What are the things you want in your life? What are your biggest goals, dreams or aspirations for yourself? Are you attaining them or does there seem to be unending blockades to the love, the body, the career — the life you want (and deserve)?
If you don’t seem to be living in the abundance, in the joy or the happiness you desire, you need to take a good look at how you may be sabotaging these things for yourself by engaging in resistance.
It all starts with you, if you don’t believe it — you cannot BE IT. Instead, what will show up is your old friend resistance, ready to block your best efforts, despite all the things you are doing to achieve your goals.
Letting Go of Resistance
Most everyone that comes to see us for bodywork is in some sort of pain or discomfort. With so many people feeling different degrees of discomfort, it means none of us have to look very far to find resistance within ourselves and our lives and to begin the practice of releasing it.
As we spoke about in Part 1 of this series on resistance, resistance does, in fact, come from the mind but once it’s in the body presenting itself in the form of pain or discomfort, it becomes very hard to let it go because you’re so focused on it.
When pain is present, what are some of the thoughts you think?
Acceptance: The Key to Reducing Resistance
Most everyone, including the ones with peaceful mind practices (you know who you are) are thinking everything from, “I don’t want to be in this pain,” to “Aarrgh! Just chop it off, I can’t stand it!” We hear that one a lot actually.
But even a mild thought such as,”I don’t want to be in pain” is a resistant thought because you are not accepting what is.
Now, you may be saying to yourself, “Not accepting it? Of course, I’m not accepting it — who wants to be in pain?!”
But that’s just because most of us have a tendency to believe that if we are accepting of something that feels negative to us, like pain, we are simply inviting more of it into our lives. But nothing could be further from the truth.
When you simply accept whatever is going on in your body, from pain to extra pounds, you actually feel an expanse, an ease and in most cases, decreased pain. If you start with accepting what is, with no judgement, you will hear what your body needs from you — with more clarity than ever before. This is because your resistance is no longer creating a diversion and dampening the message your body, mind or spirit is trying to send.
Besides — and this may sound a bit Mr.Rogerish — pain IS your friend, it is there to help you see that you’re out of alignment in some way.
Here are some tips we use for releasing resistance:
- When you feel pain or discomfort in you body acknowledge it, do not judge (refer to what Mr.Rogers would do)
- Identify where the pain is coming from. Is it emotional or physical? If it is emotional that falls into the peaceful mind category.
- If you cannot peaceful mind this pain away, do what you need to do to get out of pain.
- We talked about not judging it, instead thank the pain for showing you that you’re out of alignment, that should bring relief — at least enough, not to resist treatment.
- Treatment! Do you need muscle release to ease muscles that are pinching on nerves? Do you need a chiropractic adjustment? