BONUS: Relieve Stress with this Simple Resilience Exercise

Aid for Aid Workers Leadership Podcast

If you're like me, it helps to hear what something looks like in practice over just reading questions on a page. In this bonus episode the Licensed Mental Health Counselor Kathleen Joseph shares one of her favorite exercises to do with clients to relieve stress and build resilience. You can see the activity below, but if you want to know what it sounds like in practice (and how stressed I am right now!), Kathleen asked me the questions and guided me through it in this episode.

The Resilience Toolkit by Nkem Ndefo - https://theresiliencetoolkit.co/ - there is a fee associated with doing this with Nkem. This is an adaptation Nkem Ndefo’s Resilience Toolkit

• • First, ask yourself “How stressed am I?” – this gets at how strong the stress response is
    • You can rank this on a scale of 1-10 or low to high (we will come back to ranking)
    • Then ask yourself, “How do I know?”. How do you know you are a “7 out of 10” or “highly” stressed, for example
      • This is an important question because this gives us
        • 1) insight into our experience, and
        • 2) a better way of understanding our experience
    • Now, ask yourself, “Is this adaptive for me in this moment?” (“Is this useful for me right now?)
      • If yes – GOOD! Use it and keep going
      • If no –
        • Ask yourself this question: “What do I need?”
        • “What practice(s) can I use?”
          • Exercise, or taking a walk
        • Finally, ask yourself: “How do I know that the practice worked?” If the practice works at reducing your feelings of stress, or at helping you to notice how stressed you are, keep practicing it.