Psychological Resilience: How Tough is Your Mind?

Psychological resilience refers to the ability to remain calm and centred, even when facing adversity or stressful circumstances. A useful way to think of psychological resilience is as a form of “mental toughness,” such that we don’t allow ourselves to be worn down by difficult situations. However, developing mental toughness isn’t about being unapproachable or cold toward others. Rather, it’s about being 100 percent accepting of who we are, where we are, and of whatever might be happening to us.

When we accept ourselves and our situation, patience, peace and wellbeing can grow in our hearts and mind. There is nobody we need to impress, nowhere else we need to be, and nothing we need to run away from. We still can and should take steps to improve our situation, but without the inner psychological conflict caused by constant craving be to somewhere other than we already are. Comporting ourselves in such an accepting manner makes us psychologically tough because we are no longer worried about what might happen next.

Some people think that being tough or strong means having rippling muscles or being quick to retort with harsh words. However, people with a strong body but weak mind will crack easily under pressure. Similarly, when people use unpleasant or harsh words, it’s often because they are scared. Rather, psychological resilience comes from deep inside us and makes it difficult for us to become unsettled or intimidated. The heart and mind of a person with a high level of psychological resilience are aware, embracing and incredibly strong.

Today, it seems that there is an increasing number of people living a superficial life, filling their time up with meaningless pursuits. Personally, it makes me sad when I see people who don’t know how to be comfortable with themselves and who live each day in a blur of distraction. Such people sometimes live under the pretence of their own importance and become attached to having an impressive job title, conforming to a certain identity, or having a particular standing in society. However, the more they continue to run away from themselves, the more the mind of such people suffers and cries out for harmony, stillness and resilience.

Make a Life Choice!

It’s never too late to start developing psychological resilience. Even a person who is 100 years old can take steps to make their mind stronger. Children too can develop a strong mind.

However, the best way to become psychologically tough isn’t to become infatuated with the latest health or spiritual trend, such as mindfulness, yoga or forest bathing. Nor does it need to involve exposing the mind or body to harsh environmental conditions or extreme training regimes. Such techniques can certainly be of value, but ultimately the most important thing to do is step back for a moment, revaluate our priorities, and make a life choice.

The pace of modern life is changing quickly such that it is becoming increasingly easy for people to fall into the trap of spending years or decades pursuing goals or activities that will ultimately provide little fulfilment and happiness. For example, a person who spends most of their life trying to become popular or powerful, immersing themselves in social media or the online world, trying to make huge amounts of money, or pursuing excitement and thrills, will have little opportunity to understand who they really are and the true potential of their mind. This is because we need regular periods of inner stillness to allow the mind to breathe and create the space where we can really start to connect with ourselves.

However, by becoming certain that connecting with ourselves and regularly providing the mind with breathing space reflects an important life priority, the path toward developing psychological resilience will start to unfold of its own accord. Indeed, much like a flower that blooms in the heat of the sun, simply making the choice to tend to and nurture the mind provides nourishment that allows us to grow and become stronger.

Emptying the Mind

When it comes to learning a new skill or ability, many of us are accustomed to acquiring lots of new information, undergoing training, and mastering new techniques. However, the psychological resilience to which I am referring here doesn’t quite work like that. In fact, it’s a form of mental toughness that can only start to grow when we begin to empty the mind rather than fill it up with new concepts and information.

Believe it or not, psychological resilience reflects a basic and inherent capacity of the mind. In its raw form, the fabric of the mind is incredibly supple and can flex to accommodate every possible scenario or situation we could possibly imagine. This is because without exception, every type of mental phenomenon that passes through the mind, such as thoughts, perceptions, memories, feelings, ideas, plans, dreams and regrets, exist solely as intangible mental occurrences that we can never physically see or touch. In certain respects, such mental phenomena are like clouds passing through the sky—their shape constantly changes as they are blown from here to there, and just as quickly as they manifest in the sky, they dissolve and disappear.

However, in the context of our thoughts, feelings and other mental phenomena, a problem emerges because rather than allow them to arise, blow through, and then dissolve within the skylike expanse of the mind, we tend to fixate and hold onto them. This effectively feeds such mental phenomena so that they appear far more prominent than they actually are, which in turn reduces the mind’s innate ability to be open, accommodating and resilient.

So make a life choice to empty your mind of distraction, fixating, and perceived self-importance, and start to connect with your inner capacity to be calm and resilient.