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Building Resilience: 5 Ways to a Better Life | 5 Minute Video

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In case you hadn’t noticed, life is difficult and unpredictable. So, how do you move forward in such a complex and confusing world? UCLA Medical School psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Marmer offers 5 tips for coping with life’s unwelcome surprises.
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Script:

In case you hadn’t noticed, life is difficult, complex and unpredictable. You can’t change this. It’s the nature of things. But you can prepare yourself for the next unwelcome surprise.

How? By building resilience.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from life’s inevitable disappointments, failures, and pains.

Let me use an analogy here.

If cars didn’t have shock absorbers, every ride would be a miserable experience. The ride through life without shock absorbers – that is, resilience – would be the same. So, without building resilience – your own internal shock absorbers – it’s not possible to lead a happy and productive life.

Resilience is the opposite of fragility. To be fragile means that just about everything upsets you. And if just about everything upsets you, you will spend a lot of time angry and hurt. And if you spend a lot of time angry and hurt, you will not be a happy person.

Here, I’m not focusing on severe illness, the death of a loved one or any crushing life-changing event. In such cases, people usually need help to recover. But for most of us, such situations are rare – while the slights and disappointments of ordinary life are not. And for those, we need resilience.

OK, then. How do you develop resilience? Here are some suggestions to get you started, drawn from my forty-plus years as a psychiatrist.

First, get some perspective.

Step back and assess your situation with as much objectivity as you can. “How bad is this problem?” “Have I overstated it?”

Sometimes my patients think an unhappy occurrence is much more serious than it really is – usually because it’s amplified by evoking a painful childhood issue. Often getting perspective is as simple as asking yourself this question: “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” Usually you’ll discover the worst thing isn’t that bad – and isn’t even likely to happen.

Second, compare the undeserved bad things that have happened to you with the unearned good things that have happened to you.

When I ask my patients to do this, they invariably conclude that the unearned good in their life far outweighs the undeserved bad. I’d say the ratio is at least 10 to 1. In my own case, I didn’t earn the incredibly good fortune of my grandparents moving to America, or that life-saving penicillin was available to me in my childhood when I was sick. I could go on and on. And so could you.

In light of this, maybe things aren’t so bad after all. In fact, they’re probably pretty good.

Third, toughen up.

Life hits you from all directions – health, personal relationships, work challenges, family issues. To deal with them, you need to build up your mental toughness. The earlier in life one starts this process, the better.

That’s why parents who coddle their children and protect them from every hurt and failure are not doing them any favors. Nor are colleges that provide students with so-called “safe spaces.” To toughen up, you need to push yourself. How do you know what you’re capable of if you don’t do that?

For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/building-resilience-5-ways-better-life

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Tags Building Resiliencedennis pragerFragileFragilitypainprager universitypragerupsychologyResilienceResilientStephen MarmerTrauma
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34 Comments

  9. We can see that being resilient is also sometimes called mentally stable. A person is not easily thrown off their balance. We know that many bad things can happen in this world that can cause someone to become mentally unstable for some time.

    Mentally unstable means “An inability to cope with problems or daily activities. Feeling of disconnection or withdrawal from normal activities.”

    A resilient person will not be too elated when things go their way, and they will not be too down when things are not going their way. Rather, they know this is part of being in this world of change. Just because the externals are changing does not mean that our internal world has to change as well.

    If a person has some resilience, they will continue with their healthy life habits no matter what and get through the difficulties. And they will seek shelter in the Supreme Lord above all. When God is the foundation of our existence, then a person is on solid ground. Then they are more stable and resilient.

    The first tip is to consider deeply why am I experiencing what is happening to me now? Is it all random? Why do different living beings experience such different things, very different qualities of life? “As you sow, so you reap. So, we are all reaping now. We need to start sowing better if we want to reap better outcomes.

    We often complain about the things we don’t like. If we look at it closely, we spend most of our time criticizing things and people who we cannot change. We are often not aware of the great amount of control that we do have. What is this type of control? Control over our mind, our emotions, our desires. How we respond to events and people is within our control.

    Most people want to feel strong, be respected and feel safe. Some people think that in order to be resilient and confident one needs to be strong externally. Try to impress others, be arrogant, tough etc. This is why some people go to the gym, get big muscles etc. So that no one will dare to attack them or mess with them. But when someone wants to have real resilience, they also must have internal strength.

    Internal strength will give a person the ability to make it through the challenges of this human journey without being knocked out, without feeling hopeless. A person with internal strength will not lose purpose or direction in this human journey.

