Emotional toughness/resilience

johnpayne10 · 2018-12-19T04:06:10+00:00

First of all, stop comparing yourself with other people. Realize that everyone, every single person has his own issues to deal with. Get rid of your 'grass is greener on the other side' mentality. Everyone faces shit and it cannot really be compared. Some people let that shit as an excuse to quit, while others don't. That's all there to it.

Don't ever give up. When you settle, you get exactly what you settle for. Also a fundamental difference between a man and a woman is that hardships/adversity makes a man. A woman is born, a man is created. So, keep up at self improvement. Improve your life bit by bit in all aspects. It is a snowball effect. The better you get, the better your life will be. Lastly, grow some balls and stop bitching.

FireDrillem · 2018-12-19T04:22:48+00:00

You’re young, take care of yourself. You’re just getting an early shit-roll. Later in life, you’re gonna see a lot of them experience disasters while your life smooths out.

The first half of my life was a Mother FUCKER! Now I’m tough as nails and sitting pretty. Many others that had it easy early on are a complete wreck!

It’s not about “hardening your emotions”. It’s more so about seeing them for what they are. Realize that they have no power over you. You are the boss. You are your consciousness. The ability to perceive, choose and reason. Masculinity!

If you ignore your destructive emotions, you will not fall over and start foaming at the mouth. You’ll increase your intelligence.

The internal battle between yin and yang, feelings and awareness is classic. Once you resolve your inner conflicts, you’re gonna be one incredibly bad ass dude.

It takes time. Research!

INNASKILLZ2K18 · 2018-12-19T06:52:29+00:00

Therapy is a good start. They can help more in depth than anyone on this sub.

It sounds like you're doing well. You've had a lot of adversity, but you're resiliant. Never, EVER forget that.

Emotional independence is a tough one. I could write essays on this subject.

The first thing that really helped me, was putting my wants and needs first. Nobody on this planet was put here to serve my emotional needs. That's my responsibility. I had to let go of getting my identity from things outside of myself. It's all uncontrollable. Jobs, relationships, women. I had to find small thing that make ME happy. Gym, reading, studying, music, mission. Those things are my comfort, my number ones. Also, spirituality is a HUGE thing for my emotional sobriety. Connecting to something bigger than me, and feeling that connection to something that creates me perfectly. Expanding that connection through meditation.

Changing internal thinking. With women, definitely developing abundance mentality, IDGAF attitude, low investment and no big expectations. Having fun, and also asserting my wants, needs and desires.

Not everything is personal. Oneitis is bad emotionally, and develops co dependency. Having IDGAF attitude is healthy.

My life is full of adveristy...God gives his toughest paths, to the greatest warriors. When I learned to accept my life would be challenging, I stopped waiting for this BP idea of everything eventually becoming forever smooth...I embraced it...and got really good at discovering self care.

A therapist can help you change your thinking, and how you relate to stuff, too.

You're not alone, by a long shot.

_the_shape_ · 2018-12-19T04:33:05+00:00

"I'm the sort of person who knows what he wants, goes after what he wants, and rarely fails to attain what he wants"

How closely would you say this describes you?

Are you better at surviving when caught up in a storm of adversity, or at pushing through the adversity so that you're either no longer dealing with it, perhaps even using it to your advantage?

To word it another way, are you more the type to keep wheeling and dealing until you get what you want, drawing hard boundaries indicating what you will and won't tolerate, or the type to just 'take it' no matter how much weight is stacked on your shoulders?

iamthespectator · 2018-12-19T06:59:35+00:00

Start reading about Stoicism, it's helped me a lot with dealing with the hardships of life we all go through. I'd recommend beginning with the meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

Yamikage84 · 2018-12-19T07:34:44+00:00

First off, no matter how effortlessly someone appears to go through life, they are struggling in some way, shape, or form.

I had to build mental toughness for my job. I’ve been a paramedic for 7 years and when you have to respond to somebody knocking on deaths door, you gotta be tough and get the job done.

My first day I had 3 children shot. After I offloaded them at the hospital, I went in the bathroom and cried like a baby. I had never seen anything like that in my life.

If I had that same call today? Sure I’d be pissed at whoever shot the kids but I’d soon be thinking about where I was gonna eat for dinner. While my experience is extreme compared to most people, I can narrow down some of the lessons I’ve learned.

Get comfortable being uncomfortable. My first year working for a 911 service was rough. I was constantly put into situations I had never dealt with which I had to perform or people would die. I’ve driven in hurricane conditions, I’ve worked dead people outside in 100+ degree weather, I’ve pulled people out of mangled cars, and I’ve seen more dead people than I can count. On top of that, I was depressed and sleep deprived for the first 2 years until I got acclimated.

The more things you do outside of your comfort zone, the more stressed out you’ll be at first. Over time, you will become resilient to many everyday stressors.

