Resilience is the key to aging with grit, determination, and positivity. Time and time again I have witnessed “Resilient Thinkers” whether through my own aging parents or through senior clients. Resilience is the key factor in helping people adjust as they go through life’s transitions, trauma, disease, and death. It’s resilience that gives human beings their guts to move through life’s hard times and grow somehow on the other end of the trauma, death, accidents, and disease.  

“Resilience is the result of successful adaptation to adversity. It is revealed by an individual’s ability to cope and recover from crises, sustain a sense of purpose and vitality, and emerge stronger from stressful experiences. Resilience is a dynamic characteristic that may shift according to the circumstance.”
Resilience in Aging
Erica S. Edwards, MSW, Morrison Institute for Public Policy, Arizona State University John Hall, Ph.D. and Alex Zautra, Ph.D., Resilience Solutions Group, Arizona State University

Learn these 5  Steps to Become a Resilient Thinker:

  1. Accept things as they are in life now. Acceptance is the answer to many things in life. Building resilience starts with acceptance.  It allows for processing the moment in real terms with real facts after the emotions are processed.
  2. “Adjust as You Go Mentality” one of my workshops titles and articles that discusses the importance of being flexible in our mind and body. “Adjust as You Go Mentality” allows you to address the immediate needs of the moment and move forward.
  3. Stay connected. Human beings are social by nature and as we age, having a connection to community, friends, family, nature, and spirituality helps to build resilience and hope into your life, which also makes it easier to be positive.
  4. Coping skills are essential. Having coping skills and continuing to grow those skills to include meditation, mindfulness, spiritual connection, therapy and writing are all excellent ways to increase and develop coping skills that are very important to building your resilience in life. Volunteering is a great way to grow coping skills because when you help others it helps you.
  5. Grow and thrive after experiences – expand after trauma. This is the most important step because you must learn to grow and thrive after transitions, trauma, death, and disease to engage in a resilient, positive aging life.

Lastly,

Resilience is the ability to thrive and grow throughout your life. I grew up witnessing resilient parents and, in turn, I know this influenced my thinking from a very young age. Anyone can learn to be resilient at any age.  Practice this skill until it becomes part of your nature and thinking. Resilience makes life easier to live!

   #Resilience    #ResilientThinker    #PositiveAging    #Acceptance    #ThriveAfterTrauma