Resilience is a concept that comes from the field of engineering. Here, the resilience of a material is the ability it has to regain its initial shape after being bent, stretched or compressed. A material well known for its great resilience is rubber.
In psychology, resilience is understood as “the ability to adapt to adverse situations, face and overcome them satisfactorily and emerge strengthened from them”, explains Beatriz Canseco de la Rosa, psychologist at the Centro Cuarto de Contadores, located in the Madrid town of Leganés (Spain). (https://www.cuartodecontadores.es/)
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the plane takes off against the wind, not against it,” said Henry Ford, a pioneering businessman in the auto industry. In this sense, Beatriz Canseco points out that a resilient person is capable of accepting the fact that problematic situations are part of daily life.
“It recognizes that problems exist and can be dealt with effectively, developing a positive attitude towards adversity and fostering self-efficacy beliefs,” he says.
It expresses that a resilient person “conceives life as a learning process and problems as opportunities, as challenges. They are more aware of their emotional states and have a high level of tolerance for frustration and uncertainty. His attitude towards life is characterized by his effort and persistence, facing and not avoiding situations, awareness of the present moment and optimism ”.
“Being resilient does not mean that the person does not experience difficulties or anguish. Emotional pain and sadness are common in people who have suffered great adversity or trauma in their lives “, emphasizes the American Psychological Association (APA, for its acronym in English).
The fact that someone is more or less resilient has a lot to do with the teachings and example of their family from the first years of their life.
“The personality is formed from childhood and parents are the engine for it to develop fully. They are in charge of transmitting security and trust. Children learn by observation and, at this stage, the example of parents becomes especially important, since it will intervene in the way their children will have to relate, to adapt to new or stressful situations and in the management of their emotions ”, Beatriz Canseco says.
The APA clarifies that resilience “is not a characteristic that people have or do not have. It includes behaviors, thoughts and actions that can be learned and developed by anyone ”.
Similarly, Beatriz Canseco affirms that resilience, “as a capacity that it is, can be learned.” The psychologist emphasizes that the way to cope with situations is learned and, therefore, we can also unlearn negative ways of coping and replace them with more satisfactory ones.
“We can work and strive to acquire a higher level of resilience. Motivation for change and the desire to improve are important aspects to begin to develop this capacity. Both have great relevance when it comes to generating resources and coping strategies towards problematic situations ”, he adds.
The psychologist points out that one of the main changes to begin to strengthen resilience is to stop the tendency to respond impulsively or the desire to postpone and avoid problems. In this way, he emphasizes that it is important to be able to recognize problematic situations when they occur, in a realistic way, with the aim of developing a positive attitude when facing them.
In other words, “it is about increasing our belief that we are capable of dealing with problems effectively, changing our attitude, since this will influence the implementation of skills to adapt to the situation,” he points out.
In addition, the specialist emphasizes that, for this, “it is necessary to open up to self-knowledge, become aware of our emotions, identify and accept them.” In this sense, it states that it is important to take care of thoughts and internal dialogue.
For the psychologist, being objective and realistic when interpreting situations is of vital importance, since this will generate a more adaptive vision of what happens to us. “We cannot modify the situations, but we can modify the way of interpreting them,” he concludes.
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