The end of a road

It’s time to stop living in fear! I’ve been telling myself this for a long time. And yet I keep coming back to fearful thoughts. Why? Because I seem to keep forgetting that every time I feel really close to God, I get nothing but assurance that I’m loved and that everything is okay.

At the same time, I feel that spirituality is a serious matter. And this, I believe, is where a problem arises. Because if everything is okay, what does it matter what choices I make? One possible answer would be that how much we manage to soil ourselves, might determine what methods God has to use to clean us. I don’t believe that God ever would judge or punish us. But just like any good parent, God might not allow any type of behavior from his children. And the only way to affect permanent, authentic change, is to make the children see the errors of their ways. Not just force obedience upon them. And this might entail allowing the children to experience the consequences of their actions, even if they are painful. But for there to be any meaning to this, the consequences have to be finite and match the intents behind the actions. Otherwise the consequences would just be cruel, senseless suffering. 

Why would a loving God inflict that on anyone? Maybe it's time to start thinking eternal damnation out of existence? Knowing what I know about God's love, I will at least do my best to banish all such fears. And in general do my best to live from a place of love and not fear. Of course there will be mistakes along the way. And that is okay too. I know that I'm not evil. And I don't think that anyone really is. Different degrees of broken, sure. But not evil.

I believe that from where we stand now, the best approach to life is to observe and allow as much as possible. Not in the sense that we should just passively do nothing. On the contrary, I believe in taking action. But I believe in doing so from a higher place and not from our egos. I’ve noticed that when I’m present in the moment, I can allow things to just happen through me rather than struggling with them. And I believe that this is important. There is no value in banging one’s head against the wall trying to prove that we are worthy because of our amazing accomplishments or intellectual acrobatics. The wonderful thing is rather that the more we stop trying to be someone, we can allow God to work through us. He does all the smart stuff, but we still get to add our personal touch to it.

We don’t need to force things. We however need to make some room for God. And this means that we have some cleaning to do on the inside. And don’t get me wrong here. This is not about changing ourselves into something other than who we are. This is just about letting to of all the things that we are not. And I don’t think that this has to be hard. We are just making it hard, because there are so many things that we have attached importance to, that are not really important at all.

What is resistance?

A while back I talked about the inner resistance. How we tense up inside and try to block whatever is going on in the present moment. This is part of a bigger pattern of living in a state of resistance towards what is. 

Let me give you an example from just this morning. I wanted to get up one hour earlier than my wife. But I didn’t want to disturb her sleep more than necessary. We have a very small bedroom with no given place to put our clothes. And in the darkness I couldn’t find the clothes. I knew that the more time I spent looking for my clothes, the more I would disturb her sleep. So I quickly started to feel stressed. And with the stress, frustration started building. 

I of course found my clothes, after having made sure that there was no way my wife would be able to go back to sleep. And I got dressed with negative emotions lingering in my body.

The point is that that my irritation and frustration over something very trivial did nothing to help the situation. On the contrary, it made me stop thinking about what I was doing, which most certainly prolonged the situation. 

And yet, we have trained ourselves to respond to situations that we perceive as negative in this way. This is resistance. According to Eckhart Tolle, behind all of this is the ego’s unconscious and erroneous belief that we can change our circumstances by making them “wrong”.

We cannot help that we have negative emotions. But we can help how we respond to them. Every time that we get frustrated, blame, criticize etcetera, we are resisting. These are a few examples to help explaining what this is about. But really, every time we make a situation “wrong” in our thoughts and attitudes towards it, we are resisting. And the paradoxical is that there is no point resisting the resistance. As with so many things, the only thing we can do about it is bringing awareness to it, while reminding ourselves that the resistance does nothing to help the situation.

We sometimes think that resistance is valid. The thought may be something like this: I want this, so I’m going to make someone or something bend to my will. But how often has this led to the desired result? On the other hand, when we stay calm and instead put focus on what we can do, while not expecting anything in particular from the world, we start taking our power back. 

What is INNER RESISTANCE and what can you do about it?

Most of us, including myself, carry around an inner resistance. You can feel this as a tightening of the muscles in your body and in your head. As a tightening of the facial muscles. This is because we unconsciously want to block the energy of the present moment. Above all, we resist our emotions and therefore we hold on to them instead. Often they turn into the aforementioned tensions in the body.

I know that this sounds like some vague nonsense. But it’s not. It’s a real phenomenon that I am trying to put into words as best I can. My wording may be lacking however. In fact, my wording is most certainly lacking. But believe me, this is real. You can feel this resistance in every given moment. And when you feel the resistance and bring your attention back to the present moment without holding on to it, you can feel a relief in your head and your entire body. 

You can feel this inner resistance as if something is blocked in the middle of your head and in different areas of your body. If you train yourself in being present in the body, you will feel it more and more. The less you are in contact with your body, the more likely you are to feel this resistance. Believe me. I’ve been terribly out of touch with my body for most of my life and I have literally thousands of tense nerves due to suppressed emotions. But I’ve also managed to release thousands. 

Once you start noticing this, it might seem like a daunting task at first. But every time you release a tense nerve, you will feel a little better. Your body will feel a little better. Just try and be present in the moment as often as you can. Start feeling your body and what goes on inside of it. Try and meet every emotion that comes up with acceptance. Try to feel how it feels in the body, while staying present in the moment. Observe your thoughts, as they bring you out of the present moment and out of your body. Bring your attention back to the present moment and the body when they do. You can also focus on your breath to come back to the present moment.

