Letting Go Of Resistance

"What you resist, will persist." In this talk and guided practice, we explore the ways in which resistance contributes to unnecessary suffering. The more we resist, the more we harden and close ourselves off from experiencing ourselves as we are, and reality as it is. As we learn to soften and surrender to the flow of life and experience, we realize the truth of impermanence. In so doing, we become more present, whole, and human. This is a 20-minute talk followed by a 20 min guided meditation

Transcript

In the last class I talked a bit about the difference between necessary and unnecessary suffering.

And how almost all of our unnecessary suffering comes from resistance.

Resisting reality as it is,

Resisting the difficulties,

The pains,

The grieving that we have in life.

For today I thought I would talk a bit more about how we can work with letting go of resistance.

To settle into the flow of things as they are.

I'll start with a quote by John O'Donoghue,

The Irish poet.

I would love to live as a river flows,

Carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.

It's amazing in so many different traditions they use metaphors of water.

To talk about this concept of letting go of resistance,

Of entering the flow of life.

In Chinese medicine even the energetic acupuncture channels are often likened to rivers that flow within the earth of the body.

And it's when we have blockages in those channels,

Blockages in the flow of the river,

That we have greater tension in our body.

That we have greater disconnect between ourselves as we are and the world as it is.

It's when those blockages are removed,

When there's no longer that resistance within the natural flow of energy,

That we step into the natural state.

When we do so,

Not only do we experience ourselves as we are and reality as it is,

But we also heal on all levels,

Physically,

Emotionally,

Mentally,

Spiritually.

We become whole,

Fully integrated within and without.

When we have blockages in the channels,

When we have resistance to our experiences,

We have tension in the body.

And this is a static tension.

Because obviously at some level to stay together as physical beings there are various forms of dynamic tension that keep us together so our atoms don't simply float apart into the universe.

But when we have static tension,

It's an unchanging tension.

With dynamic tension,

It's a homeodynamic state where there's continually shifting balances of yin and yang,

Of the flow of fluids through the body,

Of cells being born and cells dying off.

All that happens within the context of dynamic tension.

Static tension is when things are frozen,

When things are not shifting.

And so that form of static tension creates tension that we usually associate with unwanted tension in the body.

Stiffness,

Pain,

Difficulty of movement.

In psychology,

Wilhelm Reich often referred to this as character armoring.

The various forms of posturing that we accumulate throughout our lives.

And there's no judgment in this.

We all have it.

You know,

Until we reach a point of being enlightened sages and are in a complete free flow with the universe at all times,

We all have different forms of character armoring.

Of tension that we hold,

Of how we posture,

Of how we resist certain experiences.

Most of our character armoring,

Most of the tension in the acupuncture channels,

Comes from our history.

From the experiences we've had that have been particularly difficult or traumatic.

The body,

However,

Has an innate capacity to heal.

We can experience some really difficult things and the body heals.

And often it's the mind and the stories we have associated with our experiences that keep us in that kind of defensive state that keep the character armoring going for long after the body is healed.

Most of the fallout from trauma that lasts beyond the initial incident and the initial healing of the body comes from these stories.

From our attachment.

From what we think our experiences say about ourself or about the world.

That the world is an unsafe place or that we are not good people.

And so,

Working with this awareness,

Becoming aware of the tension and working with it,

We can experience a lot of different things.

Is a way of letting go of the resistance to life.

Of embracing the ups and downs,

The joys and the sorrows.

Of allowing ourselves to step into the complexity of life.

To live more fully.

It helps us to move beyond fear.

To face our fears.

To move beyond them.

And to find the beauty that lies behind the fear.

Much of this resistance comes about because of the way we think our experiences are.

And we can experience it.

Much of this resistance comes about from the unknown.

The uncertainties in life.

And as I've talked about quite a bit in the past,

Many of us have a desire to control circumstances and the world.

It's a natural outcome of a certain facet of the mind,

Which we call the ego,

That wants things to be a certain way.

But it's that shell of the ego that is keeping reality at bay by trying to impose this abstract conceptual desire for reality to be a certain way.

Rather than relaxing into the vulnerability of life as it is.

And again,

This is not a black and white thing.

