Resilience When Under Attack

5 ways to build resilience during a pandemic

Resilience is the most valuable skill you can build. It is something you must cultivate with intention and takes practice, truly it must be BUILT. It means you are going to go through hard stuff and you can either learn from it, ignore it or let it suck you dry (at times you may feel it does all 3).

Right now you have an incredible opportunity to show your kids what resilience means in the face of an unprecedented pandemic that is the Coronavirus. Let’s face it, none of us know what the heck we are doing, this has never happened before. You get to fail and get back up, maybe even 100 times a day.  

Most importantly your kids learn not from what you say, but what you do. To rear resilience, you must start from within. Here are some things you can do to grow resilience during this challenging time.

1. Use your natural skills

You may be a closet homeschooler that has secretly pined for years to full-time homeschool your kids.  You are a badass parent teacher.  You are the one who dreams of creating Pinterest content and designing, then building the perfect garden with your kids.  This Pandemic has given you renewed energy in your creative bones. So now here’s your opportunity! Yay you!  Go, go, go!   

Or you may suck at being a homeschooling parent.  You couldn't make a color-coded chart that your kids would follow to save your life. You like your kids to play independently while you bake, but you love family hikes and movie time.  You enjoy sitting and reading with them and art projects are totally your thing.

Guess what.  Whatever “thing” is yours…it is perfect.  It is important to recognize that this is not the time to try and be someone you are not.  That is the reality.  What is not the reality is during a pandemic you are going to all of a sudden start doing something you are simply not naturally inclined to do. 

Right now is the time to utilize your natural skills and strengths.  Utilizing your strengths is a research based way to increase your well-being.  In fact you can go to this site and find out what your strengths are if your not sure.  This is how you rear resilience.

2. Be Flexible

If something is not working, change it.  Don’t wait.  What worked yesterday may not work today.  Last week is ancient history and truly tomorrow is a mystery.

If both you and your partner working at the kitchen table isn’t working, change it.  Right now is not a time to dig in your heels and point the finger at one another.  This is a stressful time and you are both on edge.  

Maybe your kids are not allowed to utilize screens ALL DAY during non-pandemic time, but you have given in out of desperation and the need to work or get things done.  It is driving you nuts and making you feel guilty that they are 24/7 in YouTube land.  This is the perfect opportunity to be flexible!  Instead of running into the room and demanding “screen time is DONE”, maybe you try to cut back incrementally and slowly.  By next week they will be down to 2 hours per day.

Routine is not a thing right now.  If you used to wake up at 6AM and now it’s 8AM it is okay. Adaptability is one of the key elements to building resilience.  Adaptability requires flexibility.  This is how you rear resilience.  

3. Let go of your false sense of control

In most parts of the United States spring has sprung.  It is pretty incredible to watch. Today maybe you witnessed a hawk hunting a much smaller bird. Diving to attack. Then later you watched the sunset. Nature can be harsh and unforgiving, yet the flow of nature is beautiful and works in perfect connection and balance.  

Regardless of how much you may want to control the weather you simply can’t. You can wish and will winter to stay or summer to come, but nature will take it’s own sweet time when it is ready.  Learn some lessons from nature. Nature will not allow you to control it, but really what does? 

The only thing you can and ever could control is your reaction to the world.  Be it the Coronavirus, your partner, the economy or your kids, the only thing you can control is YOU. Be accountable for you (even if that means you have to apologize to your kids for your temper). This is how you rear resilience. 

4. Feel the feels

Yeah…you may be trying to avoid this. Feelings can be so intimidating. You may think that if you allow yourself to truly “feel” then it will take you down a slippery slope. Here is the thing, research shows that what you feel about your emotions matters.  How aware you are of your emotions helps determine your well-being.  

Whether you are feeling overwhelmed, exhausted or guilty it is right, real and important to recognize. Or maybe your predominant emotion is gratitude or even joy. Whatever you feel, it is exactly what you are supposed to be feeling.  

Humans all have different ways of dealing with stress and perceived threats. Right now this is not even a “perceived” threat, but an actual threat to many. It is beneficial to be understanding with others in your life, who may react to stress in a different way. None of us react exactly the same and that is okay too.  

Your challenge is to focus in on YOUR feelings and sit in them. Ideally you write about them. Better yet, you use them as teachable moments for your kids. It is such an amazing teaching tool for your kids to hear you talk about your difficult feelings and how you are going to deal with them in a proactive way. This is how you rear resilience.

5. Take care of yourself

You may find it easy right now to eat more and move less. For goodness sakes you are stuck in your house seeing 60 posts a minute about baking with your kids. Twenty cookies and no work out later, you are low on patience and high on self loathing.  

YOU NEED TO MOVE (not to be fit, but for your mental health). And shower. Maybe get out of your sweatpants once a week. This is taking care of yourself. Maybe you need to stay up until 1:00AM with your partner or by yourself (if you don’t have a young baby waking you at 5:00AM).

Be kind to yourself. Give yourself grace. Start a gratitude journal (really the power of this practice is incredible) and if you follow the four things listed above you are on the right track. This is how you rear resilience.  

This is a collective traumatic experience. In this uneasy and uncertain time you must stand with your tribe.  Stand with your community and stand for resilience. We got this!

Disclaimer: This article is geared for the lucky individuals who get to be at home with their loved ones. It does not address those who suffer from not having their basic needs met, are concerned about member’s of their families who are far away, have lost jobs and live in constant anxiety. I see you. It also does not thank those who are working their tails off to keep the rest of us fed, our children cared for and our healthcare infrastructure moving. Thank you to those of you in the trenches. I see you. True resilience is hard earned when you are in the dark. I promise there is light.