In the A-Z of Emotional Intelligence – R is for Resilience
What exactly is resilience?
The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. Sometimes referred to as elasticity, the ability to spring back to shape.
Oxford English Dictionary, 2020
Resilience is getting back up and into shape no matter what comes your way, like a gymnast after a fall. They take tumbles in vast public arenas, and could take on shame/embarrassment and frustration as a result but instead have the tenacity and resilience to get up and carry on going no matter what.
Do you struggle to deal with your own intense emotional reactions and those of people that you live and work with?
Do you often find yourself stuck in a frustrating emotions loop unable to dig your way out of the situation at hand and bring yourself back a steady equilibrium?
Have you ever found yourself saying “I can’t help it, I’m an emotional person!” “it’s just how I am” as you feel lost in the depths of another teary or angry episode. Developing your emotional intelligence will mean that you are more resilient in your work and personal relationships and this kind of statement will become a thing of the past.
But I REALLY am an emotional person! This won’t work for me…
I hear you. I am too! I am a deeply emotional cancer crab and used to be beholden to my emotions for days and sometimes months on end. If I allowed someone to upset me I would get stuck in the hurt and tender feelings. I would ruminate on why they did it and how I could stop them from doing it again, I would talk it over with anyone that would listen. Sometimes even the people that caused the hurt, which frankly most people don’t want or need to hear! Over and over again, I was a victim to my own emotions coming up from situations that I had created, I didn’t feel them, manage them and release them. I wallowed in them, I dragged them out. Exploring the pain thinking that it was necessary to heal, all it did was sap my precious energy.
I was hyper-sensitive at home and at work, I took people’s reactions to me and my actions very personally. I hadn’t developed my awareness of others to know that most people’s responses to any situation are more reflective of them and their own personal situation and experiences than of you.
I hadn’t really learned to actually feel the emotions either, to test them and see if they were real or simply because I was tired, frustrated about something else, or even hungry. I hadn’t learned to filter them and let them go or deal with them appropriately. Emotions are fleeting, whether positive or negative they all pass given time. Choosing to react to every single one will leave you in burnout and very alone very quickly. This was my forte in my mid-20s!
How does it work?
Awareness of others is one of the 16 areas that you will develop with emotional intelligence coaching. This superpower will allow you to observe and appreciate where others are coming from, spot potential issues sooner and manage them in ways that resolve positively for more people.
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash
It works in partnership with self-awareness and self-regard to spot and understand your own triggers and create situations that avoid these or manage them better. For example, knowing that you seek approval from other people is something that will leave you vulnerable to others’ opinions. Developing the habit of giving it to yourself will leave you less vulnerable and cultivate resilience to differing or negative points of view.
Self-reflection and inquiry will develop your personal power, goal-directedness, and authenticity muscles. These all help you pause in the moment when an old high emotion state flares up and challenge whether it’s real, fleeting and something you really need to deal with or can let go in the interest of protecting a relationship with someone else or yourself. This is where the magic happens.
A highly developed sense of self-respect improved self-reliance or confidence will lead you to become more understanding of the people around you and in turn more connected. Your intuition will tune in to the things that are important to you, in ways that your colleagues and family will be more likely to respond to as you’ll not only be coming from a stronger foundation but be more aware of them too.
There’s a balance to be struck in how much emotion we express and what we release or keep private. As suppression of emotional reactions can be just as damaging as overexpression, the good news is developing your emotional intelligence coaching can help with it all!
Emotional intelligence profiling will help you get a read on all of these measures and more, as well as set out a detailed guide for how you map against your peers and what you can do to build on each measure.
Sign up for updates and access my free confidence hypnosis to get you started living more of your own sweet days or book an Emotions Equaliser if you’re ready for a clear path to more resilient days!