One key step to building resilience is self-awareness. Are you aware of what’s going on around you and inside your head? Self-awareness allows you to recognize what is occurring so that you can introspect and think about how you are reacting in that moment. If you’re highly self-aware, you can objectively evaluate yourself and keep your emotions in check. You can also have a better understanding of how others might perceive you. Your ability to understand yourself (your downfalls, your strengths, your triggers) are vital to building resilience. Keep a Self-Awareness Journal to track how you introspect. Spend time each day writing down how you reacted to certain people or situations that day. Were there any triggers? What were they? How did you react? Why did you react that way? What strengths showed through? What behaviors could you improve upon? Just the mere act of keeping this journal IS self-awareness!

Before you start on your journey, it may be useful to gauge how resilient you are now. This will give you an idea of what you need to improve upon and may help you figure out which modules in the Spouse Resiliency Toolkit you can focus on to help build your resilience. There are several self-assessments available online that are free of charge. It can be interesting for you to track the results of your self-assessment and then take the assessment again after having interacted with the content on this website to see if you have improved. Here is a self-assessment you can use:

Andrew C. Weis, Ph.D Resilience Self-Assessment