Coping with the Unknown: Strategies to Develop Resilience with Yukari Horiguichi

FEW’s virtual monthly meeting in May with guest Yukari Horiguichi, CEO of Communications Psychology International (CPI), discussed the timely topic of resilience as most people have been staying home and avoiding travel outside their vicinity during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Many of us are dealing with a lot of changes to our lives and are forced to reflect on a new normal. Undeniably, obvious and hidden stresses building up within ourselves can inhibit our ability to move forward. How can we be resilient in such difficult times that causes many hardships? What exactly is resilience?

Resilient people include such qualities as having a positive attitude, optimism, living in the present and the ability to process failure as feedback. Non-resilient people on the other hand tend to have a victimized mind, be absorbed in fear, depressed, live in the past or future and chained to regret.

Upon reviewing such qualities and traits, Yukari warned that polarizing people into resilient and non-resilient types is not the ultimate intention. The purpose of this reflective process is to better recognize the fact that everyone will wade in and out of these resilient and non-resilient zones depending how they feel that day. Give yourself permission to know that this is okay and recognize this as a normal healthy healing process.

No one is 100% resilient but confident people tend to have a stronger positive inner dialogue.

Relating to her own personal experience of grief, Yukari advised us that we need to tap into our reservoir of positive inner dialogue to help us leave those prolonged dips into the non-resilient zones. No one is 100% resilient but confident people tend to have a stronger positive inner dialogue.

Yukari relied on this inner voice to complete the last couple of gruelling kilometres of her triathlon races whenever she felt like giving up. She recommended we keep a written list of positive and enthusiastic words describing who we want to be. This will ensure that we keep our negative ruminations and fears in check. This is definitely a challenge for some more than others, but using that inner dialogue as a cheerleader habitually will help you surface from those murky waters. Remember to be kind to yourself.

FEW is grateful to have had Yukari join us to give her insightful guidance and allowing participants time to reflect on such a vital question to appreciate the simple but important gains in such challenging times:

“Because of the pandemic situation, I now have the opportunity to …”

How did you answer? Most participants saw some light at the end of the dark tunnel of the unknown. Wishing you the same.