Help someone else

If you have serious problems it can be difficult to help your self. You might need assistance and support. The guidelines below can be useful if you want to help some one who is having a hard time.

Limits of Resilience

There´s a limit to how resilient we can become in different areas of life. We all need an appropriate amount of challenges to develop resilience. However, if our bounderies are violated, the outcome can be distructive. Everybody has a right to live within conditions that match with their ability to cope.
As detailed above, positive cooperation can play a vital role increasing one´s limit of resilience.

Praise should be simple but relevant, and given without any reservation. If praise is followed by a sentence starting with “but…” all focus will be on the implicit critique of this caveat. Praise the person for practising what is difficult.

Stay calm and react appropriately to undesirable behaviour (for example by a short timeout or removal of privileges). Make consequences mild and time-limited, but stand firm.

The Role of a Helper

The role of a helper is of course to provide knowledge, inspiration and encouragement – neither too little nor too much. For example, pick some information from this website, that may interest the other person. Make the knowledge more personal by using examples from their own life – perhaps by means of the small thought bubble games (see here).

It´s important (especially in the beginning) to focus on activity that makes the person feel better in order to calm the brain’s alarm centre and allow the thinking brain to work (Read more). But don´t expect too much. Be patient – the most important thing for a person with serious problems is to feel that somebody keeps believes in, and are ready to continue to work towards, a better situation. With unconditional and patient encouragement it´s possible for each and every person to get better – slightly or to a great extent – no matter their previous history. Even when everything seems impossible it´s still possible to stand firm: “I know it´s hard – it´s great that you keep working with it. I believe it will be better – so let´s keep working!”

If it Fails

If a project fails, you need to go back and work out what needs to be adjusted according to the above premises and the basic rules mentioned in Resilience and Praise and A Way to Success. Lack of success is often caused by challenges that are too small or to big, or by lack of practise. People who continuously react negatively are often facing too big challenges. The person might be overwhelmed by the feeling that it´s too hard and becomes paralysed by negative thoughts going round in circles. A helpful question you can ask a person in a difficult situation is “What do you need to learn right now?” This can help the person to move focus from thinking to acting – countering negative thoughts which lead nowhere.