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" In 2006, De&amp;#039;shazior Hill&amp;#039;s marriage came to an end after more than 20 years. Two years later, the 47-year-old, of Jonesboro, Georgia, is pursuing her PhD, has a fulfilling job helping other women and children get an education, and says she&amp;#039;s more content than she&amp;#039;s ever been.   You&amp;#039;d think that people like De&amp;#039;Shazior who suffer a major setback\u2014whether it&amp;#039;s going through a divorce, getting laid off from a job, or being diagnosed with cancer\u2014would spiral into a depression that lasts for months, even years. Instead, she remained optimistic even through the worst times. &amp;quot;I had been smothering myself to save my marriage. When it ended, I had a lot of fears, but I also had faith that I was doing the right thing,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;In the end, I know that I&amp;#039;ll have my degree, I&amp;#039;ll be helping women and children reach their own goals, and I&amp;#039;ll be providing a good example for my daughter.&amp;quot;   Psychologists say that an attitude like De&amp;#039;Shazior&amp;#039;s demonstrates a skill\u2014yes, a skill\u2014known as resilience. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a myth that you&amp;#039;re either born resilient or you&amp;#039;re not. Resilience can be learned or enhanced,&amp;quot; says Karen Reivich, PhD, of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Resilience Factor: 7 Keys to Finding Your Inner Strength and Overcoming Life&amp;#039;s Hurdles.   So how can you build up your ability to bounce back? We asked real women and experts for strategies that work.   Phone A Friend &amp;quot;Men tend to be better at distracting themselves after a loss, but women recover from bereavement faster because they have more close friends that they can rely on,&amp;quot; says Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, and author of The How of Happiness. When Michele Wetherald, 54, of Washington, DC, found herself unemployed after years as a CEO, instead of bottling up her feelings and fears, she created her own mini\u2013support group. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m one of several women in my area who are looking for a job, and we&amp;#039;ve started a group called SWAN, which stands for Smart Women Are Networking,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;We get together once a month, provide encouragement and remind each other of our strengths.&amp;quot;   Forget The What-Ifs &amp;quot;Your mind can be like a snowball\u2014every bad thought leads to another one (&amp;#039;and then this is going to happen, and then this, and then this&amp;#039;),&amp;quot; says Dr. Reivich. &amp;quot;That just makes you feel more pessimistic and less in control.&amp;quot; Instead, put what&amp;#039;s bothering you in perspective with this three-step technique. 1) Divide a piece of paper into three columns. Label the first column &amp;quot;worst case,&amp;quot; and write down all of those things that are in your head. Play out the whole scenario until you get to the absolute worst thing that you can come up with, which will probably sound a little bit silly and unrealistic. 2) In the third column, write &amp;quot;best case&amp;quot; and ask yourself to generate equally unlikely outcomes. 3) Label the second column &amp;quot;most likely&amp;quot; and think about what, realistically, you need to confront and how you will deal with it.   Focus Forward Ask yourself depressing questions, you&amp;#039;ll get depressing answers, says Karen Salmansohn, author of The Bounce Back Book: How to Thrive in the Face of Adversity, Setbacks, and Losses. &amp;quot;Nothing positive comes out of &amp;#039;Why me?&amp;#039; Instead, ask yourself, &amp;#039;How can I move forward?&amp;#039; or &amp;#039;Why am I a better person for this?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Think of yourself as a student of life instead of a victim of it.&amp;quot;   When Jamie Weiss, 51, of Atlanta, found herself literally a million dollars in debt after her husband mismanaged the family&amp;#039;s finances, she was actually able to learn some valuable lessons about her priorities. &amp;quot;I used to be a workaholic, but after going through this I came to realize that money is not everything, because it can be gone in a second,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;This horrible time showed me that life should be about family, loved ones, things you&amp;#039;re passionate about\u2014not just your job and the material things it can bring.