Letting Go of Resistance Meditation

How often do you find yourself resisting trying something new? You debate in your mind whether you should try yoga or not, whether you should eat less meat to stay healthy or stick with your usual comfort foods.  Perhaps this resistance occurs at work, and it contributes to the stress that you later try to solve with food. Persistent resistance can drain energy from your thoughts and your speech as well as your emotions.  You become tense and you feel that you cannot make these changes, even though you know that you may benefit from trying something new. These endless debates can lead to the formation of internal knots—they become your habit energies.

Whenever resistance arises, attend to it mindfully.  Next time you find yourself resisting something, pause, and then greet your resistance by saying to yourself,  “Hello, resistance.   Here you are again!” 

For the next in breath, say to yourself:

I recognize my resistance.

For the out breath, say to yourself:

I let go of resistance.

Practicing like this, we can avoid wasting our energy on unconstructive reactions. As we continue to breathe, we can build up our mindfulness energy, and the feeling of resistance will subside. We will feel lighter, freer, and more ready to take on new challenges with ease.

Although resistance can be stubborn at times, there are tools to lessen its influence in our lives.  Look to Chapters 5 and 6 to help you uncover reasons why it is difficult for you to make healthy changes in what you eat and how you move.  You may also find the meditation on transforming negative emotions in Chapter 7 (p. 193) to be helpful.

What are your particular areas of resistance?

All the best to you,

Lilian

Comments

thank you so much for your book and facebook posts, just when i feel like i am over the edge something always brings me back :)

You ask what are our particular areas of resistance. I find it hard to establish a daily practice of sitting, even for just 15 minutes. I get all self-righteous and say, "No-one's going to tell me what to do -- not even myself! Harumph!" And then I don't sit. So now, I will practice those statements that you suggest, while breathing in and out, and see if the resistance dissipates. Thank you for your presentation at HPHC today!

Thank you for this article. I've found something similar by means of rapidshare search engine, but they didn't help me much. Your article was of more help to me )