What We Resist Persists

The greatest sources of our suffering are in the lies we tell ourselves. It can be excruciating to face reality. Most human suffering is related to love and loss, when we feel those real, raw emotions that just crack us open. To live life, we must acknowledge, experience, and bear the reality of life with all its pleasures and heartbreak. We need to know what we know and feel what we feel. 

Recently I read a reflection by Fr. Richard Rohr where he talked about true prayer starting with a positive “yes” and surrender to God and reality. We are not taught how to do this, we instead try and learn to avoid, resist, and oppose all distractions through willpower. But what we need isn’t willpower; we need the power to surrender the will and to trust what is. This is a courageous and heroic act.

To actively oppose something actually engages with it and gives it energy. That’s why good spiritual teachers say, “What you resist persists.”  Our first energy has to be “yes” energy. From there we can move, build, and proceed. We must choose the positive, which is to choose love, and rest there for a minimum of fifteen conscious seconds—it takes that long for positivity to imprint in the neurons.

Real learning happens when we can admit we’re having a thought or feeling and see that it’s empty, passing, and part of a fantasy that has no final reality except as a lesson.  We must listen honestly to ourselves. Listen to whatever thought or feeling arises. Listen long enough to ask, “Why am I thinking this? What is this saying about me that I need to entertain this negative, accusatory, or lustful thought?”  We will see it is the wounded or needy part of us that wants these unhealthy thoughts. Our True Self, our Whole Self, does not need them, and will not identify with them.  

If we can allow our thoughts and feelings to pass through us, neither clinging to them nor opposing them—and without ever expecting perfect success— we will come to a deeper, wider, and wiser place. 

Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful lessons You teach!