Resilience In Times Of Crisis: Strengthen Your Ability To Adapt
All of us, at some point in our lives, have faced or will face a crisis. Even though we people insist on clinging to our routines, schedules and schemes; As much as we need certain regularities to live in society, the reality is that we are immersed in a permanent evolution. Life brings with it a share of uncertainty that is inevitable. The material things we take for granted are ephemeral, as can jobs and people. This does not have to be discouraging, but quite the opposite: we can understand it as an opportunity to surprise ourselves with life each new day.
However, that does not mean that the loss of what we know—and even more so, what we love—is painful. Pain is also part of life, and trying to escape from it is almost as absurd as running down an athletics track (no matter how fast we run, we will run into it again). The moments in which we find ourselves facing pain are usually moments of crisis, since we are presented with challenges that are often more complex than running: how can we adapt to this new situation? How can we emerge stronger from this point in our lives, so fragile and vulnerable? Well, a ‘psi’ concept that refers to the ability to resolve the adversities of life is resilience. In this article we will develop these constructs, and We will see how resilience can help us adapt to a crisis
There are two ways in which we can understand a crisis. On the one hand, one of the meanings understands the term as a short-term, very stressful situation, which could potentially have negative results and which, therefore, requires a quick resolution. For example, a crisis understood in this way could be one that is triggered the night before an exam for which we have not studied enough: we feel extremely stressed, anxious, and the results appear to be catastrophic.
Faced with these crises, people have difficulties regulating our emotions: we are not able to inhibit impulsive actions, we are not able to calm physiological excitement, nor act in a manner consistent with a well-considered goal, but it is the state of mind that which guides us If we are in the middle of a crisis, it will be difficult to make a useful decision, such as studying a little more or going to sleep early to have a good rest before the exam.
However, we can also understand a crisis as a phenomenon that lasts a little longer in time, starting from an event that shakes life as we knew it until then. In these crises, it is common for our personal values to be put in check, making it necessary to reevaluate where we want to go, and even how we conceive ourselves in relation to the world around us.
These crises can be triggered by surprising events in our lives —such as the loss of a loved one, a breakup that we didn’t see coming, or a job layoff—but they can also emerge in the face of circumstances that we already knew would occur in advance. Such is the case of many life crises, such as the one that occurs in the transition from secondary education to university education. It could even occur as a result of an event that we longed for but that, nevertheless, forces us to resignify ourselves in an unforeseen way (such as could occur after marriage, or becoming a father/mother for the first time, which involves a reworking of the family and social role played).
As we said, a crisis, in both its conceptions, represents a turning point in which we need to use our baggage of tools and skills to resolve a specific situation. This is where the concept of resilience comes into play, much studied in scientific research in psychology over the last few decades.
Resilience is the ability to adapt to adverse events, overcome them, and be able to progress successfully after them When we say that someone is resilient, we are referring to a person who has the ability to adapt to an unwanted context effectively. During a crisis, resilience gives us the ability to stay relatively healthy and stable, altering our physical and psychological functioning as little as possible, in order to maintain balance while we resolve the situation that worries or threatens us.
Learn to become more resilient
Research has found that, although there may be certain personality characteristics or upbringing contexts that favor some people to develop resilient responses and others not, the most significant common denominator among resilient people is having experienced difficult situations in the past. We could say, then, that the fact of going through a crisis could result in the cultivation of this skill, as long as we manage to learn something from that experience.
In fact, Learning is a key element in developing resilience The resolution of a crisis culminates with the elaboration of learning thanks to which the person subsequently develops greater skill to adapt to novel situations. Research conducted with survivors of an oil rig disaster found that around 61% of those interviewed perceived some benefit from their tragic experience. Some of these benefits were emotional growth, personal relationships, and economic security. In another investigation with patients who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness, 60% considered that the changes they experienced after the diagnosis were positive, since they indicated that as a result of it they learned to take life in a different way and enjoy it more. .
Therefore, we can conclude that resilience is an extremely useful skill to provide adaptive responses to the challenges that arise during crises. Resilience is not an innate trait, but rather it can develop from the particular experiences of each person and the learning that results from them. Although there is still not enough information in this regard, it is for this reason that some recent research suggests that the older they are, the greater their resilience tends to be. The development of this skill cannot ensure that we will not suffer new crises, nor can it ensure that we will not be hurt by them; but it will strengthen us, helping us find solutions more efficiently.
