The Resilience Acronym

Being able to work through tough situations is a valuable skill to have. But doing so is not strength or will-power, as we tend to normally conceive of those things.

Rather, resilience has a deeper root than either strength or will-power. Resilience grows from acceptance.

If you can accept things—especially things that upset you—you can stop latching onto the torrent of self-imposed and self-sustained emotions that feed anxiety and physical stress.

There's a really helpful acronym to remember to help practice acceptance of this kind:

B.E.L.L.A
Be, Examine, Lessen, Let go, Appreciate

Read about how it works here.

Other Interesting Ideas

• The Existential Givens

  I've been doing a little digging into Existential Therapy lately. It's a kind of therapy that comes from the philosophical tradition of thinkers like Kierkegaard, Sartre, de Beauvior, and the like. One interesting idea that I have heard about it is the idea of a set of 4-5 "existential givens". They serve as the bare facts about human existence that we all have to grapple with in order to flourish. And apparently, many of the problems we humans have come from an inability to grapple with and accept these givens.