Gain perspective. There is ALWAYS someone that has it worst than you. I used to get mad if I broke something expensive or dropped food that I just bought and paid for or got a flat tire. Now? While I still complain a little from time to time, I only stress about things that are truly life altering. The only things I truly consider life altering are death and losing my dick in an accident. I’ve had the privilege of having patients who were disabled in various ways yet the always seem to be the most content, and even happiest people.

One guy was blinded by his brother 2 weeks after HS graduation in an accident. That guy is 45 now and do you think he feels sorry for himself? Nope. He gets up and goes to work everyday. He cooks for his nearly everyday. He even volunteers his time to help others. He gets after it everyday with no excuses.

If you are breathing and have all your limbs, you have no excuse to feel sorry for yourself for you are best equipped to dig yourself out of any hole you may find yourself in.

Laugh. Laugh heartily when times are good. Laugh when times are bad. When you have 4 flat tires, the A/C went out in the house, and the deadline on your project got moved up a month, laugh. I’ve had some days at work where we would run calls nonstop for 12 hours straight. I used to complain on days like this but around the half mark of a beat down shift, I’d just say “Fuck it ‘s all downhill from here!“and laugh as the shit rolled in. What’s at the end of a downward spiral? A plateau where shit can’t really get worse. And after that? Another hill for you to climb to the peak of. Most of life is lived between peaks and plateaus. Learn to laugh through these stages and you’ll find there ain’t much you can’t get through.

[deleted] · 2018-12-19T04:05:48+00:00

As I risen the career ladder, the time/effort/responsibility that has gone into my job has risen exponentially and other parts of my life have suffered.

God damn this is real, at this point I'm just coasting and trying to retire as early as possible.

Slim-Pickins- · 2018-12-19T22:28:04+00:00

Stoicism, with healthy outlets to express emotions (Working out, etc). Also, gradual exposure to stress inoculation helps to increase emotional resiliency to allow you to have the capacity to handle more stress at any one point in time, without ever “taking on too much” at any one point in time (avoiding burn out).

Mako_One · 2018-12-19T10:01:29+00:00

There are two ways:

Put your life in danger and survive. The body will gain robustness, the brain resilience - at a whole this process is antifragile. We are using the opposite of PTSD - it is called Post traumatic Growth. A remark: If you do this, it has to be situations of (controlled) risk which are really life-threatening. I recommend to choose something which is really worth it, in case you die.

Also: this isn’t a process of 15 Minutes. This is a 10 year journey. The easiest way is to become a Member of the Special Forces Community. This will cover up the most topics. Anyway - you can also achieve “ataraxie” without it. Also: Be very careful about someone who says: “l’ve been a .... for x years.” This is an argumentum ad verecundiam. Listen to what is said. If the things of what is said is true in your mind, than look at the persons credibility. Despite there is a hierarchy of resilient people depending on their job / typical tasks. For example an 18D is typically more resilient than a Paramedic. You are the rule, not the exception. Ask carefully who is the highest qualified teacher for your problems - let no one else teach you, because low grade teachers are low grade for a reason. Also: There are actions which have to be respected and some which don’t. To see a dead body for example is no significant performance. To carry a dead body while behind enemy lines, steal a car undetected from a local farmer and make it to the border with your dead brother - is. The question is: How much effort do you need?

There is a way to give you the right way of thought for being resilient without putting your life in danger / without the physical part. But I can not tell you any more. I’m currently on it to research this topic. This will be new knowledge. What I can say is: Resilient People have almost always the same thought process - this is interesting. If you emulate this - or train (force) your brain - to think like they do, it will make you automatically resilient too. For example: You don’t have to be in a shooting while being a police officer - you just need the footage of the bodycam to learn from it. The question is, how much more effective was the physical happening in contrast to the psychological awareness training (from watching the video) in terms of resilience... There are some more factors: being resilient also includes being self confident. For example being sure that you can handle your gun in ANY situation, will give you that self confidence. Or that you can treat life threatening wounds because your TCCC/TECC is on point. This will only get proven in a physical situation. The psychological part adds up several other aspects like this. Also after-action behavior is important. If you get immediately catched by an superior (more experienced) he will take over the responsibility and give you comfort. One other aspect is the skill to not allow yourself of being weak. This is an easy but effective thought process. Every day there are horrible things which happen in this world. And there is at least one person which has a much worse day than you do. So don’t bitch about how hard it was - think about this one dude - maybe he lost 5 of his brothers while fighting terrorists in Somalia or a poorly trained first responder at a SBIED which impacted in a mall and everybody is screaming. If you go through history there were exceptional men which did exceptional things. Nobody bitched about this. They just did. So why should you - especially you - do have any right to bitch about something? Get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Title	Emotional toughness/resilience
Author	Talinor09
Upvotes	17
Comments	17
Date	December 19, 2018 3:47 AM UTC (7 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askTRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/asktrp/comments/a7iqw9/emotional_toughnessresilience/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askTRP/emotional-toughnessresilience.71044 https://theredarchive.com/post/71044

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