Nick Wignall
Everybody experiences painful emotions: From grief and panic to anger and disappointment, emotional suffering is universal and unavoidable.
But how people respond to emotional suffering varies dramatically.
For some, emotional pain leads to a storm of negative thoughts, self-defeating behavior, and even more painful emotions. But others seem to bounce back almost immediately from emotional pain.
Emotionally resilient people know how to suffer without being consumed by it.
Thankfully, this emotional resilience is not quite as mysterious as it looks…
In my own work as a psychologist, I’ve seen that the following four habits are especially powerful ways to become more emotionally resilient.
1. Let go of things you can’t control
Many people fall into the trap of using the illusion of control as a defense mechanism against helplessness.
As much as we dislike painful feelings like anxiety, grief, shame, frustration, and the like, there’s one emotion that most of us really dislike — and as a result, will go to some pretty extreme lengths to avoid: Helplessness.
We human beings are control freaks at heart. We’re experts at identifying problems, developing creative solutions, and executing on those solutions tirelessly. From building bridges to developing vaccines to sending people to the moon, our ability to exert control over our environment is perhaps our defining characteristic as a species.
But here’s the problem:
While exerting control is often helpful, it occasionally backfires and makes things worse.
There are a certain class of things where trying harder and exerting more control only makes things worse:
Have you ever put your fingers in a Chinese finger trap? Our intuition is to pull harder to get our fingers out — but of course, this only makes the trap’s grip tighter. The counterintuitive solution is actually to relax your fingers and stop trying so hard — only then does the trap lose up, allowing you to get your fingers out.
Or take falling asleep. Paradoxically, the harder you try to sleep, the less likely sleep becomes. On the other hand, it’s relatively easy to fall asleep when we’re not trying to — reading a magazine on the couch in the early afternoon.
The more general point here is this:
You need to be careful about which problems in life benefit from or get worse when you try to control them.
Emotionally resilient people intuitively understand this principle and are good at avoiding the temptation of trying to control things they can’t actually control.
For example:
Other people. Especially when it comes to people we love, it’s tempting to try and influence them to do what we think is right. But more often than not, trying to control or manipulate others — even for a noble purpose — does nothing but stress you out and make the other person resentful. And in some cases it actually causes them to resell against your wishes.
Your thoughts. Guess what? Your mind is not totally under your control. In fact, the vast majority of the activity of the mind is happening outside of both your awareness and control. And while we can exert some control over our minds in terms of our attention and deliberate thought, there’s a whole class of “unintended thought” that you simply can’t control. If your mind decides to give you a scary dream or throw a disturbing thought into your consciousness, that’s not something you can control. But if you insist that you should be able to “think positive thoughts” all the time, for example, you’re going to end up chronically frustrated and disappointed.
Your emotions. You don’t have direct control over your emotions. Want proof? Try this: make yourself happier. Go ahead, I’ll wait… No luck? Yeah, that’s because our minds don’t come with happiness dials we can turn up or down, or anxiety levers we can adjust on command. So instead of wasting valuable energy and time trying to control how you feel directly, why not use that energy on something you do have control over: your attention and your behavior. You can indirectly influence how you feel emotionally, but only by letting go of the need to control the feelings, and instead, taking responsibility for what you choose to focus on and how you choose to act.
Emotionally resilient people don’t waste time and energy trying to control things they can’t actually control.
They accept and tolerate helplessness where appropriate and focus their efforts on managing their attention and behavior.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
― Viktor Frankl
2. Practice tolerating painful emotions
Most people try to avoid painful emotions by running away from them with distraction or “fixing” them with coping strategies and problem-solving.
But here’s the thing…
No matter how painful your emotions feel, they’re not dangers to be avoided or problems to be fixed.
Think about it:
No matter how sad you feel, sadness itself isn’t dangerous.
No matter how frustrated you are, the feeling of frustration itself isn’t going to do any harm.
No matter how ashamed you feel, shame itself isn’t going to hurt you.
Of course, it’s natural to want to get rid of things that hurt — including painful feelings. But here’s the problem:
When you get in the habit of running away from painful emotions or trying to fix them, you train your brain to fear them.
