Resilience is the key
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity. As I have looked over much of the research in trauma, resilience, optimism and attachment I find that there are certain characteristics make for a healthy resilience toward emotional pain.
Emotion Regulation
Learning how to return to peace and joy from painful emotions is key to being resilient.
Self Control
Learning to focus on our emotions and sensations, practicing the delay of gratification, riding the emotional waves rather than reacting to them and learning to discourage urges or inclinations toward negative behavior and feelings early on will help us become more resilient.
Healthy Attachments and Love Bonds
Practicing empathy, the ability to feel and understand what is going on in someone else, to be in their world; and attunement, the tuning in to someone else’s thoughts and feelings will allow us to build strong caring bonds with others. We will be able to communicate on a non-verbal level and know intuitively that they are happy to be with us. As Christians we also have the ability to attune to God which is the best love bond we can have.
Reattribution
This is the ability to look beyond our immature belief systems and realize that there are other more legitimate reasons for emotions and behavior. It is an accurate assessment of causes for our situation. We learn to attribute cause and effect in a mature and accurate manner getting rid of child like superstitions, beliefs and assumptions.
Successful approximations
We grow and nudge ahead in our maturity. Little successes build into larger ones. As we bond with others and begin to see more mature thinking in our life we will start to change our assumptions and the brains predictions. This extinction of old neural pathways will give way to new ones and we will begin to think and act differently.
Reinterpretation
As we reflect and become more aware of our emotions we will be able to focus on memories of when we felt this way. With the help of God and our mature self we will be able to reintrepret the assumptions and beliefs that we took away from this situation. This reinterpretation will put the memory into a whole new protein and lose the old painful emotions that were attached to it.
Christian Spirituality
As we grow in our awareness of God and His love we will find ourself open to a whole new relationship with Him. This new Christian Spirituality will allow us to bring His love and power to our situation. His Holy Spirit will be alive in our soul and teach, comfort and guide us. This belief that God loves us and has an interest in our well being will give way to a new hope and optimism.
