Three Ways My Resilience was Trained - Learn From My Experience - So You Can Face the Future with Confidence

No food. No gas. No electricity.

Hunger was crawling like a crazy, persistent caterpillar inside my stomach. I knew I didn’t want my daughter to feel what I felt. Taking the last slice of bread from my empty fridge, I toasted it, cut it in half and gave it to her.

1. Resilience begins when you have hard times.

I used to be alone with my daughter, aged 4, for most of the day. The husband I had at the time was not earning much money (his choice). He was loyal to a man who wasn’t paying him what he had agreed.

His payday was Friday. Every Friday we would end up with no gas to cook, no electricity to watch television or put the lights on. I didn’t want my daughter to be aware of the situation, so I would go and get a quilt from my bed, and bring it downstairs. We would sit on the floor, cuddled up, and I would sing every song I could think of. Nursery rhymes and songs from adverts, old songs and new ones, snuggled under the quilt.

I hated it, I hated him, it was horrible for me.

And yet, my daughter (now 32) remembers those times as happy times.

I hid that poverty from her. I made her enjoy Friday evenings until her dad got home with whatever little money he got paid.

After some time, that husband and I split up.

I moved halfway up the country, and I lived in a house with no carpets, no beds (at first), and little money.

There were some good points. I got on with my neighbours.

We had a man who delivered cooked meat to our door. I only had a microwave, no oven, so we would buy cooked meat from him, and have it with salad and potato.

Times were tough but I was confident that things would get better, that we could deal with the situation.

Part of the reason I felt that way is because I had dealt with having very little money.

I had survived before. I could survive again.

Being in poverty the first time meant when I didn’t have much money, I could face it head on. I had built up my resilience.

When my daughter was four and we snuggled under the quilt, it prepared us for future troubled times. It gave us the resilience to cope when we moved.

I’m glad that’s not the only way to build resilience.

If you are making dinner, and you are hungry, waiting a few minutes in that hungry state tops up your resilience. Social scientists call it deferred gratification.

Getting used to a little hunger here and there will help. Ask the moms who went to bed hungry so their kids could have enough to eat.

Saving up to buy something rather than getting it on credit. It’s another example of deferred gratification. A way to make ourselves more disciplined, stronger.

We don’t know how much we can put up with until we have to do so. The truth of the matter is, we don’t know how much resilience we have. But there are things that can help us with resilience.

2. A support network

Building a support network can be a hard thing to do. But it is worth it.

Being a good neighbour means that when we have troubles, our neighbours will help us. It isn’t guaranteed, of course.

But if your neighbours know you for:

* taking in parcels

* knocking on an elderly person’s door when you haven’t seen them in a while

* helping shovel snow

* helping to look for lost pets

Then, when you lose your keys, someone will let you in out of the rain.

Don’t limit yourself to your neighbours.

Workmates sometimes need a hand. Protect your boundaries by all means, but when you can give, do give. Most people remember when you help them out of a crisis. Most, but not all, people will give you a hand in return.

It’s not only about physical help, either. When people know you as being a good listener, then you can establish good friendships. Being trustworthy is important. Being able to keep a secret. All these traits will make people warm to you.

The standard advice is to trust your gut with other people, on who to trust and who not to trust. I do agree, but if you have a background of abuse and trauma, your gut might not be 100 per cent reliable. So my advice would be to err on the side of caution.

For instance, if you feel that you can trust a person, test them out. Give them a juicy tidbit — and see what they do with it. It doesn’t even have to be true. Watch and see what happens.

I did this in a community I belonged to. There was a woman who I thought I could trust, but I wasn’t completely sure. So I trusted her with a little juicy fact about me. At first, I thought she had kept it a secret. But over time, I began to realise that news had spread. It wasn’t something I cared about particularly.

It was interesting to see that my doubts about her were completely correct.

You might think that you have a great family for support. If you do, then that is awesome. I have seen families split apart over money worries, or responsibilities to parents. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, make sure you have some friends who support you too.

If you have a trustworthy team of four or five people, then you have support to see you through the tough times. It’s worth putting in the effort to find the right ones.

3. Self-Care

Some people drift through life. They insulate themselves from the demands of hard times with drink or drugs. This isn’t an effective approach to resilience.

It’s important to take care of yourself. Eat right and exercise. We all know we should be doing that, right?

I’m talking about setting personal goals and reaching them. Reaching goals is a great way to improve our self-esteem. That adds to our emotional resilience.

The goals don’t need to be huge.

For instance, a couple of years ago I did a sponsored walk for my local animal rescue centre. I walked 100 kilometers in a month, about 2 miles per day on average. When I completed it I felt great! I had reached my goal.

Not bad for a woman with disabilities.

Setting short-term goals that are achievable is another way to build resilience. They don’t have to be physical — any short term goal works. I know one writer on Medium is planning to write 60 articles in 100 days. No doubt she will achieve it and it will make her feel awesome, along with the writers who are joining her. (You can read more about her here.)

Sometimes, we need to give ourselves some grace.

For instance, I wanted to write on Medium every day. But the previous two days, I haven’t written anything. I was a bit burnt out and I had a virus. I was definitely under the weather. I had to have a break, but here I am writing again.

When we feel better, we can do better.

We have taken a look at how we get resilient by enduring tough times. How we can build a support network to help us with resilience. How we can challenge ourselves to become more resilient. These are three ways to move forward to living a resilient life. When we have these skills, hard times will impact us less. We will deal with adversity in more constructive ways. We can find our way out of problems faster and easier.

Time spent building ourselves up is never a waste of time. Take steps to build up your own resilience so you can rely on yourself when tough times arrive.