Why Does Resistance Keep You Stuck?

What are you resisting?
Many sages pontificate on the importance of being in the present and there are many reasons for this, such as most of the pain we inflict on ourselves if not all of it comes from our thoughts. And the thoughts that really hurt us are the ones where we fear the future or regret the past. Constantly fighting the two things you cannot change and resisting where we actually are as not being where we want to be. Believing things should be different and fighting the fact that they are not.

“When you fight with reality you only lose 100% of the time” - Byron Katie.

Where you are, is where you are if you put your energy into making it wrong and resisting it then you will not have the energy to change it. It is the actions you take in your present that will create your future so;

Who do you need to be being and what do you need to be doing to have the future you dream of?

And who would you be being if you created the future you feared? In the present the power is all yours but if you live in the future or the past you have no power only fear and regret. The past has gone so nothing can be done about that and the future is still yet to happen so it can not be reached either. It is in the here and now that you can choose how and who you want to be. When your mind is not present it tends to look for things to worry about. It looks for threats - as I sit here I can feel my mind fighting me and trying to move onto other things. Instead of fighting back I will simply take a moment and just allow the fight to burn out and for space and clarity to come back to me.  But I am sure you will agree this is not always easy. It is in the resistance to the natural tendency of my mind that I cause stress. By allowing if to feel uncomfortable it soon relaxes and I am able to continue. It is the resistance to what is that causes us the most pain the making it wrong. I find that what I resist the most is where I actually am and also myself.

Letting go

To sink into presence it is about letting go giving up the fear about your future, the guilt of the past and the resistance to wrongness of where you are. Resistance comes in many areas of life. But it is usually because we are not happy with where we are. We have made it wrong and in making it wrong we are resisting it and unknowingly holding onto it.  I see this a bit like trying to cross some widely spaced monkey bars; if you are still resolutely hanging on to one bar you cannot move to the next. To be able to successfully cross the monkey bars you have to let go (detach) from the last one and trust that you can reach the next before you can swing forward. But all too often we swing wildly - reaching forwards while determinedly handing on to the past fully of fear and recrimination that we are not good enough because if we were we would not be where we are.   
I recently moved to the UK and after we found a house and I got the boys into school I realised that I was getting very stressed and de-energized. After some reflexion I realised it was because I was worried about what would happen in 4 months time. I had given myself 6 months to settle and set up a business and according to my plan I was behind time. I was resisting where I was. The strange thing was that the more I made where I was wrong the less energy and enthusiasm I had to do anything about it and the more stuck I became. It was only when I accepted that where I was, was where I was and I started to relax into the space I found myself that my energy came back and now here I am with the enthusiasm to write about it.
I have another example if you care for one - A number of years ago I really wanted to be in a relationship and yet there were no likely candidates, nothing not even a glimmer. I did all the things I had read you needed to do increase the possibility of having a relationship. I created space, both mentally and physically – I emptied out my bedside draw, only parked on one side of the car port, cleared out a cupboard, went out and made an effort to be sociable but nothing let go of old emotional baggage and allowed myself to be open. Then one evening it came to me that I was making being single wrong! I was making where I was wrong. So I decided to embrace being single. I enjoyed not having to share my bed with anyone, I enjoyed cooking whatever I liked, I enjoyed doing whatever I wanted to in the evening not just playing lip service to this but really luxuriating in the freedom that being single gave me. It took precisely 4 days and a friend of mine set me up on a blind date that turned into a relationship. This could be coincidence but I know that I had changed and suddenly everything changed even how I felt.


Enjoying the moment


When you let go of what should not be and start to look for why where you are is perfect suddenly life is enjoyable and fun, there is space and flow. There is freedom and excitement, there is joy. You can choose what you focus on and how you feel. When I accept where I am right now I get to enjoy my boys. I get to be here right now with them and connect with them. We laugh and tease and play. When I am stressing about not being in some fictional place that is yet to arrive or berating myself for not having done more or done things differently, then I am irritable snappy and disconnected – not a nice place for anyone and certainly not fun. This does not mean I don’t have dreams but instead of living in pain waiting for my dream to come true I get to live in bliss right now. You might as well make where you are right because it is where you are and no amount of making it wrong or resisting it will change it. Love you loads and bless you with light and love

Resisting your present brings you pain – enjoying your present brings you bliss (that is why it is called a present :))

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