Cultivating Inner Strength

Inner strengths (power) are the supplies you’ve got within as you make your way down the twisting and often hard road of life. They include a positive mood, common sense, integrity, inner peace, determination, and a warm heart. Researchers have identified other strengths as well, such as self-compassion; secure attachment, emotional intelligence, learned optimism, the relaxation response, self-esteem, distress tolerance, self-regulation, resilience, and executive functions.

 The word strength broadly includes positive feelings such as calm, contentment, and caring, as well as skills; useful perspectives and inclinations. Your strength embodies qualities such as vitality and relaxation. They are not like passing mental states, but rather your inner power or strengths are stable traits, your enduring source of well-being, wisdom and effective action.

A well-known idea in medicine and psychology is that how you feel and act – both over the course of your life and in specific relationships and situations – is determined by three factors: the challenges you face, the vulnerabilities these challenges grind on, and the strengths you have for meeting your challenges and protecting your vulnerabilities. For example, the challenge of a critical boss would be intensified by a person’s vulnerability to anxiety, but he or she could cope by calling on inner strengths of self-soothing and feeling respected by others.

We all have vulnerabilities. Personally, I wish it were not so easy for me to become worried and self-critical. And life has no end of challenges, from minor hassles, like dropped cell phone calls to old age, disease, and death. You need strengths to deal with challenges and vulnerabilities, and as either or both of these grow, so must your strengths to match them. If you want to feel less stressed, anxious, frustrated, irritable, depressed, disappointed, lonely, guilty, hurt, or inadequate, having more inner strengths will help you.

Inner strengths are fundamental to a happy, productive, and loving life. For example, research on having positive emotions, shows that these reduce reactivity and stress, help heal psychological wounds, and improve resilience, well-being, and life satisfaction. Positive emotions encourage the pursuit of opportunities, create positive cycles, and promote success. They also strengthen your immune system, protect your heart, and foster a healthier and longer life.

 Finding out how to grow these strengths inside you could be the most important thing you ever learn.

Continued next week
By:

Dr. Jozelle Miller
Health Psychologist
Milton Cato Memorial Hospital