Building Resilience

There is a chance a person will have a mental illness or experience some from of distress.  For example, one in five people will experience depression.  However, people can learn a lot about themselves when they go through challenges.  They may learn how to cope, what they need to do to cope and learn about their limitations.  Therefore, challenges can be an opportunity to grow. 
Resilience is about accepting failure and bouncing back by learning more about themselves while they go through the journey.  They understand their strengths, limitations, people around them and may review what they want in life.  Therefore, it requires the mind to be flexible and accept and adapt to change. 
The Resilience Scale measures purposefulness, equanimity, self-reliance, perseverance and existential aloneness as these are important constructs that affect the level of resilience a person has.  For example,  a person who has purpose in their life is more likely to be resilient as they find meaning in every experience including challenges.  Equanimity is about having balance  which includes the good and bad in life and to see every experience as an opportunity to grow.  People who are self-reliant understand their capabilities including limitations and strengths.  Self-reliant people have confidence in themselves to persevere during the challenge which may include seeking help to work through their challenges.  Self-reliant people will learn new problem solving skills and draw from previous problem solving skills to solve current challenges.  Resilient people will persevere and keep going to work through the challenge and accept failure as a learning experience.   Lastly, people who have existential aloneness realise that their path belongs to them and that some experiences belong to them on their own while others are shared.  They also understand about uniqueness including unique experience and opportunities rather than comparing themselves to others. 
Being resilient also requires time to be vulnerable and to be okay to fall apart.  People may cry, scream and want to vent.  However, it is not about staying in this mode for a very long time but seeking help to get another perspective on what they are going through so they can shift their mindset, make sense of the situation, learn from the experience and balance their emotions. 
Learning experiences may include making better choices, learning who is really good for them, learning what they are really good at and what they want in life.