Meditation is one of the best ways to cultivate our capacity for resilience. Throughout history we have seen examples of extraordinary people who, through daily meditation, were able to show great resilience when faced with life’s most enormous and unimaginable challenges. In this meditation, we hold two of these examples in our awareness. Nelson Mandela and Viktor Frankl. These two people offer an inspirational reminder of the capacity for resilience that lies within all of us.

This meditation invites you to build resilience not by avoiding discomfort, but by gently turning toward your present experience. As you connect with your body and breath, you’ll practice meeting sensations and emotions with openness, allowing space for what is here to be felt and processed.

A 15-minute practice to connect with your inner strength through breath, reflection, and compassion — inviting resilience not as toughness, but as gentle presence

Exploring Resilience from the perspective of the Cree people, native to North America, who see resilience as a lifelong process of adjusting to the bigger forces of life.

In this meditation practice we will look at resilience from two perspectives. While we all find life challenging at times, it is how best to respond can be the dilemma. The first perspective may be to seek support or advise from a friend. We gather our strength to take action of some kind, put a boundary in place or perhaps say no. The second perspective may be to take space for ourselves, be quiet and reflect. To withdraw for a while, rest, spend time in nature so as to resource ourselves. So, as we practice together, let’s be curious to see what we need and what might serve us best. Listen deeply to your heart and see what unfolds naturally.

Simone is sharing her take on resilience by sharing an example from her own life. She is guiding us today through a wonderful sound meditation.

One of the greatest gift’s we receive from Meditation is an Inner Trust Fund – a belief that we have the tools to meet life’s challenges as they arise and the confidence that allows us to say, ‘No matter what life presents me, I can work with it’. Mindfulness and Compassion are the building blocks of our trust fund, giving us an awareness of what we are experiencing and an ability to hold ourselves in loving arms. This is the heart of compassion and a firm bedrock for resilience. Today’s meditation is one of my favourite compassion practices and my go to whenever I find life challenging. It is an Imagery practice that allows you to let your imagination roam free as you imagine a place that you feel safe and contented in. This may be your favourite beach or forest, your cosy armchair at home, a beloved spot in your garden and may even be a place that emerges entirely from your imagination. The place will evoke a feeling of peace and ease and give you a sense of being at home and welcome. A place to drop all cares and worries and emerge strengthened and nourished. If you struggle with imagery practices, don’t worry. The key to this practice is to connect with a feeling of safety. You may experience more of a feeling than actual images and that’s fine. There’s no right way or wrong way! “This magnificent refuge is inside you. Enter. Shatter the darkness that shrouds the doorway. Be bold. Be humble. Put away the incense and forget the incantations they taught you. Ask no permission from the authorities. Close your eyes and follow your breath to the still place that leads to the invisible path that leads you home”. Theresa of Avila

This Meditation comes from the traditions of Earth-based Celtic Spirituality that our ancestors would have known. We honour the four cardinal directions starting in the North, Winter time and the Celtic New Year at Samhain as our foremothers and fathers believed that the day began at dusk, the gloaming. Just like the seed germinating through the cold months and the baby swimming in a cosy womb before birth. Each of the directions has a deity that is a guide and guardian. Most familiar is Brigid, Celtic Goddess and Matron Saint of Ireland, at Springtime. Then we honour Mother Earth and Father Sky and Spirit/God/Goddess at the sacred centre. The theme is resilience and how this Meditation can help gift us strength and empowerment as we forge through whatever life brings our way.

When we are going through tough times, challenging and powerful feelings and emotions often come up and often they can overwhelm us. We can jump straight into thinking ‘ I want this emotion to leave’ ‘I’m not able to experience this emotion’. We can easily reach a point of doubting our capacity to tolerate and be present with these emotions. I believe resilience is grounded in trusting our ability to truly acknowledge our difficult experiences and to mindfully abide by our internal reactions to these experiences. We won’t always be able to do this but the more we can do this, the more our confidence will build in being open to new experiences and challenges.

Jane guides a meditation exploring resilience through connecting with the natural world and its remarkable capacity to continue facilitating life

Cacao Meditation for Resilience In this gentle guided meditation, we connect with the heart-opening energy of cacao while exploring the five senses as gateways into the present moment. By deepening our awareness of taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell, we strengthen our ability to return to presence and cultivate inner peace. This practice invites resilience to naturally arise—grounding us, softening the mind, and reconnecting us with a calm, steady center.

Susan guides a lovely practice opening us up to softness, tending and befriending.

