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You may be so busy dealing with a serious break-up, a job loss, or another significant event in your life that you don't have time to shower or get more than a few hours of sleep a night. However, if you want to be mentally strong, then you have to be physically able, too. If your body is in a funk or you're just feeling unkempt, then you'll be even less equipped to deal with the challenges. No matter how awful you're feeling, you need to make an effort to shower, brush your teeth, sleep, and get into a normal routine, so that you can start feeling as "normal" as you can. Make sure to make time for mental breaks when you're caring for yourself, too. Studies show that taking mental breaks, whether you're just daydreaming or closing your eyes and listening to a song that you love, can help ward off those stress chemicals and will prevent you from feeling overwhelmed. Your self-esteem depends on, among other things, how you value yourself. It's important to form a positive perspective about yourself and about life in general to ensure resilience. In acquiring competencies and responsibilities, you nourish your self-esteem, so it is important to get involved in life and not withdraw into yourself and feel threatened. If you feel that you are worthless, then you will feel incapable of tackling challenges. Use self-enhancement by paying close attention to your positive qualities, while minimizing your negative ones. You can begin by making a list of everything you like about yourself. Seek value through using your talents and abilities to their fullest, be it in a professional, volunteer, business, home front, or other capacity. Learn new abilities and skills as often as you can. This will strengthen your self-esteem and can also ward off fears. For example, if you're afraid your children might be hurt some day, take a basic first aid course to reduce your sense of fear and to increase your confidence in being able to cope should something happen. Workshops, seminars, courses, etc., are all good ways to improve your knowledge and to expand your network of acquaintances on whom you can draw support if needed. Creativity is an expression of yourself and the way in which you live. Creativity lets you unleash what words or conversation cannot express or even understand. Nourishing your creativity can also help you be more creative when finding more solutions to problems, and will show you that you can look at the world in more than one way. Take a photography class, write a poem, take up watercolor painting, redecorate your room in an original way, or consider sewing your own clothes. Though you don't need to have six pack abs to deal with a major crisis, being physically strong certainly helps. Due to the mind-body connection, if your body is stronger, then you have built up the strength and endurance to have a stronger mind, and it will indeed help you in moments of crisis. Being physically fit may improve your self-esteem, positive thinking, and ability to feel empowered, all of which will help you be more resilient. Try starting with something simple like taking a walk in the sunshine for twenty minutes a day; this activity has been proven to help people be more open-minded and ready to face challenges. It's important to unravel past motivations that feed into current approaches to life. Until you make peace with the hardships of the past, they may continue to influence and even direct your current responses. See setbacks and past issues as a chance to learn. Don't expect this to happen overnight but do tackle it; the end result will be a far more resilient self. Journaling about what happened and what you learned from it can help you come to terms with the past. See a therapist, a counselor, or your doctor if you cannot work through past issues alone. Think about past setbacks that made you feel like your life was over. See how you were able to work through them -- and to come out stronger on the other side. If you feel like you're missing closure on an event from your past, try to figure out what it will take to move on, such as confronting someone or visiting a place where you used to live. It isn't always possible to get closure, but there may be a way to change your thinking about the past so you can feel stronger when addressing future challenges.
Take care of yourself daily. Sustain your self-esteem. Nourish your creativity. Stay physically fit. Make peace with your past.