    Resilience is a person’s ability to cope with the ups and downs of life. This includes how a person deals with the challenges they might face throughout this human journey. It could include the death of a loved one, a difficult disease, a heartbreak, in essence losing something or someone who is very dear. And this will happen to every single person sooner or later while we are in this temporary material world.

    Resilience is important for everyone’s mental health but also for their physical, emotional and spiritual health. It’s a life skill that once it is developed will serve us very well until the end of this current human journey. It is thought that the more resilient a person is, the less they experience stress as they are equipped to deal with life’s pressures.

    Building resilience helps a person to overcome obstacles more easily and reduces fears and insecurities as they will have the necessary tools and knowledge how to navigate the challenges that can appear during this human journey.

    The ultimate foundation of resilience is a spiritual perspective which is founded on the knowledge that I am an eternal spiritual being residing within a temporary material body.

    Identifying with the body as being the self will cause unnecessary fears and insecurities. But discovering my true identity and nature will lead to harmony and lasting joy.

    Our existence in this temporary material dimension is challenging and unpredictable. Trying to avoid misfortune and difficulty with wishful thinking is not a winning strategy. Instead of trying to erase misfortune and unwanted change, learning how to deal with it is of great importance. We all need a realistic view of life. A human journey during this time on planet earth is tough but that doesn’t have to mean it’s depressing.

    Set reasonable and worthwhile goals and move toward them one step at a time. As long as you know you have the right goal do not give up no matter what happens. Establishing goals will help a person focus on a specific task and can help build the resilience to move forward in the face of challenges.

    Accepting change is crucial for a person to become more satisfied and peaceful. See that change is unavoidable in this temporary world. New goals can replace goals that have become unattainable. It is important to examine what is going well, and to have a plan of action for what is not going well.

    Maintain a daily routine can give us the stability that we need in this everchanging world. Healthy life supporting habits and routines include meditation, mindfulness, exercise, spending time in nature and having a healthy diet and lifestyle.

    The Serenity Prayer can be a guiding light for our human journey so we know where to place our time and energy. We will be wasting a lot of time and energy if we try to change things that we cannot change or influence for the better.

    Prayerful introspection is very beneficial. The materialistic mind can be so full of envy, greed, lust, anger and hatred and cover a person’s spiritual qualities. If I am honest in my introspection, I might begin to realize that I cannot by myself defeat the feelings of lust, my enviousness, or my laziness. I cannot defeat my anger and my hatred that is polluting this sacred place where an expansion of the Supreme Lord sits.

    The Supreme Lord agreed to assist all living beings in this material world by accompanying them as the Lord in the heart. This is where we receive insights and guidance from when we know how to listen.

    There are many dirty things in our heart also. These are polluting this holy place. This is not a place where there is supposed to be pollution. Our hearts are not supposed to have anger, hatred, greed. We can pray to the Supreme Lord: “And I am suffering, because my relationship with You is being polluted by me being covered by my false ego. Therefore I am feeling very disturbed. Please be merciful unto me, please help me get rid of this out of my heart."

    The Supreme Lord is the perfection, the embodiment of spiritual love. This pollution is darkness. Darkness cannot be smashed away with a hammer. Rather where there is light, there is darkness no more. Therefore we ask the Supreme Lord, please stay in our hearts. Please let me have a heart which is full of love. Please let me love You. And everything will be light.

    We pray to You for spiritual love. Spiritual love is strength. Don't forget this. When there is no spiritual love in the heart, there is weakness, intolerance, fear, no purpose, no direction to one's life. There is no foundation to one's life. When love for the Supreme Lord is there, confidence is there. There is purpose. There is tolerance. These are some of the fruits of love for the Supreme Lord.

    I cannot do it all by myself. I need some assistance on this human journey. A person should pray to the Supreme Lord for spiritual love, for His mercy upon us. That we can have His strength. We want spiritual strength, not physical strength.

    When spiritual strength is the foundation of our life, we then live as free souls in this life and the next. A weak person is never free. Only the strong are free. The weak are dominated by their fears, lusts, greed, envy and their hatred. Some people who are full of hate appear very strong and very confident. But they are neither strong nor truly confident. The ones who pose as strong, angry and confident have their real character exposed at the time of death. Then they are nothing more than frightened animals. That is not strength.

    There is an old song "All you need is love." It is true. Not love as we know it in this world. All you need is real love. All you need is connecting with the Supreme Lord in love.

    When we know who is the real controller, then we will not be struggling anymore to try to control everything and everyone. I just do the best I can and depend on the Supreme Lord for the rest.

    We will not be afraid of not being able to control our future. I will not feel insecure anymore because I know the Supreme Lord loves me unconditionally and will always protect me no matter what might happen in this ever changing world. This wisdom is truly liberating.

