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Resistance (part 3)

So we react with one, or many of the "bad" emotions, when our belief system has been proven to be insubstantial or not totally accurate. It is at this point that we have two paths to walk down. One is we react and we never question why we are reacting. Why am I reacting like this? We just assume that it is someone else's fault or that the world is cruel or whatever justification we may use - which are thoughts. We hook into the reaction, unconsciously. So we are angry, and we either go straight into repression that uses another number of fears to hold the emotion down, or project it out onto someone else - saying they caused the emotion to arise in us. We are feeling something RIGHT NOW, but we never look at why and if we don't like the feel of it, how can we let go of this feeling. We go instantly into--resistance. We don't want to feel like this, so like everything we do, we try to push the experience away from us. The resistance can be seen on various levels.

Mental / thought resistance. An external or internal situation occurs that conflicts with one or more of our set of beliefs. Basically, what is happening is not as we wish it to be. The actual situation is reality (that has occurred, and only asks to be experienced now, and let go of for the next experience in the next moment) but we don't want this version of reality. So we try to resist actual reality and this resistance is reflected in our reactions - emotional, etc.

Have you ever observed a little child when they resist something that is actually happening. Sometimes they go into this mode of pretending that it is not happening. They hold their breath and shut their eyes tight. They clench their hands. It is as if they think that if they resist hard enough, it won't happen. If they don't see it, it isn't happening. Sometimes they put their hands over their ears, so that if they don't hear it, it won't exist. The child pushes away and resists things that it doesn't like. It hasn't learned the tools to deal with the situation.

We have to admit it, sometimes we act just like the child that resists. We still seem to think that if we push and resist the experience hard enough that it won't happen. The egocentric view. The fact is that we actually resist alot of reality - one level or another. From the moment we wake up, to the moment we fall to sleep, we are taking in the present moments and judging it according to how we would like it to be. Not only external reality, but also our internal living state. It is like we each have our own lists of "good" and "bad" (and grey zone of not really caring one way or the other).

Each present moment is weighed up against these lists. If it falls into the "bad" or "I don't want" category we will resist. So we wake up and we may even resist this fact. We want to sleep in and so this colours how we start the day. We go to have a shower and the water is too cold or hot. Another resistance. Breakfast time arrives and there isn't any cereal left in the cupboard. Another resistance- we only want cereal and not just fruit. We go outside and it is too hot already. The drive to work is full of people in cars not driving as we would like them to. They cut us off or travel too slow or in general get in our way. Work may be full of jobs that we have left to the last minute because they are not interesting.

So we resist this. Get the idea. Plus we have social interactions on top of that. People may not be in the mood we would like them to be in. There may be too many people crowding our space, or rude people, or strangely dressed people. The children may be fighting when we get home. Dinner is the leftovers from two nights ago and is boring. On a given day, we may go from one resistance to another. Not only external reality, but also internal. We may wake up sick or in a bad mood or depressed. We don't want to experience these realities, so we resist them. We may feel tired. Bored. Anxious. Life feels like one treadmill after another. The spark of life is missing. We don't like these internal states of being, so we try and resist. This is resistance with the cognition or mind to stimuli perceived.

Emotional resistance: We experience the emotional reaction as a result of our resistance to a situation. Then we resist the emotional reaction due to another set of beliefs and rules or conditioning. So if we experience an emotion that is in our "bad" emotion list, then we will resist actually experiencing that emotion. We are feeling one or more of these emotions right now but we resist that actual fact. We don't want to feel this way and so try to shut down that emotion. That's called repression.

Body / physical resistance: Our body reacts physically to the emotional reaction. Our body is the only ground that our emotions can be released. We resist this experience also. We tense the muscles or we may hold our breath. We push the emotional reaction in our body away to not allow it to flow through us. But like all good balancing mechanisms of the body, the more we resist against the feeling/ emotion, the more we dam it up.

Emotional energy is like a river of energy flowing in the body. If we resist it, tense the muscles to stop the flow / feeling, we dam it up and it stays. We also resist certain sensations that occur in the body. The fact is that many people describe a feeling as if their body is numb. They have dissociated themselves out of their body and live almost totally in their head. Some people can actually bump themselves and not feel pain. They may observe bruises on their body, but they have no idea as to how they got there.

