Is Your Glass Half Full, or Half Empty?

Many people today feel as though the rug has been pulled out from under them! They are being forced to deal with a turn of events that is beyond their control—natural disasters, the plunging economy, and just plain old bad luck.

The only time we ever know what’s really going on is when the rug is pulled out and we can’t find anywhere to land.

—Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart

There’s great truth in this Buddhist philosopher’s words since such challenges force us to discover what we’re really made of.

Responding positively to such turbulent life events requires a deep kind of inner strength called resilience. What is resilience? It’s defined as “the ability to accept ambiguity and find hope amid uncertain or threatening conditions.” And, those who have it usually fare far better in life than those who do not. Resilient people do not let adversity define them. They transcend pain and grief by perceiving bad times as temporary and believe better times are coming.

Experts disagree about how much resilience is genetic. People do seem to differ in their inborn ability to handle life’s stresses. However, resilience can also be cultivated. At the heart of resilience is belief in yourself.

It’s possible to strengthen your belief in yourself by revisiting past events and discovering the strength you built by surviving them. It’s important to note that resilience is not the ability to escape unharmed. Resilient people have scars, but they avoid blaming themselves for what has gone wrong and take responsibility for what goes right in their lives.

At the heart of building your resilience is a technique called “reframing.” Shift your focus from the cup half empty to the cup half full. Concentrate on the positives instead of the negatives. Take the case of one woman who had been emotionally abused by her older brother throughout her childhood. Her healing occurred in an instant when she reframed those years of abuse into a realization that she was a truly powerful survivor.

In conclusion, the thing to do when you feel the rug has been pulled out from under you is to change your paradigm via reframing. Re-examine your life story to discover how heroic your acts were as a child and other times in your past. Go back to an incident and identify your resulting survivor strengths. Learning to see the cup half full instead of half empty will build your self-esteem, your inner strength, and thus, your resilience to give you a rock solid foundation that will enable you to withstand these turbulent times.