This article was first published in Brainz magazine in September 2023
Our levels of well-being and resilience can be strengthened with practice. They are dynamic and may change from situation to situation and throughout a person’s life. Research tells us that there is a lot we can do to boost our resilience to challenge, change and adversity and foster a high sense of well-being. So how can we lead ourself to manage stress and enjoy greater well-being?
I’m Too Busy to Relax
I often hear people say, “when this busy, stressful period is over, then I can relax.” However, stress, change and adversity are a constant part of life. Just as the sun rises and sets, we all experience daily life stress that can disturb our sense of calm, from minor hassles and inconveniences to major life events, traumas and pressures. While we have little control over what happens to us, we can control how we respond to events. This is what ultimately determines our resilience and impacts our well-being.
Fortunately, we don’t need to wait for external circumstances to calm down before we can feel calm and relaxed. We can build our inner sense of calm and well-being regardless of what happens and learn to live and behave from this ‘state’ even in the midst of chaos, stress, and change. When we practice this, we often find that stress management most effectively happens the other way around: if we first learn to be calm, life miraculously calms down as a result, or at least our perception of it does.
Building well-being and resilience is not easy because we often have to change hard-worn habits of thinking, feeling, relating, and behaving. But it is relatively simple in that little bits of regular and consistent practice can make a large and lasting difference. Usually, the hardest thing is remembering to practice or committing to your self-care enough to actually do it, every day, just like cleaning your teeth. What we practice gets stronger, and the good news is there is much we can do to increase our subjective well-being.
So, how can we build our well-being and resilience? The three key messages I share with my meditation coaching clients and corporate mindfulness training participants to help them develop well-being and exercise resilience in the face of daily life stress are:
1. We All Have a Calm, Clear Centre.
It’s here all the time. We don’t have to create it, only remember it, align with it, and think and act from it. In other words, be it consciously. This calm, clear centre is our subjective sense of Self, the “silent witness”, our being or aware presence. It is like the I of a storm, always present, calm, and still despite whatever turbulent storms may rage about us in the form of stressful events.
In terms of our physiology, the human body’s natural state is calm and relaxed. Often referred to as the rest and digest state, it is in this relaxed state that we have access to the full capacity of our higher and executive thinking centres and innate qualities of compassion, empathy, creativity, intuition, self-awareness, and perspective. It is also when relaxed that our immune, digestive, and reproductive systems all function at optimal, healthy levels.
When our stress response is switched on – due to either a perceived or conceived threat - much of these brain and body functions are switched off or reduced to divert precious energy and resources to survival via the reflex fight/flight/freeze response. With practice, it can take a handful of minutes to calm and re-centre ourselves when stressed back to our natural relaxed state, our calm, clear centre. Yet how many of us take the time to do so?
Living from our calm centre is not always easy, and many of us do not feel centred, calm, or clear, particularly when in the grip of intense or overwhelming thoughts and emotions. Why? Because we have become caught in the storm, identified with its chaotic or distressing thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about life and our self. While this calm, clear centre is always available to us, here and now, it paradoxically can take practice to notice and align with it and face life’s challenges from it. Are you identified with the storm or the I of it?
When we align with our calm centre, we can better relate to not from our thoughts and emotions, which ultimately gives more choice as to how we want to respond to life, stressful events, and our own reactivity. This is the difference between I am my thoughts and feelings (identification with the storm) and I have thoughts and feelings (Identification with the centred I). Thoughts and feelings don’t have to define me, and I can choose to entertain them or not!
Practice: How to Remember Your Calm, Clear Centre?
Ask yourself, who is reading these words? Who is making sense of them and perhaps thinking about them? Can you notice that it is the same sense of yourself that also feels the chair or floor beneath you, holding you up? This same sense of your-innermost-self is aware of your breathing. It knows where you are, the space you are in. Perhaps a few deep, conscious breaths can also remind you of your present, aware centre?
A more formal practice is to take your time to:
1. Notice five things you can see.
2. Notice four things you can hear.
3. Notice three things you can feel.
4. Notice two things you can smell or taste
5. Note one thing you are really grateful for … take a moment just to appreciate that one thing and soak up the gratitude you feel for it being present in your life.
Notice that it is the same sense of yourself, your being or presence that is aware of all of those things. This is it! Your calm, clear, present, and aware centre. Practice this exercise every day, practice re-centring yourself between tasks and see how you feel after 3 weeks. Then keep it up!
2. It Is Not What Happens That Creates Stress, It Is Our Reaction.
Life events themselves are neutral. They are neither good nor bad, “but thinking makes it so” as Shakespeare wrote. How we judge, appraise, and interpret events determines how we react to them and whether they trigger stress or boost well-being. This is great news! While there may be understandable reasons why we react in certain ways, we can heal or change these psychological reactions if they don’t support our well-being and resilience.
Have you noticed how some people can bounce back from stress and effectively deal with challenge while others struggle under the same circumstances? For example, cloudy, wet weather won’t make you feel unhappy. But if you want it to be sunny when it’s cloudy and wet, that will! Wet weather may, at the same time, be a blessing for a farmer and a curse for a tennis player. It is not the weather but the personal interpretation of it that matters in relation to our stress and well-being.
Given we have little control over what happens, what other people do or don’t do, and even our own automatic reactions, why not invest our energy and time into choosing how we want to respond next rather than getting caught up in a tornedo of stressful thoughts and emotions. Sure, it might be easier said than done, but it is entirely possible.
Practice: How to Change Your Reaction to Reduce Stress and Boost Well-being?
Practice accepting what is. It is so what point is there in resisting it? Notice that trying to change or get rid of something that already is creates a lot of tension and unease. So, let it be. Without trying to fix or control it. You can’t anyway, it already is as it is. So, what use is there is denying, avoiding, or fighting with it? It is a waste of energy to resist what is. You don’t have to like it or agree with it, but it is, nevertheless. Acceptance doesn’t change what is, but it can make it a lot easier to deal with. And, if you can’t accept what is, accept how you feel about what is. Act if action needs to be taken but do so with full acknowledgment of what is. Acknowledge it if your expectations have not been met, don’t take events personally, and be willing to see what is, instead of what you want reality to be.
3. Our Brains Are Neuroplastic
This is great news as it means we can change the way we think, feel, believe, act, and respond to what happens through growth and reorganisation, i.e., practice. Even the most hard-worn habits of reacting and behaving can be rewired, and new neural pathways formed. With little bits of regular practice, we can change habitual ways of reacting to stressful situations. We can build our resilience and well-being by learning to centre ourself before facing inner and outer storms, gifting ourself more space and the ability to respond with greater calm, clarity, creativity, and compassion. While change is not easy, as little as five minutes or practice a day can start to make a big difference.
Practice: How to Change Ways of Thinking, Feeling, and Behaving
Meditation can help us build well-being and resilience through changing our relationship to our inner and outer world. Visit my Soundcloud account for lots of free exercises that can help to change your brain and the way you think, feel, believe, act, and respond to life, and ultimately build your well-being and resilience.
Photos by Pippa Barnes Photography