Yesterday we talked about resiliency.
Today I’m giving you tools to turn that resiliency into your own personal power.
Resiliency is hard-wired into us. We’re built, genetically, to get through whatever it is we’re struggling with. We’re collectively survivors. But that doesn’t mean we’re great at understanding our resilience and being intentional with it.
These tools are where the rubber meets the road.
Sit with it.
Our instinct when we’re going through something hard is to retreat. Some of us numb the pain with booze or anything that will take us out of our own mind. Some of us ignore it, shoving it down into the abyss of our soul. And some of us wallow in it, believing we’re the central character in a story of suffering.
But what we don’t do is sit with it.
Think about our emotional life as a power dynamic. Either the emotions hold their power over us, or we hold the power over our emotions. When we numb, ignore, or wallow, we’re giving our power to our emotions. We’re saying to ourselves “I can’t deal with you right now. You can keep the power as long as I don’t have to face you.”
But we take our power back when we sit with our emotional shit.
Sitting with it builds tolerance. Tolerance that looks a whole lot like resilience, strengthening the resilience muscle in the process, and in that process we realize that what we were avoiding isn’t as scary as it seemed.
It’s akin to standing in front of the bully and saying “I’m not going anywhere. You don’t control me.” We might get hit in the face, but at least we didn’t run. And that bully seems a bit smaller every time we stand our ground.
Breathe through it.
I try not to evangelize breath work constantly, but it’s tough to bite my tongue when I know how valuable of a tool it is.
As much as it seems like we have no control over our internal state, science tells us otherwise. And it’s through our breath that we move from being the victim of our internal state to the master of it.
Try it for yourself. As in…right now.
Take a deep breath and let out an exaggerated exhale that’s longer than your inhale. Do that a few times in a row, and pay attention to how it affects your level of calm.
Our emotions trigger a cascade of internal mechanisms that affect our breathing, blood pressure, and hormones. But the inverse is also true. When we intentionally use the breath to control our state, we take control back over of our blood pressure and hormones.
Think about it like this: we quite literally can control our own release of dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin - the feel good chemicals of our inner world.
Turn it around.
We start with sitting with emotions and using our breath because this allows us to calm the situation. We put a damper on the cortisol and ramp up the good stuff. It’s like neutralizing the situation with the proverbial bully noted above. Calmer heads prevail.
Once we’ve calmed this situation, we are primed to turn it around.
What is the good in this situation?
How have I contributed to what I say I don’t want?
What is in my control to do about it?
Have you ever noticed in your own life that you can take the exact same situation and respond to it differently based on your mindset at the time? The kids or your significant other are being a pain in the ass, and one moment you respond poorly and another moment you respond with love and grace that was absent before.
That’s the difference in turning a situation around, and it’s purely driven by our mindset in the moment.
Sit with it. Feel it. Name it. Acknowledge it.
Breathe through it. Reverse the chemical chaos. Take control back.
Turn it around. Own it. Cut the chains and make it better.
Emotional turmoil is a part of life. We are built with this chemical cocktail for a reason, as these emotions and hormones all serve important purposes.
But they don’t own us. And they certainly don’t define us.
Confront the turmoil and you take your power back.
If you find value in the things I publish here, it’d mean the world if you’d share it with someone else. It’s the only way this space and community continues to grow.
✌️ and ❤️,
Adam Griffin