Full 46.1 - Royal Institution of Surveyors Malaysia

THE MALAYSIAN SURVEYOR | Vol.46 | No.1 | 2011
serious struggles. The fact is life adversity is
associated with higher global distress that leads
to functional impairment and lower life
satisfaction. For those who do have a history of
lifetime adversity of some sort and have learnt
the skills of handling situations, they do appear
to be less negatively affected by recent adverse
events than others. In fact, the experiences
make them stronger and more resilient.
The question in hand is how to respond to
adverse life experiences? It is all about
emotional resilience. Just like a broken bone
becomes stronger than before once it is healed,
we can be matured and stronger once we
reach the other side of a difficult life event.
Resilience has its benefits for daily life as well
as for the rare major disasters that come in
between. So what’s the difference between the
strong and the weak? Many of us do have the
emotional and physical resilience that were
accumulated over the years as we grow older,
thus becoming less upset by changes and
surprises. The fact also remains that emotional
resilience is related to some factors that are
beyond our control, such as age, gender and
exposure to trauma. However, resilience can be
developed with a little effort. With some basic
skills, we can become more resilient, even if we
are naturally more sensitive to life’s difficulties.
Traits of Emotional Resilience
While many may not realise that resilience is an
inbuilt quality, the varying degrees of how well
a person is able to handle stress makes up the
difference between those who are resilient and
those who are not or less resilient. The
following are some of the main characteristics
of a resilient person:
• Positive Self-talk: People who are
resilient tend to view life’s difficulties as
challenges and respond accordingly with
the right thought and action, rather than
with fear, self-pity, blame or acting with a
“losing victim” mentality. While life can be
very challenging, an important step in
becoming more resilient is to develop
positive self-talk by accepting the fact that it
is true life is out there for everybody who is
strong and wise.
• Acceptance: For many of us, the life we
have is not the life we expect but by
accepting the reality it is what makes us
move forward although it is such a difficult
thing to do. More often, denial, anger,
bargaining and depression are adopted as
steps of the grieving process when the
unexpected comes by and then, followed
by acceptance. However, if we stay in a
place where we cannot accept what has
“We were all taught to seek
forgiveness for all our wrong doings
as it is not a sign of weakness but
mere strength as forgiveness is not
for the other person but for the one
who forgives.”
happened to us, we are somewhat
obsessed with denial and dwell on the
injustice of it, and all that bring about
additional stress. Accepting who we are
and where we come from, enables us to
take stock of all that we have and feel
grateful for them, and move forward with
our lives as there are those bottom billion
out there who are more unfortunate than
us. In fact, denial can hamper our ability to
cope with the facts of life in a healthy way,
and can rob us of the gifts and privileges
we have thus far.
• Emotional Awareness: Learn the
skills to understand your own feelings and
why it crops up in the first place. You may
sometimes feel overwhelmed with your
emotions, thus making you frighten of
the situation and end up being static
and motionless. Knowing what
makes you feel upset can provide
valuable information about what
needs changing in life. Take
note of what happens and
explore your inner world and
come up with an action plan.
Gathering more accurate
recollections of feelings allow
us to capture emotional ups
and downs.
• Internal Locus of
Control: Resilient people
believe that they are in
control of their lives. While
you can’t control your
circumstances, you can
develop an internal locus of
control to respond to those
circumstances. This means
believing that you are in control
of your own life and at the same
time, focusing on the outside
forces. This can bring about a
big difference in your
attitude in the course of
your life.
• Optimism: Optimists see
the positives in most
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