Many people have outbursts of emotion in difficult situations. They tend to become overwhelmed and face a lack of self- control. People who are more resilient in such situations are known as emotionally strong. These people face their life challenges directly and are able to endure stress and whatever else life throws their way.
Everyone has a bit of emotional strength within them. Your most difficult experiences will always bring out your emotional strength. Emotional strength enables you to be self-dependent, and have good control over your emotions. Though, like most things in life, being too emotionally strong can be harmful too. Therefore, it is important to take proper help when you need it.
In this article, we will be discussing the importance of emotional strength and how you can improve on or increase your emotional strength.
How to be emotionally strong:
1. Think Optimistically & Be A Constructive Thinker
The first thing you need to change is your thinking. Everything in “your” life is essentially a reflection of “your” thoughts. If you truly want to see hope, you will see hope. If you truly want to see despair, you will see despair. Mould your thoughts so that you help yourself.
Why would you want to deliberately want to make yourself feel worse?
If you simply think and believe in a more positive, constructive way, you will become more emotionally robust in difficult situations. Here is one quote I really liked, that I felt resonates with this situation.
“Your mind is a magnet. If you think of blessings; And if you think of problems, you attract problems. Always cultivate good thoughts and always remain positive and optimistic. We get what we think, so think positive, life will be automatically positive.”
2. Have Self-Confidence
If you believe in yourself and give yourself assurance in your difficult times, you will gain emotional strength. This occurs because confidence allows you to be more in control.
For example, when a confident individual is confronted by a difficult situation, they are then able to believe and have faith in themself. This confidence ultimately allows the individual to control his overall emotions.
Likewise, when a less confident individual is confronted by a difficult situation he doesn’t believe in himself. Due to the lack of self-assurance, the individual becomes overcome by emotion and loses control.
As Geneen Roth once said,
You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won’t discover this until you are willing to stop banging your head against the wall of shaming and caging and fearing yourself.
3. Become More Flexible
Life is like a roller-coaster. It has many ups and it has many downs. You can’t expect to always stay on top of the ride. You have to be able to adjust to your given situation.
There are going to bad days and difficult times, and you are going to have to manage. You are going to need to have control of your emotions and understand that your difficulty will come to an end and eventually will be replaced with good times. If you can change your perspective about life in difficult situations, it will give you emotional power.
You may find it difficult to always look forward to the better days, especially if your problem seems to be never-ending. But it is important to understand that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. One thing I try to do in times of difficulties is to remember a past difficulty that I overcame. Doing this gives me strength and hope to overcome my present difficulty!
As Thomas S. Monson once said,
We can’t direct the wind but we can adjust the sails.
4. Observe More & React Less
We come across multiple situations in life where we become provoked. In these events, we either react (emotionally react) or stay silent. Depending on the situation, the choice of reacting or observing is very important. For example, if you witness an individual getting bullied, reacting would be much better than just observing. Though, in most cases, simply staying silent and observing your surroundings can be much more beneficial to you and also improve your level of emotional strength.
Take the example of the fable of the wind and the sun. When the wind and sun got into an argument about who is stronger, they decided to settle their disagreement by seeing who can get a passing stranger to take off his cloak. The wind blew very strongly and aggressively, but this made the stranger hold on to his cloak more strongly. On the other hand, the Sun shined softly and genuinely. Through feeling the soft warmth, the individual willingly took off his cloak.
This fable teaches us the importance of being calm and less reactive. People react better to kind words and gentleness.
If you fight fire with fire, you simply get a bigger flame. If you fight fire with water, the flame will go out.
Final Words
Overall, these 4 tips are essential in helping you to discover and become emotionally strong. To conclude, I would like to use the famous and wise words of Warren Buffet.
You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you.
True power is sitting back and observing things with logic. True power is restraint.
If words control you that means everyone else can control you.
Breathe and allow things to pass.