The Golden Buddha, is a lovely metaphor for how so many of of us protect yourselves in this world Today. we lay layers of protection and we forget our true essence are true being our true golden buddha hearts. we live from this contracted state of existence where we rush through our day picking ourselves up and dusting ourselves off, but true resilience is more then picking ourselves up,it’s learning to flourish in the face of adversity and finding a way to flourish in this fast paced world. A mindful breath can bring us back home to our bodies and remember that we have good compassionate hearts, our golden hearts. Remembering what makes us happy in life the small blessings the joyful moments in our day remembering that we like to laugh dance, sing and if we can remember to notice our joyful moments we can learn to flourish, we can learn to grow our loving kind hearts we can learn that those we meet in our day they too have golden hearts beneath their layers of protection, and if we can greet them with our kind hearts it will help them to break free their golden hearts, imagine if we could all live from this place of seeing the good others and seeing the good and our hearts. I hope you enjoy this golden buddha meditation

Tony guiding a practice on resilience which he sees as inextricably linked to connection.

Deirdre guiding a practice inspired by Jeff Foster's poem 'Listening from Silence'.

“The more I’m able to affirm others, to say ‘yes’ to them in myself, by discovering them in myself and myself in them, the more real I am. “Thomas Merton” Resilience - a Giving and a Receiving

Difficult times can unsettle the mind, often leading to overthinking. We may find ourselves replaying and dwelling on past situations or worrying about possible futures, which can bring feelings of overwhelm, worry, and unease. Mindfulness offers a way to gently rest and settle the busy mind. In this practice, we will explore how to light the lamp of mindfulness in the present moment. By turning our attention inward, we invite the mind to rest here and now, shining the light of awareness on the breath, noticing sensations in the body, and softening into a peaceful smile to center and ground ourselves.

This is an extremely accessible, heavily guided meditation. With both explanation and restoration, Moons will guide you home to your resilience bolstering - inner sanctuary.

This meditation invites us to find resilience in the present moment.

Ruairí explores resilience by inviting us to connect with something bigger.

In a world that often teaches us to be strong and tough it is important to remind ourselves that softness and self-compassion are also tools that can allow us to become more resilient. This meditation allows time to slow down, connect with our inner world, and encourages us to be soft, even if only for a few moments. This meditation will be guided through gratitude, self-compassion and awareness of the breath. Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong. ― Lao Tzu I hope you enjoy this practice and feel grateful to yourself for showing up today.

In this meditation, we will explore the theme of resilience through an oceanic, tidal lens. Breathing in and out with the rhythm of the waves, we journey together to remember our natural ability to find balance and strength in the duality of our being amongst the elements. We remember that, no matter how heavy life may feel at times or what challenges may arise to try knock us down - we always have the power to learn to float and re-float, through the uncertain waters depth

When we go through challenges, hardships, the nervous system often shifts into a state of survival. In that state, it’s common to feel disconnected from ourselves, from others, and from the present moment. This practice I am going to share with you today can help to reset the nervous system by promoting relaxation, increasing body awareness, and offering a sense of safety back in the present moment. I hope you enjoy it.

Brother Richard guides a practice of accessing resilience through the transcendent love of the divine

Pendulation is an act of oscillating between the challenge vortex and healing vortex. We move between the hope/connection/acceptance/love that is our anchor and the hurt/struggle/challenge/a belief we hold about ourselves. We allow our awareness to move between the two so that we don’t get stuck in contraction but we slowly increase our capacity to hold the unpleasant sensations, emotions. This practice is an invitation to explore how it might be to bring contradicting experiences together. “If we can stay with the tension of opposites long enough - sustain it, be true to it- we can sometimes become vessels within which the divine opposites come together and give birth to a new reality.” - Marie Louise von Franz

This meditation focuses on some of our inner strengths, based on the Character Strengths of Positive Psychology (Seligman & Peterson). By focusing on our strengths, we can remind ourselves to draw on them any time we are facing challenges or difficulties. We can remember that everything we need is already inside us, waiting to be nurtured and brought forward to help ourselves and others.

This is a short practice for cultivating resilience through self compassion.

Mary guides a meditation on the importance of being on our own side.

Embodying Compassion This meditation invites you to acknowledge whatever is happening for you now and to just allow it to be as it is. You are then guided to bring a sense of curiosity and a friendly awareness to your experience of body mind and heart. Having grounded yourself in awareness of the body you are guided in embodying compassion for yourself.

All life forms on planet Earth have shown ferocious resilience in the face of unthinkable pain and suffering. This guided meditation offers a chance to remind ourselves of how we might "be" in the midst of difficulties, big crises, and small inconveniences

In today's session we will consider some different aspects of resilience: How we can grow, sustain and use many different kinds of resilience. We will reflect on the ways in which physical, mental and spiritual kinds of resilience relate and build upon each other. And we will in an intuitive, meditative way connect to the centre of our own resilience and power, in the centre of our physical bodies.