So good morning and welcome.
Find and take our seat.
I thought today we might do a practice around resistance.
Maybe we'll begin with a body practice.
I'm sure you've done this many times before.
But since we're playing with the relationship between resistance and acceptance.
Can do that with the body first.
So let's start by taking our hands and making little fists and just screwing them up into a really tight ball and see how much tension you can bring in.
To your hands and we'll squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and then release.
And let go.
And then we'll do the same,
Maybe with the shoulders,
Take them up around the ears.
Squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and then let go.
And then we'll do the same with the feet,
So maybe curling in the toes.
Pressing the feet into the floor,
We'll squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze.
See how much tension you can bring in and then let go.
And then let's see if we can do it to the whole of the arms,
So you might curl your arms.
Squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze.
And then let go.
And then maybe doing the same into your legs.
I don't know how I'm going to get into your legs,
But.
.
.
See if you can feel into squeezing the thigh muscles,
Squeezing the calf muscles,
Feeling the gluteus maxius squeezing,
Squeezing,
Squeezing,
Squeezing and then let go.
And then we'll do the same with our tummies.
Maybe just pulling the tummy in and squeezing and squeezing and squeezing and squeezing.
And then.
.
.
Letting go.
Then we'll do the whole of the body at once.
We haven't done the face,
So let's do the whole of the body at once and also the face.
Squeeze the face up.
Squeeze the body up,
The palms,
The fingers,
The feet.
Buttocks everything squeezing we'll just keep going and holding all that tension holding all that tension holding all that tension and then Let go.
And just be with that for a moment in the letting go.
So we haven't gone anywhere,
We haven't really done anything,
We're sitting in the same place as we were,
But one experience was contracted and tense and painful and uncomfortable.
And then hopefully the other experience brought more comfort,
More ease,
More space.
I'm really aware in my life at the moment there's things I'm resisting that I am bringing contraction to.
And so you get this double layer situation where there's the thing you don't want to do because you're resisting it.
And then you're adding the pain of the resistance,
Which is making it maybe five times worse.
Called the double arrow.
The pain of the first arrow is doing the thing you don't want to do.
The pain of the second arrow is all the self-generated resistance to that thing.
We're focusing on resistance but it could just as well be clinging,
Clinging to the thing that you do want that's not here.
Similar kind of felt sense.
To equanimity.
Is different.
Equanimity is different.
Finding yourself in the place you don't want to be or noticing and longing.
For the thing that you do want,
But not adding that second arrow.
Just witnessing.
Doing the thing.
It's far from passive.
It's a choice.
A choice that's not always so easy.
You access.
Just noticing how your body feels after that exercise in tensing and letting go.
Still sitting in the same place,
But feeling different.
I invite you to consider an area of resistance that's alive for you.
The thing that you don't want.
You don't want to feel,
You don't want to do.
You don't want to experience person you don't want to be with.
The emotion you don't want to feel.
The job you don't want to go to.
Whatever it is.
That's alive for you.
That spring rain practice.
So we start by recognizing.
Recognizing where the difficulty is for you right now.
Invite it to be here in its fullness.
Just for a moment.
Let it be here.
Instead of pushing it down or up.
Pressing it across to one side or looking elsewhere,
Distracting.
Let's see what it's like to just be with it.
Difficulty.
Let it be here.
You might find that almost like an experience of Russian dolls,
You start with one thing and then you realize,
Ah,
What's underneath that is.
I don't want to see that person because it makes me feel.
.
.
I don't want to go to that job because it makes me feel I don't want to feel that emotion because beneath it is.
The thing that we resist can be so multi-layered.
As we drop deeper.
Into recognizing.
And whatever it is that you're with.
Perhaps there's something that feels like a nub of the resistance.
Cool.
Can you turn toward it and say yes?
You belong.
Can you welcome it like a guest?
Offer it a seat at the table.
Invite it to join you for some wine and some food.
Let it know that it is most welcome.
Turning toward and saying yes can be difficult.
So you can always Say yes to the difficulty.
The difficulty itself is a resistance.
How is it for you?
To say yes.
To the resistance.
Then we come to the inquiry of brain.
Where we get to have conversation with the feeling.
Is feeling that we have welcomed.
Perhaps we can give it a shape.
Or a color.
Or a texture.
Perhaps we can ask it,
What is it that you want?
Help me understand.
What is it that you want?
Perhaps another.
A question you could ask is,
What is it that you need?
This feeling,
This emotion that you are resisting,
What is it that it needs?
Can we allow this feeling of resistance to feel safe enough,
To feel welcome enough?
To share with you what it is it needs.
And are you able to meet that part?
With kindness and love.
And compassion.
The knowledge that you've heard.
You understand.
And you're here.
And then letting the practice go and just being with what's here for you.
Sometimes we find insight.
Sometimes it's tender.
Perhaps we notice that our hearts engaged.
Perhaps it's none of those things.
Allowing and acceptance.
Anything but passive.
Feeling your feet on the floor and your seat.
Coming back to your surroundings,
Maybe tuning into the sounds of your space.
In your breath.
With immense kindness.
Towards your process.
We offer the fruits of our practice to ourselves.
To one another.
And to all beings.
Thank you so much sharing your practice.
Namaste.
