The world has been one heck of a ride lately. And even though the cursed year of 2020 is already behind our backs, the new year hasn’t been as forgiving as we hoped. With coronavirus mutations, political turmoil and on-off quarantines and restrictions around the globe, many feel drained like never before.

But although the start hasn’t been that fresh, there’s always a way to keep yourself positive, mindful, and motivated. These three words may sound like something reserved for yoga people, but trust me, it’s all easier than we think. So to find out the secrets of navigating through life when it’s a pain in the rear, Bored Panda reached out to the positivity coach and author of “Positive Young Minds” Lynn How.

Lynn told us that in difficult times, although she felt she was functioning normally, her “resilience to sudden changes or unexpected issues cropping up were suddenly a big thing.” It turns out that without inner strength, our resilience in periods of crisis can be impaired.

“Sometimes to add and build that inner strength, you need to let those emotions out as opposed to burying them deep inside (a popular coping mechanism). On many occasions, burying your emotions (which I describe affectionately as Ostrich Syndrome) can be more detrimental in the long term than letting them out.”

According to Lynn, inner strength is the ability to keep getting up when you get knocked down. Incredibly, we all are born with it and it’s the skill we learn in the first few years of our lives when those neural pathways are still developing. If they’re not developed at that time, “then you may find yourself less resilient as an adult.”

“All is not lost though, as increasingly, we are finding out more information through recent research about the brain's neuroplasticity.” Lynn explained further: “In simplistic terms, this is the brain’s ability to rewire itself with the correct input e.g. positive reinforcement and therapeutic treatments such as cognitive behavior therapy.”

That means that even though we may not be necessarily resilient in the first place, our brain has the capacity to “rewire itself,” which is essentially to learn resilience even though it never really had it. Very effective methods to do so are positive affirmations and mindfulness practices that everyone can practice at home.

Many people feel like mindful meditation is not for them. Even experts are not immune to that. “I would have nominated myself last year with the ‘person least likely to meditate’ award, but things have changed. I am an over analyzer,” Lynn told us.

“However, now I have set aside 15–20 minutes a day to just 'be.’ I have trained myself to sit in silence with an empty mind. It took a while as when you start to do this, you just think about everything you haven’t done that day (often described as your monkey mind!).”

After training to simply be, Lynn said she now can sit with an empty head with zero thoughts and she describes the experience as “very cathartic.” The positivity coach said that “If you don’t fancy the silence, there are thousands of guided meditations on YouTube,” but most importantly, assign some time to yourself.