It's not either or.

It's not either on or off.

It's more of a spectrum.

From having very little resistance to having a lot of resistance.

Some of us,

At some points in our lives,

Can have so much resistance to the reality as it is that we're pouring an insane amount of energy into keeping reality at bay.

Not realizing how much stress that is putting on the body and how it's actually further disconnecting us from our true nature and from life.

It takes time to become aware of where we resist reality.

And even when we become aware of it,

It isn't as simple as just letting it go most of the time.

It takes time.

It takes dedication.

It takes practice.

And this is part of,

In my experience,

The purpose of sitting meditative practice.

You know,

When we take the time to sit,

It's allowing ourselves the space to become aware of where we might be resisting.

It's part of the reason why it's important to be aware of your posture and to find a stable solid base that allows you to let go of any unnecessary tension.

Because as we start to let go of the tension that we're aware of,

We start to become aware of other tension that maybe we weren't aware of.

And it's continually peeling off layers like an onion.

As I said,

Much of this tension,

Which could be termed character armoring,

Is related to stories that we have.

And it's these stories that create our sense of self-identity,

Much of which is based in dualistic conceptions.

Our likes and dislikes,

Our attachments and aversions,

Our values,

Our opinions.

I could be wrong about this,

But I think it was Mark Twain who once wrote something to the effect of most people are imprisoned by their opinions.

We can sometimes really like our opinions,

Because they give us a sense of what we're doing.

We can sometimes really like our opinions,

Because they give us a sense of thinking that we know how the world should be,

And that we know who we are and what we like and don't like.

And there's nothing wrong with having opinions.

It's natural.

But if we get overly attached to our opinions and we lose connection to the ability to see the complexity in life and the plurality,

And that it's okay for other people to have other opinions,

That there is no hegemony of perspective,

That there is no one right way that everybody has to be all the time.

If we lose sight of that,

Our opinions very quickly become our own prisons.

They prevent us from growing and changing.

We don't realize that our opinions can change over time.

Many of us do have our opinions change,

Whether they're political opinions or values or what we prioritize in our life,

What we think is important.

It changes.

And the more we allow ourselves to change,

That is working with letting go of the resistance,

Because we are all continually growing and changing.

And it's our resistance to allowing that natural process that creates so much unnecessary suffering for ourselves and often for others.

I've used the analogy of a sunset before and how part of the beauty of a sunset or sunrise is how every single moment it's continually changing.

The different colors that are in the sky,

The changing of the light,

Whether you're watching it over mountains or over the ocean,

Whether there's clouds in the sky or not and how the clouds are moving as the sun is setting or rising.

It's mesmerizing.

And that is what each of us are.

We are all a sunrise and a sunset.

And the more we allow ourselves to embrace that complexity of being,

To allow ourselves to change in each moment,

The more we desist our resistance,

We start to see that beauty within us and all around us in every moment.

And it was Carl Jung who wrote,

What you resist will not only persist,

But will grow in size.

And this is often simplified to what you resist will persist.

And that's the irony,

Right?

Is that we are often resisting because we don't want something.

And yet the more we resist,

The stronger it grows in our awareness and the more we keep having that same experience.

Because everything that we're resisting is actually a lesson for us.

It's a teaching from God or from the universe,

However you want to conceptualize it.

It's a pivot on our path of growth.

And so while it's often reduced to what you resist will persist,

It's important to also remember that second part of that.

It will grow in size.

So over time,

The more we resist something,

The more powerful it becomes.

And the stronger that lesson will come knocking on our door.

And it's one of the funny things in life too,

That often our fear of that which we're resisting is actually way worse than the thing itself when it actually happens.

I mentioned earlier about the concept of the river.

And that's one of the amazing teachings of water,

Is that water flows.

It moves.

It doesn't resist.

And yet by simply flowing,

It can carve canyons.

When we have a difficult experience,

It can be like a tree falling across the river and getting stuck in some boulders.

And the water continues to flow around it.

But over time,

If that tree isn't removed,

If we don't face that bit of resistance within us,

Over time,

More and more debris and branches and more tree trunks start piling up behind that original fallen tree.

And pretty soon it's a giant dam that's blocking the flow of the river of life within us.