You can do this anywhere and any time, but you will forget it. And you will feel an unfounded resistance, even though this literally requires no effort. But with time you will train your memory and remember it more often. And you will experience a sense of relief. As if a burden that you didn’t know that you’ve been carrying around is becoming lighter and lighter. Attention and present moment awareness are key here.

ACCEPTANCE and RELEASE

I had an amazing experience this morning. I woke up, feeling some anxiety in my chest. In the rest of my body. Apart from the chest, it was mostly in my legs. But I didn’t feel any impulse to do something about it. I felt no impulse to resist it. At the same time, I could really feel my body. Really feel at home in it. My face muscles felt tense in several places. But I didn’t feel any impulse to do anything about it either.

So I just laid there and felt energies and sensations in my body. After a while, those muscle tensions that I just accepted started to relax by themselves. The anxiety was gradually replaced by a comfortable calm. Just by laying there on my back, accepting everything in the present moment and resisting nothing. 

Thoughts came and went away. The anxiety in my chest did the same. I remember thinking something like: Negative thoughts almost never have anything to do with reality. They are just words that we attach to emotional states. I didn’t think it in this exact wording. This was the spirit of what I was thinking. But as I laid there and just allowed the thoughts to pass through my head, my thoughts were not as precise as when I’m not typing them on my keyboard. 

After a while, I felt the impulse to get up. So I did, even though I still had some tension left in my body. Because I knew that if I they didn’t get released now, they still would do so later. The tensions that I’ve struggled with for years don’t matter anymore. As long as I just accept them unconditionally, they will disappear by themselves.

After having had this experience, I’m thoroughly convinced that this is the big shift that we all have to go through. The realization that everything is okay. That we don’t have to do anything about anything. We might feel that we want to do something. But we don’t ever have to force anything. And oftentimes it’s better to just let things be and they will resolve themselves. 

There is probably a lot more that I can say about this. But I’ll just let it be for now…

Non-resistance

Every time that we bring awareness to the present moment and what is going on in it things change. This is a choice that we can make in every moment. And when we choose awareness, life starts to open up to us and we become less prone to get caught up in thoughts and emotions.

I have noticed that in every given moment, we can choose our mindset. Most of us, myself included, have learned to resist and/or force things depending on what situation it is that we are facing. We try to force and control. Sometimes we do have some power to control the situation and sometimes we don’t. But we always want something other than what is. 

It takes some time to notice this and how it functions. But the more we observe ourselves, the more we will start to see all kinds of things that were previously hidden to us. 

There are several signs that we have gone into resistance. We start to get angry and frustrated. We sigh. Thoughts of the type Why can’t it just…? enter our heads. Our actions start to feel compulsive instead of like real choices. If we speak to someone else, we can easily detect how our voice changes. How it becomes more sharp and a complaining tone comes into it. We also may start to overtly complain about the situation at hand.

The resistance can even be felt physically. We tense up in different areas of our bodies and if we are really observant, we can feel how this resistance starts at the centre of our heads. We try to make reality different inside our heads. 

This is about learning to function from a different mindset. One where we allow the things that we cannot control to be as they are. One where we don’t attach labels such as “good” or “bad” to what is happening in the moment. We just allow things to be what they are, bring as much awareness as we are capable of to what is going on, without forcing it, and calmly choose the actions that present themselves. When we are here and now and observe what is going on, instead of being caught up in wishing for things to be different, the best actions usually present themselves effortlessly. 

It does take a lot of practice though. I myself am very far from perfection when it comes to this. And the thing is that it is another type of practice than we are used to. This is not about acquiring a skill in the usual sense. It’s not about exerting an effort. It’s about learning to let things flow on their own accord. Without effort. To let go and trust.

The inner resistance part 4

So, I’ve been re-reading Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now recently. And he talks about the same thing as I’m talking about here. Only that I didn’t know this the last time I read it, because I hadn’t gotten into contact with my inner resistance back then. It’s always cool when you get a confirmation that what you’re experiencing is real. Especially when, if the endgoal is true as well, it’s going to lead to something amazing. In this case real, true, lasting, inner peace.

The inner resistance part 3

The thing is, that when I’m not in this state of resistance towards what is, my body movements become more slowing and precise. I feel confident, energized, present and everything seems to almost work itself out. 

Being present is a key here. I can always trace the beginning of inner resistance to a loss of presence and the activation of automatic thoughts. Suddenly I’m in my head, thinking of how I wish that the situation I’m in would be different. Maybe I’m trying to think my way out of a situation that I cannot get out of. Or I think of other choices that I could have made. Or I wish that other people would act differently.

The inner resistance part 2

I’m pretty sure that this is what the Buddha talked about when he pinpointed resistance and attachment at the basis of the roots of suffering. But I didn’t know that it was something that could be felt so physically. Because it can. 

I feel tension inside my head, both around my pineal glad and in different other areas. When I feel anger for example, i feel my jaws clench and tense up. I also feel tension in my body. I mostly tense up around my chest and solar plexus, but this can happen throughout the body. It is very much an inner resistance towards being itself.

The inner resistance part 1

I feel like it’s time to put it all to rest. What do I mean by this? I mean that it’s time to let go of this inner resistance that I feel more and more clearly day by day. 

I feel how I tense up when something in my reality that I don’t like appears in my reality. Even though I know it’s fruitless, I can’t help but resisting it on the inside.