How to face adversity: personal adaptation when everything changes.

A reflection on resilience and adapting to adversity, with several tips.

Nothing in the world is tailor-made for human beings; planet Earth could continue to exist perfectly well without us.

However, it cannot be said that most of us are constantly suffering simply because we exist in this environment. There are many clues that indicate that, even if sometimes what happens around us affects us very negatively, there are frequent cases in which we manage to recover, turn the page and continue living.

For this reason, many people ask themselves.... how to face adversity, once it has already started to happen or has already happened? This is precisely the topic we will talk about in the following lines.

How to face adversity through personal adaptation?

If there is something that characterizes human beings, it is their ability to adapt to a wide variety of situations.

And, by pure statistics, among these diverse situations in which we can adjust our behavior are adverse moments of crisis or directly catastrophes. It is spectacular to see to what extent we are capable of bouncing back after having gone through very difficult situations, situations that anyone would say we could not handle.It is spectacular to see the extent to which we are capable of bouncing back after having gone through very difficult situations, which anyone would say we were not prepared for or could not have seen coming.

But the truth is that, in one way or another, there are ways to face adversity and return to emotional stability. In this sense, a key concept to understand this is a key concept to understand this is resiliencea word closely linked to the processes of psychotherapy and mental health in general.

What is resilience?

Resilience is the ability to adapt to difficult times, and through which we we emerge from crisis situations to achieve emotional stability again, and even a sense of progress and direction in our lives even when we still carry some of the problems associated with the adversity we have been through.and even a sense of progress and direction in our lives even when we still carry some of the problems associated with the adversity we have gone through.

It has been proven that resilience is a latent potential in practically all people, and that given the right circumstances, it is possible to favor its emergence in order to feel better and adopt a constructive and solution-oriented attitude.

Its existence is based on the very way our brain functions.As with the human nervous system in general, it is constantly changing, adapting to our experiences and allowing us to learn all kinds of skills. Therefore, we can even learn to learn how to manage our emotions in difficult times.

Psychological tools to adapt to changes

These are some psychological tips that you should take into account to improve your ability to adapt to change. They are relatively simple practices that, if incorporated into your daily life and integrated into your habits, allow you to develop resilience.

1. Combine theory and practice

In times of crisis, it is very common for people affected by bad times to take refuge in introspection to try to find a solution to what is happening to them.. For example, by thinking about a series of ideas that worry them, to see if they can eventually find a way to get rid of that burden by reaching a conclusion that relieves their discomfort.

Not only does this not usually solve things, but it is also counterproductive, because it gives way to psychological rumination: the tendency to be unable to get an anxiogenic thought out of one's head, which again and again to the conscience due to the importance that we give to it and that in the end we cannot even "block", since we end up being very sensitive to it.We end up being very sensitive to its appearance due to all the unpleasant emotions that we have attributed to it over time.

Therefore, in order to adapt to change we must put into practice the essence of the concept of "adaptation": to continue interacting with the environment and with others, without closing in on ourselves.

2. Structure your daily life

In times of crisis when everything changes and we must face an uncomfortable or even painful reality, it is easy for the lack of references about what we should do to make us feel that the situation is beyond us, as we have nowhere to turn. This leads many people to adopt an apathetic attitude, characterized by passivity and sedentariness. and sedentarism, and certainly in the face of such experiences it can be said that this way of behaving is "what the body is asking us to do".

However, we must not fall into this trap of helplessness and hopelessness; even if it is difficult, we must try to set short-term goals, even if they are very simple, to keep us moving. This will allow us to gain momentum and find ways to improve our situation in a relatively short period of time.

To do this, there is nothing like designing schedules that structure our day-to-day life based on clear activities and routines with a well-defined beginning and end. It is a matter of keeping active to improve our global vision of what we are experiencing and discovering options that we would not have noticed from pure theory, if we had stayed still on the couch for hours.

3. Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a state of consciousness that can be fostered through the realization of a set of exercises inspired by Vipassana meditation..

Its effects as a measure of prevention of symptoms linked to depression and as a method of anxiety management, coupled with the fact that it is relatively easy to practice Mindfuness, have made this resource of modulation of emotions is widely used both in psychotherapy and, increasingly, contexts such as schools and companies.

As a result, today we are many teams of psychologists who have experts in Mindfulness both for sessions with patients and to train professionals and individuals in courses and workshops.

4. Seek the support of others

Whether or not you have many friends, you will probably find people willing to help you, either by offering you moments of empathic listening or by going further and offering you social or material resources.

No matter how much you have been shutting yourself off until now, don't forget that the raison d'être of society is mutual help.You can count on it either in your family or friends' circles, in neighborhood or public administration entities, in meetings of people affected by your problem, forums and Internet groups, etc.

Keep in mind that the goal is not to end up totally dependent on these people, but that they are a point of support to build your own future, slowly but surely.

5. Keep your feelings of guilt under control

Faced with adverse situations, many of the people who are forced to adapt to their new reality tend to feel guilty for the bust. tend to feel guilty about the bump they have gone through or are still going through.. This is a pessimistic bias that can be very damaging and paralyzing, and slows down the process of building resilience.

To keep it at bay, it is helpful to keep a self-record of thoughts. When you notice that a thought of self-blame comes to your consciousness, write down briefly what you have thought, how you have felt and the time and place in which it has happened to you; at the end of the day, write down below each one of them a reply that shows to what extent these ideas are irrational and not adjusted to reality, existing only because at that moment you felt bad.

6. Maintain a good level of health

Physical health is linked to mental health.Get enough sleep, eat well and exercise to be better at managing your emotions in adverse situations.

Do you seek psychological support in therapy?

If you are going through a crisis and feel you need professional support, count on our team of psychologists. At the therapy center Psicotools we attend both in person in Barcelona and through online therapy processes.

You can see more information about us on this page.

Referencias bibliográficas:

• Abraham, R.; Lien, L.; Hanssen, I. (2018). Coping, resilience and posttraumatic growth among Eritrean female refugees living in Norwegian asylum reception centres: A qualitative study. International Journal of Social Psychiatry. 64 (4): pp. 359 - 366.
• Bonanno, G.A.; Galea, S.; Bucciareli, A.; Vlahov, D. (2007). What predicts psychological resilience after disaster? The role of demographics, resources, and life stress. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 75(5): 671 - 682.