The good news is that how we react to these situations is within our control. Nelson Mandela and how he handled his confinement is an example of someone being in a hugely difficult situation, and coming up trumps.  Emotions are often created by thoughts and fears, so having self-awareness of your values, motivations, recurring thought patterns and insecurities can help you to create more emotional resilience.

Unless we are very lucky, we don't get taught how to be emotionally resilient, but learn it as we go along by trial and error. Using shopping, alcohol, drugs and busyness can be an easy but unhealthy way to 'anaesthetise' difficult emotions.

We can learn to be more resilient and challenging situations have a lot of gifts in them, even if we don't see them at the time, e.g. opportunity to be more creative, assertive etc . 

For a FREE article on "Attitude management" click on this link: 

Read on for information about common situations that can test our emotional resilience.

Coping well in one area and struggling in another is normal.  People and challenge tend to test us at different times in our lives e.g.:

• Redundancy and unemployment
• Merger of our employer with another company over which we have no control 
• No pay rises over a period of time, with our bills going up 
• People 'pulling rank' at work 
• Lack of planning by others affecting us
• Unreasonable behaviour and bullying
• Bosses and employers with values different to our own
• Trauma and crisis e.g. end of a relationship, death of someone we are close to etc.
• Financial pressure and hardship
• Covert undermining behaviour by others e.g. 'passive aggressive'
• Demanding children so we don't get time for ourselves  
• Caring for an aging parent with no end in sight

 Read on for FREE tips to maximise emotional resilience.