&amp;quot;   Melt &amp;quot;Icebergs&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Icebergs are those undermining, beneath-the-surface thoughts and beliefs that get passed down from our parents or grandparents like an ugly lamp: &amp;#039;Girls don&amp;#039;t get angry&amp;#039; or &amp;#039;Good people don&amp;#039;t get divorced&amp;#039; or &amp;#039;Getting fired means you&amp;#039;re a failure,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; says Salmansohn. It&amp;#039;s tough, but you have to redefine your perceptions of what&amp;#039;s acceptable and what&amp;#039;s not.   &amp;quot;The way to do that is to use your rational, adult thinking to dispute them, just the way you did some of your other childhood beliefs, like when you realized there wasn&amp;#039;t actually a monster living inside your closet,&amp;quot; she says. Your icebergs won&amp;#039;t melt overnight, but with time, you can wear them down. Salmansohn recommends thinking about your icebergs, writing them down, and then next to each, writing a &amp;quot;proof of inaccuracy.&amp;quot;   Know It Won&amp;#039;t Last Studies show that when you ask people to think about how they&amp;#039;ll feel after something bad happens (like getting a positive test result for a serious disease), they tend to believe that they&amp;#039;ll be much more devastated than they actually turn out to be. &amp;quot;When my husband and I first split up, the thing I dreaded the most was losing my home,&amp;quot; says De&amp;#039;Shazior. &amp;quot;I thought I&amp;#039;d be on the streets. I did end up going through foreclosure, but I got through it. Now I have a lovely home with a porch, and I sit there every morning. It&amp;#039;s funny how my biggest worry ended up turning out so well.&amp;quot;   Lend A Hand When life hands you lemons, make lemonade for the neighbors. Doing something positive for others helps you stop obsessing, because you&amp;#039;re tuning into someone else&amp;#039;s needs\u2014and you also get a self-esteem boost in the bargain. &amp;quot;People who do acts of kindness feel more generous, they see that other people appreciate them, and they get happier over time,&amp;quot; says Dr. Lyubomirsky.   When Alice Yaker, 67, of New York City, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1990, she got much-needed support from SHARE, a group for women with breast and ovarian cancer (sharecancersupport.org). After her first surgery, Alice decided to get involved herself and eventually became the group&amp;#039;s executive director. &amp;quot;To be able to say Something terrible happened to me, but I&amp;#039;m going to use this to help others was very powerful,&amp;quot; she says.   Regain Control &amp;quot;Anxiety is what we feel when we believe two things: that something bad is about to happen and that we don&amp;#039;t have the ability to cope with it,&amp;quot; says Dr. Reivich. To calm those pit-of-the-stomach feelings, focus on the things within your control. &amp;quot;When you take purposeful action (even if it&amp;#039;s cleaning out your closet!), it lowers your anxiety level and puts you in a place mentally where you can take on bigger hurdles,&amp;quot; she says.   Four years ago, Mary Miller was shocked when her company &amp;quot;restructured&amp;quot; her out of her job as an accounting manager at age 45. &amp;quot;At first, I kept thinking: What did I do wrong? Am I really no good at my job?&amp;quot; says the Winter Park, Florida, resident. &amp;quot;Finally, my husband reminded me how much I&amp;#039;d always loved art, and suggested I start creating it again.&amp;quot; She did, and soon people wanted to buy her pieces: watercolors, beaded jewelry, etched glass. Today, Mary is considering going back to work in her previous field, though she doesn&amp;#039;t plan on giving up her art career. &amp;quot;It makes me feel productive when I spend all day working in my craft room,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t want to lose that.&amp;quot;   Face Your Fears Studies show that in the long run, you&amp;#039;re more likely to regret not doing something than actually taking action. In fact, a 2005 European study of more than 20,000 men and women found that those most willing to take a risk were most satisfied with their lives. And yet after a setback, it&amp;#039;s easy to get stuck in a rut of inertia\u2014being afraid to date after a divorce, or to go for a big new job after a layoff. &amp;quot;When you&amp;#039;re in the throes of a traumatic event, you tend to get a lot of support, but when that falls away, you can get even more depressed,&amp;quot; says Dr. Lyubomirsky. &amp;quot;Not being afraid to move forward can help propel you to that next, happier stage of your life.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/real-women/a3253/bounce-back-from-anything-27150/>