You know,

There's a short quote I'd like to share,

A paragraph from Leon Seltzer,

Who's a PhD psychologist,

Who's talking about this process of resistance.

Investing energy in keeping from conscious awareness what has yet to be dealt with may help block the pain still inside you.

But though you may not actually feel it very much,

As many mind-body theorists have pointed out,

Various diseases and deteriorative physical conditions have been linked to what emotionally has never been released or discharged.

The pain you may have worked so hard to stifle,

But which nonetheless has quote unquote prevailed within you,

Will eventually make itself known physically in the form of symptoms you can no longer avoid.

And this is a really important point.

We can continue to put energy into resisting.

Reviews

Thank you. This was revealing and yet soothing at the same time.

My intuition always seems to direct me to the talk and meditation I need. Although I think I have excepted the changes in my life that have occurred the last few years. I realize there is still resistance as I often find myself looking for some way to return to what was. I will come back to this talk whenever I find myself in that space.
And I think I will go get a massage!
Thank you Thomas for your wisdom.

Thank you for this meditation practice. Specially the teaching of the spectrum of resistance vs no or all resistance. And the river of flow of awareness... thank you for the holdings to be seen felt softened healed to become whole.

your talks are perfect for this time right now in my life. grateful to have found them. i too believe that everything and everyone can be our teacher in this life. and when i look at it that way it keeps me out of victim mentality. i also want to say thank you for your responses to me reviews. they are deep, insightful and very encouraging. namaste 🙏

A wonderful meditation. I received a lot of insight during this meditation about areas of my life where there was resistance and where it was being stored in the body. I’ll be journaling about these and letting go. Thank you Tom. 😊🙏🏾

Oh wow 🤩! An absolutely must listen and practice!! I have few words- just feelings of flow, curiosity and allowing. My deepest thanks 🙏🏼 for this Thomas! One I will again return to often!! 💗🙏🏼💗

This guy is brilliant. He integrates his knowledge of Eastern medicine with common sense descriptions of our felt sense of self. I can’t get enough of his approach. I have made a playlist of his talks and revist it often.

This teaching is so very effective,🙏🏻

Resist not! Soften...........pivot, flow.

A thousand thank you's Thomas.

This drop ripples throuh the stream of my life, flowing into the river of my community, emptying into the ocean of humanity, evaportaing from the heat of the Divine Sun, cycling into the impermanence of enternal life.

Really enjoyed the flow from teaching to practicing. Very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you again Thomas! 🙏 Your analogy with the sunset/sunrise, ever changing like us is so beautiful 🌅🌄

I KNOW that I know this... So WHY do I keep "forgetting"?
My focus this year is "Surrender and Flow". And I feel like I'm doing such a good job of letting go of what no longer serves and releasing attachment and expectation, etc, etc... Until I realize that my "flowing" has turned into a trickle or even a stagnant puddle. And in trying to figure out why... I see all the "dams" that have been created as I tried to "go with the flow" yet avoid and go around all the boulders and trees that were "in the way". Struggling to find the balance between avoiding (resisting) the boulders and trees in the stream yet still surrendering to the flow...
To know if it's an experience that just needs to be accepted as part of my greater good or an obstacle that needs to be removed to avoid stalling my growth and evolution.
Thank you, again, for creating an opportunity for contemplation. 🙏🏼💖

🙏

Always terrific! This talk and meditation has come along in perfect timing for me. I’ve been doing a Yoga Teacher Training course, half way through, and feel I may becoming upon some resistance within. It is manifesting itself as physical within different areas.
This is the 2nd time I have done this meditation Thomas.🙌😎
I’m listening. Freeing. Letting go. Lots of layers!
Thankyou..🙏As always...
You are my “Guru!”...💙🧘‍♀️..As you know..😇

Wow how did I miss this one? 😌 Fabulous as always. Thank you, dear Thomas. 🙏💙

Wonderful class as I recover from surgery. May your break from classes here be restorative. Pls know you will be missed. Guru tatva......

Thank you for your perspective, knowledge, and care. I appreciate your suggestion to follow up with this teaching. Practicing my friend, practicing! Blessings & grateful for you!