  18. Okay everything was great until you said that university safe spaces aren't good.

    You realize those are there to help stop physical attacks right?

    Emotional resilience won't help you study if you're dead, or seriously injured, and physically unable to study.

    And although emotional resilience may slightly help you recover from a major attack where you develop PTSD… it would have been better not to get PTSD in the first place, as you develop better emotional resilience from overcoming smaller challenges.

    In my experience, rather than increasing my emotional resilience, a serious event completely shattered it, because now nowhere felt safe, I'd experienced the highly unlikely scenario completely unexpectedly, which meant it could happen again at any time.
    It completely ruined my old tactics of "worst case scenario" or "it's so unlikely".
    Which are the same tactics you listed.
    They're useless to a person in the aftermath of a serious event.

    Preventing serious events are very important for emotional resilience, because otherwise you just rely on it taking years and years so eventually the memory and fear fades.

    Because there's no logical way to work around "there's a 1/1000000 chance that you'll get attacked at university. Oh but also you've already been hit by a bus which careened off the road, which was a 1/1M chance. So really the statistics don't matter because anyone can be the one it happens to, and a attack is far more likely to happen to you than what's already happened to you"

    Putting things in perspective with their unlikeliness, or listing what you consider the worse case scenario, doesn't work when you've actually experienced even worse than what you could have imagined as a worst case scenario.
    Suddenly you go from
    "What's the worst that could happen? he could say no. That's not too bad"
    to
    "well I'd have to walk to the movies since I don't have a car. I could get attacked on the way. I could get hit by a car. Someone's dog could get loose and attack me. Maybe there'll be a terrorist attack that day. Once I get there, he could actually be a psycho, and murder me, or kidnap me and lock me in his basement. Well with all that possible it hardly seems worth it."

    Preventing serious events is THE MOST important thing for emotional resilience because it protects the bubble we build around ourselves as humans that makes us think we'll live till 80yrs old, think that statistics are a guarantee of safety rather than a arbitrary number which applies to the group rather than the individual, that you're relying on luck everyday…. instead of genuinely believing the truth that you could die any day, today, tomorrow or in a year.

    People 'think' they understand that concept that you could die any day.
    "yeah yeah I know that anyone can die anyday, I see death on the news all the time… but it's so unlikely, so it probably won't be me 😊"
    But they also decide not to smoke in case of lung cancer in 30yrs, or decide to start a retirement fund, these people have never experienced the "burst bubble" from a event which makes you wake up every morning and think there could be no tomorrow for you because you could die today.

    Serious events shatter your world view and require years of therapy to build you back up from the ground.

    Safe spaces are important.

    Although I was hit by a bus and there's nothing anyone could do about that, safe spaces are something people CAN do to help protect women, ethnic minorities and religious minorities on campus. They're important.
    Anything that can improve safety and reduce the number of serious events happening to people is important.

    Especially for emotional resilience.

    Don't pretend they're not.

  23. This is really stupid video! I held my emotions back for years till i had a mental breakdown .I lost my job i was in the hospital ! I wont do that again.communication is the key! If they hurt me i will tell them .

  26. Specifically, we all control our own attitudes. You cannot pick your height, for example, but you certainly CAN control your attitude about it. Back when I was young, I found out that I was happiest with my life by taking an attitude neither too low, or to high about life. It made me more ready to roll with the punches and enjoy the good times, without any of it messing me up. I would say, "Expect the worst, hope for the best, and you'll come out somewhere in between. If you add to that an attitude of thankfulness (especially towards God), you will lead a much happier and more joyful life. Have a good day!

  27. If I could give a young person only one piece of advice as the most important in life it's what is talked about in this video. As a matter of fact it's so important that I think there should be a mandatory class in high school on the subject of Resilience. Once you have attained some and continue to build on it, everything else in life will fall into place.

  29. The left praises emotional instability. That doesn’t mean they’re always going off the rails, but it does mean that it takes less and less for them to completely lose it. Now they claim that simple words, as long as they don’t like hearing them, are equivalent to violent physical assault.

  31. This is really good… I have found that really digging deep and confronting the things that hurt most in life seem to help more too. This is coming from somebody who has been called a snowflake. I suffer from BPD so I am naturally emotional and have stronger physical and emotional reactions than most people. I can't change that at its very core, I can't make myself have less heart palpitations or change my biology so that I am not prone to strong emotions. I give my sincerest efforts to objectivity and facing the hard things in life, even hard truths about myself that nobody wants to hear. I think that as long as I keep doing this, despite who I am, I can become more resilient. I already have, just over the last few years.