Resistance: The Hidden Drain on Our Energy, Part 2
Photo by Chris Boland on Unsplash
Taming the Fight With Reality
There is so much to say about our resistance to what is that I felt it deserved 2 segments.
Most of us don’t realize how much of our life energy goes into resisting rather than embracing and living the life we have until something stops us in our tracks and we realize all the precious moments we took for granted.
Here’s a logical question: If resistance is exhausting, why do we keep doing it?
Well one reason is because the mind believes resistance equals control and our survival brain LOVES control - even if it’s a false sense of control. Mindfulness practices on the other hand help guide us toward acceptance.
Maybe you are resisting that last bit right now in the form of “hell no, I won’t accept what’s going in my life right now! I’d be crazy to do so, you have no idea how bad it is!”
What Acceptance Really Means
It may be helpful to take acceptance apart beginning with what it does not mean. Acceptance is not approving of everything, giving up, resignation, becoming passive or tolerating harm.
Acceptance does mean acknowledging reality as it is before deciding what to do next. Without acceptance we tend to react. When we take a moment to allow and acceptance the moment as it is, we are more likely to find a skillful response for the situation at hand. Resistance has a defensive-fight quality, acceptance has an offensive-allow quality.
How to Get to Acceptance
A good starting point is to feel. This requires the mindfulness tool of awareness.
Notice what is here (emotion, situation, thought).
Allow the body to register it. Where am I feeling this? How does it feel? What message might it have for me?
Then, based on some of the body wisdom you’ve discovered, choose your next wise action.
Three Experiments With Letting Go of Resistance
1. Name the Argument
When you can feel yourself pushing against reality, ask: What am I arguing with right now?
Your answer may appear as:
This shouldn’t be happening.
They shouldn’t act this way.
I shouldn’t feel like this.
Just the act of seeing and naming the resistance softens it.
2. Drop Out of Your Head and Into Your Body
When you notice the mental gears on overdrive, pause, dropping out of your head and into your body:
feel the connection of your feet on the earth
sense the breath moving within you - chest, belly
with an inside lens know where your shoulders and hands are in space
if seated, feel the object of support beneath you
The body lives in the present. Resistance mostly lives in thought.
3. Allow Space
When you add your breath to a balloon the space within it expands. To some degree that’s what happens to us when we focus on our breath rather than all the resisting thoughts we’re thinking. Experiment with creating more space around the challenging situation. Breathe into yourself in the same way you would a balloon. Do you feel more spacious or more contracted as a result? And whatever you discover, be with that too. Why? Because it’s here.
The Result
When we stop resisting anything we invite flow to return. What happens when you crimp a hose when the faucet is on? Water backs up, pressure builds, tension increases and it may take more energy to keep the water from gushing. But when we let go and allow the natural flow returns and it is a relief, it is ease filled.
Our energy returns to flow, not because our circumstances have changed, but because we have let go of internal struggle and accepted what is here now.
A Mantra To Support Acceptance
Just this. Just here. Just as it is.
In-joy softening,
Debbie