First Trait of Resilience

The ability to identify one’s top stressors

It was a beautiful morning in Ottawa, with the sun’s rays brightening up the blue skies. Cathy woke up fresh and happy, and like any other day, picked up her mobile phone, which had pretty much become a part of her morning ritual. As she was moving her fingers on her phone, hopping between apps, a what’s app message caught her attention. The contents therein were enough to ruin her perfect morning, and perhaps the day!A stressed woman needing the first trait of resilience

One of her best friends was laid off from her job. She went into a spiral of negative thinking, imagining herself to be in the same situation. Being a single mother of a young kid, even the thought of her being jobless sent shivers down her spine. Fear and anxiety gripped her, and she started on her own journey of “what ifs?”

This isn’t unique to Cathy and many of us find ourselves in similar situations, don’t we? No doubt, we are living in difficult and unprecedented times, but we add to it by bringing ourselves pain and misery. We start imagining things that are not necessarily true or happening to us. And this is where we need to pause, and check.

Life will continue to throw lemons at us. We need to learn to use them wisely and make a great lemonade! We need to learn to be resilient and not let these negative thoughts overpower us. And here is where awareness of one’s thoughts and emotions (known as psychological functions) comes in handy.

Some things trigger us more than others. Subconsciously, we all know them, but a good starting point is to write them down.

Download this small booklet, that will help you with the exercise of identifying your top stressors. Once you jot down the stressors, write down the ways in which you can deal with them.

We at The Resilient Mind project continually strive to support people in our communities to build their resilience skills, have some fun and develop new relationships, ultimately, to thrive mentally.

Currently, individuals and organizations who want to begin training can do so by registering for the online sessions through our website.

If you work in the healthcare sector or are a consultant, willing to include resilience training in your practice, The Resilient Mind project has something for you too.

Write to us at partnerships@TheResilientMind.life for more information. Let us build a resilient Canada, one mind at a time!