FLEXIBILITY AND THE ABILITY TO ADAPT

1. Flexibility

Flexibility is the ability to remain open to experiences, adapt to changing life circumstances, and navigate through various challenges while maintaining one's core values. Flexibility allows individuals to respond with resilience and creativity to difficulties or challenges, rather than getting "stuck" in unhelpful behavior and thinking patterns.

Strengthening flexibility requires effort, but it is worth doing: it helps manage stress, anxiety, depression, and other emotional health (and general life) challenges, is associated with better emotional well-being, fosters warmer relationships, and overall helps live a more meaningful life.

More information can be found at...

https://www.psicentras.lt/straipsniai/kognityvine-elgesio-terapija/psichologinis-lankstumas-trys-budai-tapti-lankstesniu-zmogumi

2. How can flexibility be enhanced?

How can flexibility be enhanced?

1) Practise mindfulness (mindfulness). Mindfulness means consciously focusing on the present moment with a non-judgmental gaze. Practicing Mindfulness helps us to accept difficult feelings and thoughts without attaching to them or identifying with them, choosing how to respond wisely rather than on autopilot. Mindfulness is a valuable skill both in everyday life and in the face of various challenges.

2) Learning to see the bigger picture. Reviewing your thoughts is an important element of psychological flexibility. If you feel stuck, it makes sense to ask yourself if there is another, more helpful way of looking at the situation.

- Could it be that the interpretation one has of the situation is not the only possible and correct one?

- Are there facts that would suggest a different way of thinking?

- What would another person in the situation, such as your authority figure or your best friend, say? Such "debating" with your own thoughts can be very helpful in broadening your assessment of a situation.

3) Not staying in your comfort zone. Small and personally meaningful steps out of the comfort zone are perhaps the key to practising flexibility. This can range from learning about something new to gradually trying to overcome your fears or changing patterns of behaviour that are not helping.

The aim is not so much to get rid of all the discomforts of life, but to learn to live with them, to adapt, to build resilience and, at the same time, to live more in line with one's values.