5 boosters to build up your emotional immunity
The following is an extract from an online article by therapist Marie Rowland. Read the full article here:
www.wellbeing.com.au/mind-spirit/mind/how-to-boost-your-emotional-immunity.html
Fortify yourself by creating a strong network of support.
Many people believe in supplements or vitamins to boost their natural immune system. Think of friends, family and other supporters such as therapists, counsellors, yoga teachers, trainers as your own hand-selected range of emotional supplements. These human vitamins enrich the system and, taken on a daily basis, build up optimism and courage to ward off the stresses of life.
Seek meaning and purpose, not happiness.
The problem with happiness is that it is transitory and dependent on events exterior to your life going well. Leading a meaningful existence imbued with purpose is not contingent on external factors. So find what really matters to you and do it.
Be seen.
This seems deceptively simple, even simplistic, but it is harder than you may think. Many people live in the shroud of lack of self-worth or not showing up when they feel low. Putting on a brave face is not resilience. When we speak up and say things aren’t going well, we are seen. The mere act of being seen builds up our emotional immunity as we restore a sense of safety and wellbeing.
Have fun and be silly.
Do what feels good (if it doesn’t hurt yourself or anyone else). … We tend to live highly restrained lives where we must look, act and be a certain way, where we must aspire, achieve and attain all the time, and it is exhausting. So from time to time give yourself permission to let go. Treat yourself to unmitigated fun. Don’t think, just act on impulse by cranking up the music and dancing; diving into the ocean; watch funny movies and laugh out loud. Indulge and enjoy every minute of it.
Live consciously.
Anxiety and depression get the better of us when we don’t live in the present. Fretting is when we worry about an unknown future and ruminating is when we regret a past we cannot change. So be acutely aware of the now. When we live in the very now, we slow down time and we take back some control and agency in our lives.
Joey,
PASTORAL CARE WORKER
at HCEPS on Wednesdays and Fridays
Joey.Traeger704@schools.sa.edu.au