The Only Way Anyone Truly Heals
Your own resistance holds you back.
Imagens de Leandro Sebastião | Canva It can hurt when stress curls its knotted fingers around our necks but boy does it get easier when we see that those hands on our throats are our own.
Instead of it being the things that happen to us that create stress, it's our very resistance to those things that set it in motion. Unnecessary and prolonged anxiety, frustration, anger, fear, and mental anguish — they course through us because of us.
We permit it to be this way. We are our very resistance. Life, in this way, is not hard. It is our resistance that makes it hard.
When I ruminate and stew over an upcoming social gathering I don’t want to go to, I suffer. The event and the people within it have no impact on my suffering at all — it's the thought I hold in my head about how hard the event will be that makes it hard. The thought alone sets off a reaction involving nerves and chemicals that make me feel stressed.
My emotional experience is a product of the dancing and provocative pictures in my mind. That’s not to say we can’t switch off our emotional reaction to stimuli, but it does mean we can manage it and see irrational fears and stresses diminish.
It would make sense, then, that navigating our lives with more ease and flow requires us to let go of the thoughts that create resistance in us. We need to let go of ourselves. What will serve us is to find the courage to turn away from trying to control our reality via thought, toward conscious awareness of reality as it is.
Redirect attention away from yourself by turning your attention to others. If you’re suffering, get out of your mind and stop making it about you. You are completely insignificant and yet at the same time, you are entirely significant ... when you put yourself to good use.
One of those uses is in giving and finding ways to continually improve the lives of the people who matter to you. This has brought me tremendous relief. It’s why I create, serve, and coach as much as I do.
Instead of getting wrapped up in fixing ourselves, we need to spend more time in the service of others. We give to nourish our expanding network which, in turn, will sustain us. As connected creatures, we see that this is the order of nature and things. We set an example as a leader who inspires others with a willingness to let go of their obsession with themselves.
If we close ourselves to things, Michael A. Singer says in his book The Untethered Soul, we create resistance and energy blocks, that make us suffer. We don’t want this.
It’s an idea that takes courage, but we can be open and friendly to it — not to encourage bad things, but to let it go through you. This is the very essence of the phrase: "going with the flow." With a simple letting go, and a willingness not to close yourself off, we allow innate energy from within to rush through us, aiding in our creativity, and allowing us to experience life on an entirely new plane that most of us will ever know.
You might be thinking that this is all unrealistic, silly, and over the top. But I encourage you to try.
I'm speaking as much to myself here because whenever I have let go of closing myself off, amazing things have happened. When I don’t resist life, well — I don’t feel much resistance at all.
I always thought resistance and stress were out of my control and inevitable parts of existence. But with a gentle lovingness directed at all things, especially those things that previously brought me angst, I can see that I — and only I — create every aspect of my reality.
Things that once phased you suddenly lose their hold on you, allowing you to experience a tremendous sense of relief and even bliss.
Start today. Love what is by being present. Notice all the details. Allow yourself to open your heart to everything and everyone. Drop your shoulders for a minute and take a breath. Approach the things that often stress you with a welcoming smile. It starts with you.
Alex Mathers is a writer and coach who helps you build a money-making personal brand with your knowledge and skills while staying mentally resilient.