You Are Stronger Than You Think

“There are many ways we underestimate ourselves. And one thing we tend to underestimate is our ability to cope with negative events. We often predict that we will feel worse and for a longer period of time than we actually end up feeling. We can’t imagine ever getting over our breakup or job loss or the death of a loved one. But, our emotional responses are often less intense than we imagine they will be, even in really bad situations, like losing a spouse.

Our brains are wired to try to minimize the impact of negative events. According to University of Virginia psychologist Timothy Wilson, one way our brains do this is by trying to make sense of negative events. We might do this by rationalizing or reinterpreting events in a way that makes them seem more predictable and inevitable. We tell ourselves that “we knew all along” that things would happen the way they did. When events seem more predictable and less novel, it reduces their emotional power. We have a hard time predicting how we’ll respond to negative events. When we think about a negative event, we often think about it in a vacuum. We think only about that one event and how it will make us feel.

We might be right that we’ll feel bad if we don’t get a promotion, but we probably won’t feel as bad for as long as we think we will, because not getting the promotion is not the only thing that will affect how we will feel. We have a million other things going on in our lives that will affect our well-being. We find out we didn’t get the promotion, but then we go home and eat dinner and go to our kid’s soccer game and meet a friend for lunch. And all of these things will also impact how we feel. But if we focus too narrowly on the things that will change as a result of a negative event and not enough on all the things that will stay the same in our lives, we will predict that we will be a lot more affected by negative events than we probably will be. We will forget that life usually does go on.”

Read the whole article at Psychology Today

#Coping #Emotions #Resiliency

💬 How are you going to use your strength and resilience?

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