The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Mark Sisson

and is narrated by Tina Lehman.

How to develop emotional resilience in the modern world.

Job stress, social conflict, illness,

sometimes serious illness, financial hardship, our children's struggles, a move across country,

a divorce, a death of a loved one, they're all events that can test our mental fortitude,

or, in more extreme cases, leave us emotionally adrift.

Some people turn into a puddle during a critical emergency, while others jump in the middle

of it to save the day. Yet watch those same people fight a protracted struggle like a death

of a spouse or a child, and the one who managed the momentary

crisis may have a much harder time. Adversity varies and challenges us in different ways,

but our ability to endure and bounce back from stress, struggle, and loss is what emotional

resilience is all about. What can our ancestors' examples teach us

about psychological hardiness and mental fortitude?

Genuine resilience demands a deep level of acceptance,

the acceptance that even if some things in life

shake or shatter us, that's not the end of our story.

Just as our physical bodies are vulnerable and resilient,

so are our mental selves. We can survive a horrible car accident with damage to multiple organs

and limbs and still heal to a large, if not complete, extent. We can suffer a stroke and more

or less regain full functioning as other parts of our brain take over tasks previously handled by the damaged section.

In the same way, we can recover from great emotional damage.

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