Conversations with Leonie: Learning to be more Resiliant

Hello Leonie,

Been thinking about my problems and writing in to you for ages now. Yes, what is my problems?

My problems are how hard I try with determined mind I am not finding happiness.

Things happen badly to me all the time. One thing is coming okay and then another thing takes the place of the last problem.

Been happening for years and I am now 36 years old. I live with my bother and his wife and they have wonderful beautiful children but I myself am not finding love. I get knocked down in my work and knocked down in my love romance. I get am very much upside of sad all the time even for months after the end of big bad romance.

I want to find happiness and now is very late for children, but I still can have them when I find the right guy. I want to start being happiness and my boss says that I need to be bouncing back from hard ships but they don’t understand because for them life is very good.

How can I bounce and do better more quickly when my heart is always low?

No name please. Thankyou/ Redcliffe

Over the years, I have written lots of articles regarding building resilience in children, but the truth is resilience is a life skill that adults also need to master to manage life’s adversities.

We may hear stories about those rare unicorns of people who fall in love with and marry their high school sweethearts and have great jobs, great kids, great in-laws and friends and lots of luck but they are as rare as, well unicorns.

Most people will cope with the challenges that life throws at us and every individual will have an individual response and time line for recovery. However, most people can gradually recover and get on with life.

Part of being resilient and bouncing back as you say, is to learn from our adversities. So, if you are having one failed relationship after another, I would ask you to look back and try to see if there are any patterns or commonalities in either your behaviours or theirs. For example, if you get too invested too quickly or you expect too much too soon, you can see there is a need for you to address this behaviours because it is simply not working for you. Likewise, if your love interests tend to be good time guys, control freaks, or very jealous, you should make sure you avoid men with these traits in the future.

Life is full of challenges and disappointments and being resilient does not mean that you avoid all the difficulties that life has to offer. It means coping with the adversity, adapting to your new situation whilst reducing the chance of the same issue recurring in the future. 

Learning to be more resilient also means developing your personal skills.

These skills include:

• Developing a positive attitude towards yourself and others and accepting that the universe is not picking on you in particular and that everyone faces challenges
• Learning to self-regulate and manage your emotions
• Learning to be solution focused by working logically and proactively on your problems
• Developing communication skills and support systems with friends and family
• Making short- and long-term goals for yourself

I hope these are ideas that you will put into practice in the future. I believe that we must take the steering wheel of our own lives instead of just hoping for the best.

Of course, we can’t change other people or their behaviours, but we can change who we allow into our lives.

My advice is to start being very particular about your choice of friends and love candidates and start demanding better choices from yourself.

I hope you have found some help here

Till next week
Leonie