So the next time some painful emotion like guilt, for example, pops up, now you’re going to feel both guilty and afraid. And when you combine painful feelings you don’t just feel a little worse — you feel A LOT worse.
If you want to become more emotionally resilient — able to experience painful feelings and get on with your life and goals anyway, you must cultivate emotional tolerance.
Simply put, emotional tolerance means you practice feeling a painful emotion without doing anything about it.
The next time you feel anxious, instead of immediately calling your spouse to get reassurance, set a timer on your phone for 60 seconds and just sit with the anxiety — acknowledging that it’s painful but also not dangerous.
The next time you feel angry, instead of immediately acting out impulsively on your anger or judging yourself for it, simply notice your anger and feel it.
The next time you feel sad or disappointed, rather than immediately hopping on your phone to distract yourself, try sitting with the sadness and noticing what it’s like.
At the end of the day, here’s the most important idea to remember:
Emotional resilience comes down to acting on your values, rather than your feelings, even when those feelings are painful.
But this isn’t something you can just do once you’re aware of it. It’s a skill that needs training and practice.
So make it a point to practice little bits of emotional tolerance throughout the day, and you’ll find your emotional resilience and confidence slowly growing.
One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious, and the same may be said of guilt.
3. Maintain realistic expectations
The trouble with expectations is that we assume they’re doing one job when in reality they’re doing a very different one.
Most people assume that expectations are a way to foster growth and achievement:
Having high expectations for our coworkers encourages them to work hard and do high-quality work.
Having high expectations for our kids encourages them to do well in school and be successful at work.
And of course, setting big expectations for ourselves leads to self-improvement.
But here’s the problem:
Often, we end up using high expectations as a way to soothe our own anxieties and insecurities.
See, most people hate uncertainty. The idea that their kids won’t be successful and happy or that their employees won’t do their jobs without constant supervision, for example, fills them with anxiety and dread.
But because they can’t actually control their kid’s academic success or their employee’s performance, they settle for the next best thing: expecting those things to happen.
When you create an expectation in your head — which is really just you imagining the thing you want to be true — it temporarily alleviates some of that anxiety and uncertainty. It makes you feel just a little more in control and a little more certain that things will go well.
But really, your expectations are merely fictions you’ve spun up in your own mind. And often, they’re not based on very solid evidence. Which means, these expectations are likely to be violated frequently. And as a result, you’re going to feel a lot of stress and frustration.
Expectations have their place. But they very easily run wild and lead to emotional fragility — the opposite of emotional resilience.
If you want to become more emotionally resilient, get in the habit of clarifying your expectations regularly and making sure they aren’t too unrealistic.
4. Use self-compassion
Self-compassion is a very simple idea:
When times are tough, treat yourself like you would treat a good friend.
Most of us have this strange habit of beating ourselves up and being overly self-critical anytime we make a mistake or notice a flaw — which is ironic since, at the same time, we’re usually incredibly compassionate and understand when other people make mistakes!
Unfortunately, most of us learned growing up that the “secret” to success and happiness in life is to be tough on yourself. Like the tough drill sergeant yelling at his new recruits, we mistakenly learn to believe that being tough on ourselves prevents failures.
But here’s the thing…
Most people succeed despite their self-judgment, not because of it.
And in fact, most people could be both far more effective and far happier if they stopped beating themselves up for every failure or misstep.
Because when you beat yourself up for making a mistake, you only add more painful emotion and stress onto the original frustration or sadness that goes along with making mistakes.
Self-judgment only compounds difficult emotions and frequently leads to spirals and spikes of bad moods and painful feelings.
If you want to become more emotionally resilient, learn to practice self-compassion instead of self-judgment.
If you make a mistake, remember something you’re ashamed of, or find yourself struggling in any way, try this: Instead of beating yourself up, treat yourself like you would treat a good friend who was struggling — with a little encouragement and compassion.
Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.
All You Need to Know
The best way to improve your emotional resilience is to cultivate healthy habits. And these four are a very good place to start:
Let go of things you can’t control
Learn to tolerate painful emotions
Set realistic expectations
Practice self-compassion
