories, and experiences have shaped your personality but they are still only stories. They may have been real once, but are definitely not real now. They exist only inside your head, as fleeting thoughts, beliefs, pictures, and ideas of “self”.
Try not to use alcohol or other drugs – including lots of caffeine or other energy drinks – in the hope of feeling better or forgetting expectations and pressure. The feeling is usually temporary and the effects often make you feel worse.
Expectations can lead to a lot of stress. It’s important to take time out to do something that you enjoy. Although you might not feel like it or have time, exercising, eating well and getting plenty of sleep can help you feel better.
If you need to express your emotions you can do this in ways that won’t cause you bodily harm, or damage to another person or property, like yelling, punching or crying into a pillow, or dancing round the room to loud music.