A mental health crisis can be overwhelming. Not everybody can adapt to the crisis circumstances while maintaining sound mental well-being. If you are going through a mental health crisis, there is always a silver lining. Have faith that overcoming this crisis can build up your resilience.
Resilience Is Built in Crisis and Adversity
When life circumstances change unexpectedly and for the worse, such as through the death of a loved one, job loss, or displacement due to natural disasters, most people find it hard to endure the trauma. After grieving the loss, one needs to rise above the circumstances because life needs to move on.
Crisis tends to have a long-lasting impact on mental health. Traumatic distress does not naturally go away. Your mental strength depends on how you process past trauma and adapt to present needs. Building mental resilience is essential to your quality of life after the crisis. It is developed over time by gaining insight from past crises.
Building Mental Resilience and Strength
The term “resilience” refers to flexibility or adaptability to bounce back after significantly stressful events. It is the ability to stay strong in the face of a crisis. Mental resilience does not come naturally. It has to be tested and acquired through hardship, but many mental health experts have summarized some effective techniques to help people cope better.
When a crisis happens, you begin to lose control. This sense of disorientation can impact your emotional health and self-esteem. Sometimes, you may be surprised at how you acted in response to hardship. Feelings of insecurity and anger are common. While this emotional state emerges, you can still control how these negative emotions are channeled, expressed, and processed. Regaining an understanding of your emotional state is the first step towards becoming stronger.
Meeting the Crisis With Actionable Goals
Coping with hardship requires goal-making and perseverance. Instead of crying over the loss, you can reset priorities and adapt routines. The ability to bounce back from a crisis requires not only a sense of control but also your ability to make changes to improve the situation.
To establish actionable goals to improve your life, you need to focus and plan. You can analyze the crisis situation, identify opportunities, and mitigate more risks. In fact, every challenge may present opportunities. You just need the wisdom and confidence to see things from a different perspective.
Facing Your Fears Head-on
Crisis presents opportunities for lessons learned. If you can learn from past mistakes and use the consequences to acquire important skills, such as impulse control and problem-solving, you are already growing stronger as a person and achieving whole-person wellness.
Do not let the fear of making mistakes deter you from strategizing. A healthy perspective on mistakes is that failure happens and is not associated with who you are. Develop healthy self-talk within yourself so that you can face fear head-on. This may mean stepping outside of your comfort zone or managing difficult situations one small step at a time.
Making Gratitude a Priority
Even after a crisis, life can still be celebrated. Adversity usually blesses us with the ability to appreciate things more. Maybe you have taken your health for granted. Take the COVID-19 public health crisis for example. This past hardship has made you aware of how important family relationships are. Appreciate them more while you still have your family members around.
If you have adopted a perspective of gratitude for things, that can be the greatest blessing from a past crisis. Practicing gratitude is also an effective self-care technique for your mental health. A mentally strong person is one who always shows gratitude toward life. With this positive attitude, you can also become a role model for others in your social circles.
Acquiring New Social Skills
A crisis should not cause you to isolate. Instead, you ought to realize the importance of interdependence within a community of other people. You will become a mentally stronger person who connects better with family, friends, and other members of the community. Healthy relationships are conducive to long-term mental health.
Connecting with others will make you realize that adversity happens to everyone. It may come in different shapes and colors, but the lessons of resilience remain the same. Having gone through a crisis may deepen your compassion and empathy towards others. You may show leadership skills to guide others through similar trials in life.
Accepting Change as a Part of Life
As we grow older, change may become more challenging. Coping with a crisis can stretch our adaptability in front of future change. By accepting things that you cannot change and committing efforts to goals you can control, you will become more resilient and content with whatever life brings.
Crisis times are times of self-discovery. They require you to look introspectively. If you have not developed confidence in yourself and gratitude in life, the cost of that crisis can be doubled because you continue to suffer the long-term impact of adversity. But when you work hard on approaching things with positivity, the crisis will become an opportunity for you to grow stronger.
Hardships and adversities are part of life. While you cannot control what happens externally, there are certainly ways to stabilize how you respond to and cope with moments of crisis. Overcoming a personal crisis can help you grow mentally stronger. There are effective pathways to mental resilience. Alter San Diego Crisis Intervention can help. We use evidence-based methods like psychotherapy to help clients cope with their symptoms. Our compassionate staff and experts are always here to support you. We have the perfect intervention for you. To learn more about our programs and services, call our office today at (866) 986-1481. The more you learn about mental resilience, the better you will navigate future challenges in life.
