Resistance, Acceptance & Effecting Change

One of the things I have been trying to do on an emotional level lately is to release resistance so I’m not always “fighting against” something. They said that what you resist persists and I have certainly found that to be true in my own life.

What is Resistance?

Emotionally speaking, resistance is not wanting something and more importantly, not accepting that it is there. We tend to resist against current circumstances, perhaps an illness that we are suffering, or somebody close to us is suffering. It might be not wanting to be in a particular job, not wanting to be in debt and so on. When we feel resistance it feels bad. The more I fight against something the worse I feel.

Acceptance and Change

The opposite is resistance is acceptance. Now there is a very subtle difference between acceptance and tolerance. Let’s say you are in an abusive relationship. The reality of the situation cannot be argued with so you resist it and you feel bad. However accepting the situation for what it is does not mean that you condone the behaviour of your partner or that you should tolerate it.

To tolerate something is to put up with it despite the negative emotion that lies underneath it. This does not feel good. There are many situations that we resist against that we have some power to change, though often this change would take time. If you are in an abusive relationship, in a career you hate, are recovering from some injury or surgery, there is some action that you can take to make a change to ease the situation for the future but that change will not happen overnight. What happens in the meantime?

That is where you can make the choice between resistance and acceptance. I’ve mentioned before that fighting against the current situation is futile because right now in this moment, what is, simply is and so to fight against it is pointless. The key to inner peace is to accept the current situation whilst doing whatever is within your power to make a change.

How to Release Resistance

I have certainly found myself increasingly able to release resistance and accept what is, but I’m not sure I can explain in words exactly how do to it but I’ll try :-) First of all, I would look at the situation and see what, if anything, could be done about it. I always like to start from a practical level. I would look at what I could do about a situation, plan out how I was going to do it and that in itself would make me feel better because at least I knew that I was doing whatever I could.

At that point, the rest was out of my hands. I’ve had many situations where I had very little control over the thing that was given me the resistance. For example, when I went through a relationship breakup, I had no control over what my partner did, or felt, or thought. There was nothing I could do about that. I could change my own behaviour but that is only one half of the equation in a relationship.

Once you get to the point where you have identified what you can do, if anything and figured out how and when you’re going to do that, there is nothing left but to accept the situation.

I found that the resistance usually manifested itself in one of two ways. It was either as that little ‘voice in the head’ that Eckhart Tolle talks about or it was simply a feeling - an emotion that would feel bad. The voice in the head used to be a big problem for me but I actually find this easier to deal with than just raw emotion because I can reason with it and if that fails I can quieten it.

Quietening The Voice in the Head

If you have a chatterbox in your head who drives you nuts going over and over the same stuff in your head then see if you can learn to quieten it down. I do this simply by concentrating on something else. You can concentrating on your breathing, or a background noise such as the traffic, a ticking clock, the hum of an electrical appliance and so on. If you practice this you’ll notice that the voice was quiet for a moment. It might just be a few seconds at first but its a start. I have been practicing this for several months and I have found that not only am I able to shut that voice up almost the instant it arises, but it simply doesn’t arise anywhere near as much any more.

Dealing With a Bad Feeling

Other times I don’t get the voice but just that feeling. This can feel like all sorts of different things - an eerie nagging feeling that something is not right, restlessness, frustration, or sometimes something much darker like a feeling of dread, fear or intense loneliness.

I used to just use distraction to try to get rid of the feeling - watching TV for example but I always found that to be short lived. It would temporarily cover up the emotion but it was still there waiting for me. My new approach is to try to look at the feeling. This is hard to describe. When I notice something I try to sense if I can feel it physically and usually I can. For example I have found that I feel loneliness in my chest, sadness in my throat, guilt in my stomach and stress tends to sit in my shoulders.

Once I can feel where in my body the feeling is, I just try to watch it and let it be. This is something else that is difficult to describe but I guess it is simply doing nothing - not trying to distract yourself, not trying to feel better by directing your thoughts, but simply sitting (or lying) quietly and watching the emotion for a while it can lessen a little. Over time, I have found that the feelings have lessened more and more.

Stumble it!