Pillar 2. Empowering Your Thinking. Mental Flexibility and Adaptability

The Second Pillar: Becoming the Boss of Your Brain

The second pillar of resilience is empowering your thinking, which is about becoming the true boss of your own brain.

People who develop resilience adopt an empowering mindset and consciously decide how they will think when faced with life's difficulties.

They tell themselves empowering stories about their ability to handle challenges, rather than adopting disempowering victim narratives.

You don't have to accept your brain's first response to a stressor; you have the ability to challenge it and choose another one.

This pillar is based on the idea that we are the authors of our thoughts and can direct them to a place of strength rather than weakness.

Defining Mental Flexibility and Adaptability

A fundamental aspect of empowering your thinking is having a clear point of view that is mentally flexible and, above all, that is highly adaptable.

Adaptability is the ability to adjust quickly and effectively to new situations and the changing circumstances that life presents to us.

On the other hand, flexibility is the ability to adjust your actions, plans, and behaviors so that they align with the reality of the current moment.

These two qualities allow you to face life's challenges with greater grace, reducing the friction and suffering generated by resistance to change.

They involve being open to new possibilities and not being closed to a single way of seeing or doing things, which is essential for problem-solving.

The Danger of Mental Rigidity

The opposite behavior to this empowering mindset is being a mentally rigid person, which is a sure source of stress and frustration.

Rigidity has to do with clinging to the way things are or were in the past, refusing to accept the new reality that presents itself.

When circumstances change, the rigid person, instead of flowing with the change, clings more tightly to their old expectations, generating great suffering.

This resistance to the new prevents them from learning from experiences and finding new sol