How to Live a Resistance Free Life?

 

 

The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment...Eckhart Tolle

  

Once there was a revered spiritual master, people used to come to him to learn meditation. Once a lay student came to him and asked,” Master, please teach me how to meditate.” The master said,” Fine, go home sit down and close your eyes, but whatever you do don’t think of a monkey.”

The student thought,” Oh, this is too easy. I can do it.” He went home and sat down to meditate. The moment he sat to mediate, he remembered what the master had told him. “ Don’t think about a monkey.”

Sure enough, the moment he closed his eyes, he started thinking about the monkey. The more he resisted the more he thought about the monkey. His entire time during the mediation was spent resisting the thought of the monkey.

This story illustrates how our time is spent in resisting the thing we don’t want rather than what we want.

 

What Is Resistance?

The definition of resistance in electricity parlance:

Resistance is a measure of the opposition to current flow in an electrical circuit: Materials that present high resistance and restrict the flow of electrons.

 

If one has to use the same definition in our life then resistance can be defined as:

Measure of the opposition to natural flow of Being in our life! People who have high resistance restrict natural flow of Life Force in our body.

 

What Do We Resist?

Let us see what we resist-

-              we resist change

-              we resist pain, discomfort

-              we resist unpleasant circumstances

-              we resist love?

-              we resist good health!

-              making tough decisions

-              criticism or negative feedback

-              negative thoughts and feelings

-              we resist people who are better than us……

 

Why Do We Resist?

As a human being we are hard wired to seek pleasure and resist pain. Whenever, any person, task or event tries to push us out of our comfort zone we resist it.

 

Living a life with resistance is similar to driving a car with hand brakes on. It will surely move forward, but there will be lots of friction and if you don’t remove the hand brake it will result in damage to the car and may result in an accident.

 

Similarly, the individual who is full of resistance, will be dragged down by all the things the person is resisting, his growth will be restricted, will produce enormous amount of stress in him and can have dire consequences if it continues longer.

 

We do not feel resistance when we are partying or binge-watching television or any other activity which we enjoy doing.

 

We resist anything which makes us uncomfortable. This discomfort that we resist may not necessarily be bad for us. But it is uncomfortable because it moves us away from our “ Safety Zone”.  The zone which is familiar, known and accustomed to.

 

We all know how difficult it is to change a habit, although it will have profound impact on our life. But for that we have to move beyond our “Safety Zone”, where we have learnt to live despite how so ever wretched our life may be.

 

Our subconscious resists whatever it finds unfamiliar, against the perceived deep rooted behaviour patterns or values or the perceptions that have been formed due to our faulty thought pattern.

 

What Can We Do?

 

Life is meant to be like water, which flows freely taking the shape whatever medium it is in. In that there is no resistance. It accepts and adapts to all the circumstances it comes across; good -bad -ugly. Therefore, there is no resistance to changing circumstances.

 

To overcome resistance, be like water. Accept whatever life throws at you. When you accept, there is no resistance. When there is no resistance you can look at things objectively without being clouded with emotions.

 

Acceptance frees you from having to fight the situation. You are at peace with the situation you are in. You can now face the situation and make the best use of it under the given circumstances.

 

Awareness is the first step to transformation. Whenever you find yourself resisting yourself to something, be aware of it. When you become aware of your inner resistance then only you can work to overcome it.

 

Sometime we start resisting the feeling of resistance itself, which is worse. There is nothing wrong with having a feeling of resistance but it is wrong to be overwhelmed by it.

We all know What We Resist Persists!

So be like water……