Building Emotional Flexibility and Resilience

Building Emotional Intelligence and Flexibility (EI) is something that everyone has the ability to do.  Becoming more aware, writing about our experiences or creating opportunities for positive thoughts can assist us in improving our (EI).

Positive emotions builds our personal coping resources over time

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Interpreting our daily experiences

Every day we constantly appraise the situations we find ourselves in and based on how we interpret these, we trigger either positive or negative Thought – Action responses. Indeed, it is believed that we have around 50,000 – 70,000 thoughts a day, which means our minds are constantly appraising and automatically responding positively or negatively.

Negative emotions narrow our thinking and reduce our emotional flexibility

According to the broaden-and-build theory (developed by world renowned Social Psychologist Dr. Barbara Fredrickson) negative emotions result in specific and negative Thought–Action responses which narrow our focus and thinking; for example, triggering fight or flight actions in response to feeling fear or anger.

Positive emotions enhance our wellbeing and emotional resilience (EI)

On the other hand, positive emotions trigger positive Thought–Action responses. The cumulative effect of this has been demonstrated to broaden our thinking and increase the range of responses available to us. This can enhance our resilience and emotional wellbeing by helping to building our bank of personal resources (social, emotional and physical) which we can later draw upon to bounce back from life’s challenges.
More importantly, some research shows that experiencing positive emotions may help to ‘undo’ some of the physiological after effects of negative emotions.

We can take action to improve our emotional resilience (EI)

These findings demonstrate that we can take action to build our resilience by creating more opportunities to experience positive emotions. For example, by using humour, play, creative exploration, meditation or kind actions to others.

 

“Deep within the core of hope is the belief that things can change. No matter how awful or uncertain they are at the moment, things can turn out better. Possibilities exist. Hope sustains you. It keeps you from collapsing into despair. It motivates you to tap into your own capabilities and inventiveness to turn things around. It inspires you to plan for a better future” (Fredrickson 2009).

Tips to Build Your Resilience

Increase the opportunity to experience positive thoughts

1. Create the opportunity for positive thoughts and experiences: Try to increase the range of your thought-action responses by creating opportunities to experience more positive emotions whether through play, creative exploration, random acts of kindness or other similar activities to help build your bank of personal resources.

 

2. Reflect and write about your positive experiences: Research (by Burton and King) showed that writing about positive experiences for twenty minutes each day for three days improved happiness and health. Try to reflect upon and relive your positive experiences every day to induce positive emotions, such as gratitude, to broaden and build your emotional resources.

 

3. Practice Becoming More Aware: Try to practice meditation / present moment awareness for a few minutes every day as this helps to broaden and build our personal resources (Fredrickson, Cohn, Coffey, Peck, and Finkel). One mindful exercise you might try, is to think about a person that you regard in a warm and kind manner. Then expand your focus and transfer those positive feelings onto yourself first and then to a wider range of people.