0:00

Happy Friday everyone! At least

0:02

I hope you're happy. I know that's not

0:04

easy for everyone, especially at

0:06

the minute with interest rates and

0:08

food prices and genocide and so

0:10

on. Do forgive yourself if

0:12

you don't always feel at your best.

0:14

Some things do need to be accepted,

0:17

even if it's not necessarily

0:19

acceptable, if you know what I mean.

0:22

I hear a lot of people talk about resilience

0:25

quite a bit. That you just

0:27

have to dig deep and get over

0:29

it, but no matter what we

0:31

have to go through, it's not a

0:33

lack of resilience that

0:35

causes a drop in our mental health.

0:38

Resilience is what can help us to get

0:40

through it, but the initial anxiety

0:44

or depression is pretty much unavoidable.

0:46

Doesn't matter how many times you stand on a table

0:48

and sing I Will Survive, you're still

0:50

going to feel bad if you've been hurt.

0:53

The difference is, someone with resilience

0:56

will feel the pain, but

0:58

not let it stop them from trying again.

1:00

You get knocked down, but you get up again. But

1:02

it doesn't mean that being knocked down wasn't incredibly

1:05

painful. Acknowledge

1:08

your pain. It can help you understand

1:10

why you feel the way you do.

1:14

There's this trope in popular culture,

1:16

a cliché about counselling

1:18

where a client says something and the therapist

1:21

says How does

1:23

that make you feel? And it is

1:25

a bit of an overused idea, and if

1:27

I read a book where the therapist said that,

1:29

I'd probably think of it as lazy writing.

1:32

But there is a reason why we

1:34

ask that. It's because everyone

1:37

says something different. One

1:40

person might say that their experience made

1:42

them feel angry. Someone else might

1:44

say vulnerable. Somebody else

1:46

might say worthless. Emotional

1:49

intelligence is really

1:51

important and once you've got a handle on

1:53

the difference between just

1:55

simply feeling bad and feeling

1:58

angry, vulnerable, or worthless,

2:00

then you can understand it better and

2:03

with understanding comes acceptance,

2:05

and with that comes an alternative.

2:09

If you pretend everything's fine,

2:12

then you can't develop any

2:14

resilience. Because what's helpful

2:16

isn't resilience to problems,

2:19

it's resilience to pain. And

2:21

in order to get resilience to pain,

2:24

you need to feel it first.

2:26

So, feel it.

2:28

Sit with it. So as to understand

2:31

it. Accept it, and

2:33

learn from it. And you might need to practice

2:36

your optimism skills as you do this, though, because

2:38

ruminating and thinking about

2:40

the problem too much won't help

2:42

you learn from it. Because it so often

2:44

comes with blaming yourself

2:46

for things that have gone wrong. And

2:49

although having an internal locus

2:51

of control, as it's called, is useful

2:53

for resilience, because it gives you a feeling

2:55

of control over your life that helps to lift

2:57

you up, too great

3:00

an internal locus of control and

3:02

you've only got yourself to blame. Another

3:06

thing that can hinder our ability

3:08

to learn to be more resilient is

3:10

the influence of any labels

3:12

that we might have given ourselves since we're

3:14

as young as we could ever remember being.

3:17

Labels like stupid,

3:20

lazy, poor, even.

3:23

These things can create expectations

3:25

that create a self fulfilling prophesy.

3:28

So look for your labels. Look for

3:30

your locus of control. Make sure

3:32

that you've got that middle ground between no

3:34

control and nothing but control.

3:38

I know that it's tempting to use circumstances

3:40

as something to blame for our life going

3:42

in the wrong direction, but once you can

3:45

see that you're no longer being pushed

3:47

in that direction anymore, then actually

3:50

you're just walking down the same path out

3:52

of habit, then

3:54

you can stop, and look for

3:56

the path next to it, and walk that way

3:58

instead, and create

4:01

new expectations by setting

4:03

goals. Resilient

4:05

people set themselves realistic goals

4:08

throughout their life. Realistic,

4:10

educational and work life goals.

4:13

Not huge, but big enough to be

4:15

challenging. And so they're good enough

4:17

to lead you in the right direction. That

4:20

way you're less likely to fail at them. Because

4:22

we want to practice resilience,

4:24

not practice failing. Being

4:27

resilient doesn't mean you're good at

4:29

failing. That's not going to make you feel good.

4:31

Resilience is practicing dealing

4:33

with the challenges, so that if things

4:36

do go wrong, and you've got a good habit

4:38

of talking to yourself respectfully,

4:41

so that you can pick yourself up, dust

4:43

yourself down, and put it down to experience.

4:46

You can learn from it that way then. Right,

4:50

that's your five minutes, I'll be off

4:52

for now. Look me up on Patreon if

4:54

you want any extra, but I'll be back

4:57

next week on here anyway. Take

4:59

care everyone, bye for now.