Back in the saddle: emotional resilience
While at the moment of writing, the West has re-entered fresh lock-downs, here in Hong Kong, for the past two months (!) we have saddled back into a fragile normality. This recent recovery of economic and social life is embraced only if cautiously, the celebration unlikely. This is our fourth attempt to fight the virus together, and any resurgence in infected cases is counted nervously.
That said, I have certainly seen the public mood shift to weary, a sign of surrender or a silent protest in banning the topic of pandemic at the dinner table.
With faith tested worldwide, carried by the fresh winds of November, my Gmail welcomed some of the favourite newsletters, almost all announcing some return of their in-person events & workshops. One such subscription was titled “back in the saddle”, I liked the reference and it made me look beyond the count of economic rebounds of the pandemic:
If we think about a healthy and balanced life, isn’t it all but a moment-to-moment return to it?
After all, unless you escape to Ashrams, stressful events will always accompany every project of our busy and creative lives. My 2020 has seen the subject of resilience and emotional self-regulation ever re-emerging and becoming the very core of my personal work, but also with my clients. I have seen myself spilling Heller’s quote as a good anchor to return the client back into the room - it just applies so well to both, sorrows and performance goals alike.
Resilience: The ability to overcome great obstacles and bounce back.
So, if a happy life is a resilient life, and the “bouncing back” is the key, then maybe we could even calculate one’s chances to happiness by the speed of the (bouncing) ball…
How long does it take you to get over an argument, a disappointment or a state of anxiety? (a day? till after lunch or longer?). How about cost-effectiveness, we could also calculate the losses endured (hair, sleep, brain cells, damaged relationships..). Are you getting excited about this, what if we have just discovered the metrics of happiness.
To bounce back to the subject, How do we master the perfect swing into the saddle?
Toes first: Body-awareness!
In fact, realising that you have lost the awareness is already 90% of the job!
Or else how would we even know that it is the time to return to the ease of the moment? Why this task is so challenging, is because under stress we have a narrowed and fragmented perception of reality, we literally don’t see (yes, the eye-vision actually distorts) the situation as it is. Not to mention, seeing the perspective and other cognitive-analytical inputs hindered by the mobilised nervous system. That is why body-awareness is the most efficient marker to notice the quality of your awareness before it is too late. This can be done as a regular preventative measure to maintain your cool (yes, you deserve such high-maintenance).
2. Down-regulation of activated states
…as self-awareness increases, awareness of distress states also increases..
Unfortunately, mastering your interoceptive skills alone, does not get you the ticket to happiness. Working on the capacity to access your internal world, may do just that, and often one would not be pleased with whats revealed. Some of us may notice, that as self-awareness increases, awareness of distress states also increases. In other words, choose the right ashram for your inner-work!
Most of my clients come into therapy with a lifelong struggle (conscious or otherwise) to deal with their high arousal states (ex. anxiety, hypervigilance, thought-racing, inability to stay focused, resulting in dissociative behaviours, like addictions, etc.). Learning how to down-regulate our activated or distressed states could be the most important practice one could wish to bring home. In a therapeutic context, working with an individual to help find their own tool to ground, self-sooth and access the resources at hand is the most rewarding work, but also a challenging process for a client with dysregulated systems.
3. Somatosensory Integration
If by this point you are starting to doubt the currency of this slow, and often challenging process towards happiness, I would argue that the described systemic self-regulation could prove to be a very cost-effective work.
After enough practice, learning to read your sensory input, and down-regulating the activated states can eventually result in breaking the habitual patterns, and development of new neurological connections. This could reduce the automatic pitfall of hyperactivation on first place.
If that still does not sound as a worthy investment, add to that the alternative risks of many symptomatic consequences characteristic of dysregulated systems.
Happiness, of course, is more than just learning to tolerate negative emotions, but without the self-regulation skills, we are over-ridden by habitual patterns, and ultimately suppress and limit our lives to mere survival.
References: This article is written with reference to the works of Laurence Heller & Aline LaPierre.
Photo by Samuel-Elias Nadler on Unsplash