Sam Gash: Tips for fostering mental resilience in trying times

The coronavirus pandemic has made the idea of ‘resilience’ more relevant than ever before. Here, AIA Vitality Ambassador and ultramarathon runner Sam Gash offers some insight into developing more resilience for our ‘new normal’. 

It’s not as though you’re born with resilience. I think it’s easy to look at someone else and think, “Oh, they’re such a resilient person, they’re just born with it!”. But the reality is that resilience is something we have to build and cultivate.

Our strategies and practices are likely to develop over time as we evolve personally and professionally. For many people, resilience is developed through the experience of and exposure to hardship and adversity. This global pandemic is an example, but so too is the trauma that comes from something like a car accident.  

But we can choose to cultivate our resilience through daily practises – such as mindfulness, self-awareness, embracing flexible thinking, and reframing your narrative from negative to positive.

I had parents who were very resilient, and I was fortunate to be exposed to their behaviours. Their resilience wasn’t in the sporting domain, it was more in the way they approached their lives – they were hard working, they wouldn’t let financial issues be a setback, and they would always find solutions to whatever problems they faced. My dad also recovered from having polio as a child. 

As a kid, whether you realise it or not, you end up soaking a lot of that up. I now think about that as a parent: how do I want to model that kind of behaviour for my son? 

You don’t need to be born with natural talent – a fact that’s become an advantage for me because I don’t take any situation or opportunity for granted. I view progress as a long-term game, and nothing worthwhile can be achieved quickly or easily. I think nowadays, with social media, people glamorise the end product – that’s what people strive for: the result. But they aren’t prepared for the work it takes to get there – and that work both requires and fosters resilience. 

The long road to success involves grinding things out, and putting in the hard yards when nobody’s watching. It’s having very little to show for your efforts for weeks, months, possibly even years at a time. But through all of that, it’s about trusting your process, and keeping your end goal in mind. 

When you’re standing on the starting line of an ultramarathon, you have no idea who’s going to finish. You can see someone’s body, you can see the muscles in their arms and legs, and you can see the focus in their eyes – but you can’t see what’s driving that. You can’t see someone’s mindset, how strong they are mentally, or what they’ve experienced in their life. When the going gets tough in a race, it’s the stuff you can’t see that people draw from to keep them going – not the stuff you can see. 

My practice of gratitude acknowledges the positive things, as well as reframing the challenges that have come my way. Challenges can shape and develop us, and can certainly enable us to become more resilient. Whenever I come up against a challenge or an obstacle, I try to see it as an opportunity for growth.

Not only that: but being grateful for the areas of our lives that are going well, even in difficult times, helps us maintain perspective and remain positive in the face of adversity. That, in itself, is a hallmark of resilience. 

Just like your physical muscles require regular use to remain strong and capable, the same goes for your mental faculties, including resilience. I mentioned gratitude already, but regularly displaying gratitude encourages the release of dopamine, and the more we do it, the more we’re able to regulate our energy levels, mood and emotions. 

Have you ever tried doing something difficult when you’re upset, tired, or angry? Chances are, it was much more difficult than it would’ve been if you’d approached it from a good, centred and positive mindset. 

Other rituals, such as journaling, are a good way to foster gratitude and resilience on a daily basis. Maybe each night, you write down three things you’re grateful for, and three things you’re good at. You’ll more likely than not find that it’s quite difficult to write down the thing you’re good at, and that’s the point. The more often you challenge yourself to recognise what you can do, and what you are capable of, the more readily you’ll be able to access it in times of need. 

Through the first lockdowns in Victoria, where I live, we seemed to get through with a sense of camaraderie, and with this hope that it wouldn’t take too long before things would return to some level of normal. We baked sourdough bread, had our Zoom social events, and bunkered down. When it was over, we gave ourselves a pat on the back, and moved on. And then the stage 4 lockdown came.  

This second lockdown feels different. The end – both of the lockdown and of the pandemic in general – is not so clear. We’re tired, and those notions of hope and gratitude are a little harder to access. The idea of baking bread suddenly feels less fulfilling.

The point is: there is no ‘end’ to resilience. You don’t just become a resilient person, and all of a sudden life is a breeze. You will continue to be challenged throughout your life in ways that you couldn’t possibly imagine, and you will need to access your resilience in different ways, using different techniques and methods. 

Maybe running helped you through the first lockdown, but now you just can’t face another kilometre. That’s OK. Run a bath, read a book, do some stretching – adapt and experiment, until you find something that works for you. Your resilience will look different under different circumstances, so keep looking for it. 

This pandemic is making things incredibly challenging for us right now. Whether you’re locked down, partially locked down, isolating, sick, or even if life has returned to some kind of ‘normal’ – the threat of this virus and the anxiety it causes is omnipresent. It’s OK to allow yourself to feel that. 

Resilience isn’t about ignoring the way you feel, or running away from it. It’s about noticing how you feel and allowing it to move past. That is the foundation of resilience: not never feeling pain, difficulty, or adversity – that’s impossible. But feeling it, and making a conscious, calm decision about how you’re going to react to it. 

Copyright © 2020 AIA Australia Limited (ABN 79 004 837 861 AFSL 230043). This is general information only, without taking into account factors like the objectives, financial situation, needs or personal circumstances of any individual and is not intended to be financial, legal, tax, medical, nutritional, health, fitness or other advice.

Samantha Gash is an Australian endurance athlete, inspirational speaker, author, social impact entrepreneur and mother. In 2010, she made history by becoming the youngest person and first woman in the world to complete the 4 Deserts Grand Slam ultramarathon event. She has since run numerous ultra- events around the world, and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity in the process. She is passionate about using her expeditions as a vehicle for driving social change. 

Disclaimer:
The information in this article is general information only and is not intended as financial, medical, health, nutritional, tax or other advice. It does not take into account any individual’s personal situation or needs. You should consider obtaining professional advice from a financial adviser and/or tax specialist, or medical or health practitioner, in relation to your own circumstances and before acting on this information.