Resilience is the ability to respond creatively to stressful, pressure packed, anxiety-producing situations. A resilient person rather than be deformed or destroyed is able to engage those conditions in healthy, redemptive ways which brings about wholeness. We can respond to situations two ways: fight or flight. Fight is equal to attacking and flight is withdrawal: mental, physical and emotional. The article references St. Paul from Scripture. Paul gives us a third way to handle life disrupting situations: “In nothing be anxious, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:6-7)
– Just pull yourself into a spiritual “cocoon” and let God protect you from the adversity. It’s a mode to be in to engage all aspects of life. We don’t need a certain set of tools to use because there is a deeper reality out of which all of life can be lived. React to others spontaneously and joyously from this inward center.
– The following are the rhythms which St. Paul uses and suggests that we use them too. 1. Rhythm of Prayer, Supplication, Thanksgiving, Requesting (making yourself available to others), and Centeredness in God. The rhythms of life are to point us and nurture us in centeredness of God, in the context of God’s shalom – in which all human wholeness is experienced. They are not a method but a mode of being in God.
What spiritual practices or rhythms help anchor your being in God or your higher power? What makes you resilient?

This thought and resource is from a magazine called Weavings: A journal of the Christian Spiritual Life, Volume XXVIII, Number 2, “Resilience” (pgs. 31-14)