Traveling abroad offers incredible opportunities—but it also comes with challenges. Resilient traveling skills help students navigate uncertainty, manage stress, and respond to difficult situations with confidence and clarity. These core strategies empower travelers to stay grounded, adapt with flexibility, and make the most of their global experiences.
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The skill of assertiveness is required for effective interpersonal relationships. It focuses on confidence in communicating personal needs and wants, while respecting needs and wants of others.
Assertiveness fosters awareness, connection, regulation and flexibility. It is important not only to be aware of our needs, but to be able to effectively communicate these needs while strengthening a relationship.
Step 1
Know what the specific problem is that you want to change. Know the specific outcomes you desire; do you want more or less of a behavior or action from others, and how do you feel when you do not get this.
Prepare to listen, really listen, mindfully to other person’s point of view. If we are not listening to them, they won’t be able to listen to us and old, ineffective communication patterns dominate the conversation.
Use concrete and specific requests, and use “I” statements to get your point across without provoking defensiveness. Assertiveness may seem easy; but stress, emotional upset and isolation can keep us from staying calm and in the moment.
You may want to practice what you will say before trying it out… for example “I feel hurt when you do not eat the meals I have prepared for our group, I would like to spend more time eating together, how do you feel about this?”
Also termed thought distancing, cognitive defusion focuses on recognizing thoughts and emotions as internal constructs that should be acknowledged, but should not be the basis for behavior.
Cognitive Defusion fosters awareness, regulation, and flexibility. It encourages the acceptance of thoughts as mental activity and challenging the errors present in our ways of thought which impact our emotions and behaviors.
Step 1
Sit in a comfortable position and either close your eyes or rest them gently on a fixed spot in the room. Bring your awareness to your breathing and use your breath as an anchor of focus.
Step 2
Bring your attention to your thoughts; what are you thinking about now, feeling? Visualize your thoughts in words and when you read them, remind yourself; “I’m having the thought that…” “I notice the feeling of…”
Step 3
Continue to notice, accept and acknowledge your thoughts and feelings; but remind yourself that they are not facts and they are not causal events.
Step 4
Imagine your thoughts as leaves floating down a stream, or clouds passing the sky.They are there, but they do have to change the setting around them; they also change from moment to moment.
Step 5
Simply because you’re feeling or thinking about something stressful, does not dictate your behaviors; just as one cloud does not change the whole sky; and one leaf does not change the stream’s direction
Step 6
Re-attune your focus to your deep breathing again. When these thoughts become less powerful ask yourself if they are helpful? Accurate? Are you filtering out another viewpoint? Predicting the future? Worrying about the worst case scenario?
Deep, or diaphragmatic, breathing is a skill that helps in soothing. It focuses on paying attention to the breath by breathing deeply into the belly, creating a balanced flow of air.
Deep breathing fosters regulation and self-soothing. It can be used as an in-the-moment coping strategy for distress, and can make the other skills more meaningful.
Begin by sitting in a comfortable, but alert position with eyes closed or on a fixed point in the room to minimize distraction. Now, taking a moment to notice any thoughts or sensations you may be having, and acknowledge them.
Bringing your attention to your breath; on your next in-breath; trace the air from the point on inhaling and visualize the air as it travels into your lungs, hold it for a moment, and on your out-breath visualizing the air leaving.
On your next in breath, slowly breathe into your diaphragm; [your abdomen and belly should become full with air]. Holding it for a moment, and the letting it go. Repeating this diaphragm breathing until you are not controlling, but noticing your breathing and using your breath as anchor should you get distracted by your thoughts.
Then expanding your attention to your body as whole; visualizing your whole body breathing with each in and out breath
To be mindful is to be fully engaged in the present moment. It involves intention, acceptance, non-judgment and gentle curiosity.
Mindful Attention fosters self-awareness, regulation and flexibility. Mindfulness means being fully present in the moment, with a curious, non-judgmental stance. There are many ways to practice mindfulness, this video provides a brief guide.
Get into a comfortable but alert position, begin to focus on your body and notice your breathing. Notice how effortlessly your lungs expand and empty themselves of air.
Now, bring your attention to your senses, particularly your sight and describe five things you can see around you. Try to avoid labeling or judging these things, but simply describe them in shapes, colors and distance.
Now notice four things you can hear, again not labeling or judging, or but describing. Continue to describe three things you can touch or feel; perhaps its your body in a chair, your hair or temperature of the room. Now think of two things you can smell, and finally one thing you can taste.
Reflection focuses on taking the big picture into account. To be reflective is to have a balanced perspective of the past and present, as well as thinking about opportunities for future change.
Reflection fosters optimism, flexibility and connectedness. Reflection allows for balanced thinking and the possibility to problem solve.
Holding in mind the thoughts and feelings that you may be struggling with; reflect upon both the positive and negative aspects of an event as well as the impact of your internal experiences of this event to help you gain perspective. What can learn from this experience?
What am I wanting to change? What are all my possible options? Is this a current problem, or a potential problem?
Can I implement any of these strategies and evaluate their effectiveness?
Values are guiding principles that each person has to choose for themselves. Values-based action requires an awareness of personal values as well as an intention to commit to those values, despite difficulties.
Values-based action fosters flexibility, awareness, regulation, connection and optimism. Instead of reacting to our own thoughts and feelings; it can be used with the other skills to help us respond in a way that is in accordance with our values.
When we take time to reflect, understand and defuse from distressing experience; we realize that we have a choice to how we can respond in accordance with our values. Your values are not goals to be attained, but guiding principles that help us ground our present experiences in chosen behaviors. It requires reflection and mindfulness.
What do want this experience to stand for, what do you want to stand for? How are my emotions telling me to react, what are my gut instincts? What’s getting in the way?
Am I willing to experience discomfort in service of my values? Can I defuse from these enough to choose to react in a values consistent way? How does I choose this way of responding? How can this choice change the trajectory?