We can actually resist living in our body to certain degrees. We recoil from the experience of pain and instantly go into resistance to stop the pain from being sensed by the nervous system. Ever noticed what happens when we stub our toe or burn our hand on something. We feel the initial triggering in the nervous system that signals pain. Then we try to shut that part of the body off from the rest to stop feeling that pain. We tense the muscles. We can almost tell the nervous system in that part of the body to switch off. So physically, we resist also.

When we take the opportunity to relax, or maybe have a massage, we can really see just how tense our body always is. Some of us are just one big tight muscle. Those muscles are tight for a reason. After a massage, we come out feeling loose and relaxed. How long does it take for us to tighten those muscles up again? Probably as soon as we get home.

Let's try another example that we have all experienced. What happens when someone sits TOO close to us. We all have our own personal space around us. If someone gets inside that personal boundary, we feel very uncomfortable. The personal space varies according to how comfortable we are with the person. Say someone stands right in our face. We recoil from the situation. We have this impulse to step back or move away to a distance that feels comfortable. This is resistance also - but healthy to maintain. The example shows resistance clearly though. It feels uncomfortable, and we don't wish to remain in the situation, so we try with all our might to remove ourselves from the unpleasant experience. So resistance occurs on the physical level also.

The resistance that occurs from the first initial trigger is like throwing a pebble in a still pond. It sets up a ripple effect. We resist the situation that sets up resistance in our mind which creates a reaction within us. The reaction sets up the emotion and we resist that emotional reaction. The emotional reaction sets up a reaction within our body and we resist this physical experience. The cognition monitors the bodily reaction and resists, on the cognition level, the experience in the body. That sets up a reaction that creates another emotional reaction that we resist that creates a reaction in the body. The ripples go out-and-out until finally the cycle loses energy or another cycle is set up with resistance to another situation.

The other path we can take is to accept what we are feeling right now, allow the reactive emotional energy to flow out of the body naturally, and to investigate what it was that we were reacting against. What was the catalyst? What was the "I don't like .." "I'm afraid of .." "It should be like this ..." "It shouldn't be like this ..." etc. Having allowed this to arise, see what the action is to finalise the drama. So we say something to someone, we don't say something to someone, we let go of an outdated belief or rule, we vow to be more aware next time, we find a way to meet our own needs and fulfil them (because we are not getting what we need externally). And when we have done this - we let go of the whole ordeal - the whole lot. From this very moment, it is finished. We go onto the next moment.

It takes a great deal of honesty with ourselves to take this path. It means pulling right back from the external catalyst and only looking at what is occurring within and why. After awhile, with practice, we need not go through this on a conscious level. It is then the new habit. It occurs spontaneously - we have dealt with the issues / beliefs - they no longer return. We accept whatever comes our way with the feeling of adventure and learning. Every new moment is a moment full of infinite possibilities and challenges. And we can deal with them - with all confidence. For your information, there are various emotional reactions to look for. Things we don't particularly want and resist against:

boredom: of varying degrees - from plain disinterest to the intense boredom that permeates every part of our life, even bored with being bored. Every activity that we once enjoyed no longer is enjoyed
fear : may be felt as an unknown source or as projected onto an external situation
anger: as discussed before
depression: although we become the depression feeling, we fight being depressed by bodily and emotional resistance. By trying to snap ourselves out of depression also.
sadness: many people do not feel comfortable sitting with sadness or grief and will do anything to avoid expressing and feeling this emotion within themselves or in others. Have you heard the following statement "Don't be sad ...." The same is for that generic feeling of "unhappiness". We are not happy or joyful but not sad either. "Be happy.." rings in our ears.
pain: Physical, emotional and psychological pain are resisted by us all. Notice what we do when we feel pain in part our body - do we tense our muscles against the pain to try and stop the pain. We try to avoid it at all costs. Emotional and psychological pain are harder to define but in these cases the pain may be more acute than physical pain.
guilt: as mentioned before
shame: as mentioned before
envy / jealousy : another of the "bad" emotions we feel we should stomp on as soon as it raises it's head.

So we see resistance in this area very clearly. It is something we can work with and let go of. But here we go onto the next layer of resistance. That is the resistance to change / action / growth.

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