If you’ve been following sports news lately, last Sunday you likely woke up to newspapers emblazoned with the headline – As Denmark’s midfield superstar Christian Eriksen collapses on the field, the football world stops breathing. In case you don’t already know about it, let me fill you in. During the ongoing UEFA EURO 2020 championship, in a football match between Denmark and Finland, a much loved Danish football player collapsed during play. The ball didn’t hit him, no one was near him; he just fell face forward. It was immediately clear that things were serious as his teammates urgently signalled for help. The medical staff reached him and one could see images of CPR and defibrillation being conducted on Eriksen on the pitch as his teammates created a privacy shield around him. After almost 15 minutes, the medical staff along with the Danish team took him off the pitch, continuing to maintain the shield around him. It took another 15 minutes for pictures, of a conscious Eriksen being taken off the pitch, to start circulating. The Danish FC and UEFA took a little longer to inform the world at large that the medical staff had successfully revived Eriksen on the pitch and he was being treated in the hospital. It was only then the world took a collective sigh of relief!

Now maybe you were watching the match when this incident happened, or you read about it in the newspaper the next day or maybe this is the first time you are hearing of it. Well, I watched it first hand, that is in front of a television. And as I watched Eriksen collapse on screen and not get immediately up, I felt blind panic. My breathing became shallower, my heart started beating erratically and for a few minutes, it seemed the world was spinning out of control. That’s called a panic attack. My reaction might have given you the impression that I’m a big Christian Eriksen fan or that I love football. As far as football goes, I’m an indifferent watcher, usually tuning in only for the FIFA World Cup every four years. I have never watched club football, and the only reason I knew Eriksen’s name was that I had read about Denmark’s lineup in that morning’s newspaper. Knowing all this, you might think my reaction was a bit exaggerated. You would be correct if my panic attack had anything to do with what was happening on the pitch. Even though it was triggered by what I saw, but the extent of my reaction can only be attributed to the battering my emotional state has taken over the last year.

I found myself in a similar emotional state 8 years ago when I had my first close interaction with tragedy. For months after that, even a hint of bad news would make me feel like cowering in a corner, with my head in my hands. I still remember an incident when someone I had just started working with—and didn’t even know very well at the time—didn’t reach home after a night of partying with us. When his wife called to say, a few hours after he had left, that he hadn’t reached home, I remember how quickly my thoughts had spiralled out of my control. I was convinced that something had gone wrong because I knew that things can go wrong when you least expect them to. Till the time news didn’t reach me that my colleague had reached home safely, I remained in a state of panic. This is just one incident I remember from that time; but for months afterwards, every time someone in my family boarded a flight or didn’t call after reaching their destination, I would drive myself mad thinking of what all could have gone wrong. This state would have gone on indefinitely, but I found a terrific therapist who helped me find my way back to emotional strength with the help of grief counselling.

The likely reason I find myself in a similar position 8 years later is that this pandemic and the past year has been hard on me. It has been harder on many other people who have lost loved ones, but it has not been easy even for those of us who haven’t faced loss. In the last year, our layers of security have been stripped off, conventional wisdom has failed us and we are left with so many questions for which there are no answers yet. In the last few months, there was no way to know who would be the next victim of this unpredictable disease. All you could do was just hunker down and pray that it wouldn’t be you or a loved one. Living with that uncertainty has been nerve-wracking. To put it crudely, it was like playing the Russian Roulette—even if you got away without the bullet in your head, it didn’t mean you didn’t end up shitting your pants!

If you have been feeling the same way, don’t think you are alone. If the thought of hearing bad news makes you too afraid to even get out of bed, there is nothing wrong with you. Some people are naturally more resilient and can move on from life’s tragedies with wisdom and sanguinity. Some people become less resilient over time due to their experiences. And then there are those of us who need to remain vigilant throughout because bouncing back from adversity is not easy for us. We need to learn how to become emotionally resilient and then how to strengthen and maintain that state so that the next time we are faced with a stressful situation, our first instinct is fight, not flight.

Over time there are some techniques I have learnt which have helped me in my journey towards emotional resilience. I’ll share them with you today.

Accept what has happened

I know, it’s easier said than done. But what can you do? The Serenity Prayer tells us to ‘accept what we cannot change’. Some of life’s tragedies are just that, things we cannot change. But acceptance doesn’t come in a day nor can you push yourself into accepting what your heart is not ready to accept. So give yourself time and don’t be harsh to yourself. Take it one day at a time, and accept that on certain days you’ll succeed and on others, you won’t. But with time, successful days will become months and months will become years and without you even realising it, your heart will have accepted the truth.

The reason I have flagged acceptance as the first and foremost step towards emotional resilience is that the opposite of acceptance is resignation. It is always possible that you resign yourself to your adverse circumstances. The result will be the same but you will be left with bitterness. Bitterness makes you weak, not strong; and that doesn’t help when the next time adversity comes knocking on your door.

Find the silver lining

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this but the one trait that emotionally resilient people share in common is that they have a strain of optimism running through them. My father is like that; even in the most adverse circumstances, he can find a silver lining. We often shake our heads at him with incredulity, at his unwillingness to see the dark side of things. What we don’t understand is that he does see the dark side, he just chooses not to brood on it. Seeing the positive side of most situations is his way of accepting what he cannot change. He is not living in La La Land, nor is it that he avoids confronting difficult situations. It’s just that he has found a way to face adversity, to grieve and to move on without bitterness.

I am not inherently optimistic like my father. My mind doesn’t instinctively go towards positivity, rather I am prone to catastrophizing. But I have trained myself to look at the silver lining with a lot of practice. I know there isn’t a silver lining when you lose a loved one, but for almost everything else, it’s possible to reorient the adversity in such a way that you feel grateful that you got away lightly. It’s possible to tell yourself that the situation could have been much worse and the fact that it didn’t, means you got lucky. Every time panic starts seep in, you have to tell yourself that.

Create a community

I have said this in a hundred different ways, find your community. That is your support system in good and bad times. Your family is the support system you were born with, but with time you add to it with friends, neighbours, colleagues, pets, therapists, etc. The knowledge that when things get tough there are people you can turn to, can convert panic into a more manageable emotion. To this day, I call my mother when I am in a state of panic. I did so on Saturday night when Eriksen collapsed, even though I knew there was nothing she could do. But just talking to her, knowing that when the world goes crazy, she’ll still be there made me feel steadier.

It’s natural to want to isolate yourself when you are in the midst of tragedy; you feel like no one can understand what you’re going through. They can’t, how can they? Your experience of an event, happy or sad, is yours alone. But they may have their own experiences with tragedy, they may know what it feels like to face the kind of loss you are facing. Don’t discount their experience just because it’s different from yours. I have found wisdom from the most unexpected sources, the words of the banalest people have inspired me. We are not meant to face life’s ups and downs alone, do yourself a favour, find your people.

Grace under pressure

This one doesn’t have anything to do with Emotional Resilience, but I want to mention it today because amid the blind panic I felt when Eriksen collapsed, the grace and dignity that was on display during the match warmed my heart. Hat’s off to not just the Danish and Finnish teams, but also to the fans of both countries who were in the stands that day. The respect, love and concern shown by both sides to Eriksen is an example of the human spirit rising above the ordinary. When I saw the grace showed by everyone, hope blossomed in my heart. I felt that no matter how bad things become, people are inherently kind and will always lend a helping hand when I need it.

I leave you with some moving images of the tributes paid to Eriksen in the next match played by his team. More power to them, good health to Eriksen and lots of emotional resilience to you!

~P