I want you to imagine for a moment that I am standing in front of you with my hands raised, palms facing you. Now place your palms on my palms and resist me from pushing you. As you keep pushing and resisting, imagine that I am slowly stepping backwards. Every step backwards that I take, pulls you in the direction I want to take you in. Your resistance against my palms is forcing you to follow my lead.
This is exactly how resistance works in our life. IT controls us. We think it is the other way around, but freedom comes from acceptance not resistance. Resistance can take the form of resentments, avoidance, fear, defiance, reluctance, stubbornness and more. Take a look for yourself. What else do you see as forms of resistance in yourself?
Pick any one of these and do a quick exploration. When you avoid (resist) having that conversation what ends up happening? You think about it a lot. You might decide not to go to an event where the person is likely to be. You might talk about the fact that you are not having that conversation with other people in your life. It might keep you up at night worrying. Can you see how much the resistance is actually controlling YOU? It takes a lot to keep pushing back - and it alters your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. So, who is controlling who here? Resistance saps us of our energy and ties up far too many of our faculties.
Our mind can, and often does, play tricks on us. We mistakenly think that mastery comes from control and being able to resist and prevent all the things we don’t want. But the truth is that the more we resist something, the more present it becomes in our space. Letting things be is really the only way to experience the freedom of choice to decide the right course of action for yourself. The effort of no effort is most often the hardest thing for us to endeavor.
You’ll notice that we aren’t leaving you with quick fix tools to address resistance in your life. And that’s because there are none. Resisting is the action. Not resisting is simply stopping doing what you are doing to resist. So the most helpful piece of advice is simply to say, "hey, stop pushing against my palms, then you can go anywhere you want."
To seeing clearly
