5 WAYS THE MOST EMOTIONALLY STRONG

WOMEN BECOME THAT WAY

#1 – Take care of yourself.

At the most basic level, no one can be emotionally strong if they aren’t
physically strong. I am not saying you have to join Crossfit and do the Whole
30 and go to therapy every day. I do mean to take care of your body. Eat
well, get enough sleep, exercise regularly, be kind to others, do what makes
you smile. Feeling healthy and strong will give you good strong roots at the
base of your emotionally healthy tree. Roots that will make it so that you
won’t blow over in a storm. So do it. Take care of yourself. Create a healthy
base on which to cultivate your emotional strength.
#2 – Challenge your thoughts.
You know those pesky thoughts that incessantly course through your head?
You know the ones. The ones that tell you aren’t pretty enough, not smart
enough, not successful enough. Yes, those thoughts. The thoughts that are
holding you back. They are keeping you emotionally weak. It’s time to change
those thoughts. It won’t be easy but with a little determination you can bring
about big change. One of my clients had spent a lifetime telling herself that
she just wasn’t worthy of love. Her life experience had led her to believe this
to be true and because her thoughts consistently reinforced this idea she just
wasn’t emotionally capable to finding and keeping love. I challenged her to
challenge those thoughts. To talk back to the negative thoughts and provide
evidence that they just weren’t true. I encouraged her to make a list of those
who had loved her. Her various boyfriends, her parents, her friends, her kids,
the barista guy who had flirted with her for years. Those people who liked
and loved her. She kept this list easily accessible and when those dreaded
thoughts reared their ugly head she referred to the list. Gradually those
thoughts, being starved of reasons why it was true, became much quieter.
And then, because she no longer felt emotionally weakened by her thoughts,
she flirted back with that barista and it looks like she just might live happily
ever after.
#3 – Don’t take things personally.
Taking things personally can be the death of emotional strength. When
something happens to us the only way that we can process it is through our
own internal system. And that internal system only truly understands OUR
experience. As a result we often times personalize things that have NOTHING
to do with us. I have a client who was in a dispute with her landlord about
damage done to her apartment and she was very upset. She couldn’t sleep.
She couldn’t enjoy her everyday life. She took the dispute personally. She felt
that the landlord was questioning who she was as a person in his pursuit of
keeping the damage deposit. She felt less than because of this. I suggested
to her that a more likely explanation for his actions was that he wanted more
money from her NOT that he didn’t like her as a person. In that moment my
client let go of everything that she had been holding on to. Of course it was
about the money, not about how she was as a tenant or a person. It’s always
about money. In that moment she learned about the importance of not taking
things personally and grew her emotional strength.
#4 – Give of yourself to others.
Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, can help build emotional strength more than
doing something for someone else. Truly, nothing. When I was going through
my divorce my emotional strength was at it’s lowest.  I started volunteering
weekly at the local food bank. Four hours a week of helping other people get
food to eat, for themselves and their families, made me feel so good. And not
because I felt lucky that I wasn’t in their position but because I knew that I
had made a substantial, positive difference in their lives. It made my heart
sing. Many of us don’t have time to volunteer but we can make a difference in
other ways. Hold the door open for someone, buy that homeless person
sitting outside the grocery store a sandwich, reach out to a friend you know is
going through a hard time, give up your seat on the subway. There is nothing
like being on the receiving end of a smile of gratitude to build up your
emotional strength. So try it. Reach out and make a difference in someone’s
life today
#5 – Do that thing you think you can not do.
There comes a time in one’s life when one is presented with an obstacle that
seem insurmountable. For me that obstacle was rebuilding my life after my
divorce. I never wanted a divorce but it was forced upon me and I had to
deal. I had to deal with no longer being a wife, greatly reduced financial
stability and the prospect of being alone forever. I DID NOT WANT TO DEAL.
But I had to. I had to pick myself and move forward. And I chose to pick
myself and move forward in the strongest possible way. I wasn’t going to let
this situation ruin my life so I didn’t. How? I got into therapy. I surrounded
myself with people who loved and supported me. I educated myself about the
divorce process so that I could get what I needed to take care of myself and
my children. I didn’t back down in the face of his anger and derision. I
stopped taking his actions personally and realized they were his issues not
mine. In short, I came out on the other side of my divorce a different woman.
I went into it a woman who was scared of her own shadow, as I had been at
the end of my marriage. I emerged someone who knew that she could take
care of herself and her children, who was no longer a wife but a woman and
who didn’t give a damn about being alone because I was very happy with my
own company. The BEST way to ensure your emotional strength is to DO
THAT THING YOU THINK YOU CAN NOT DO. By doing so you will truly see
your own strength. Nothing and no one will be able to convince you
otherwise.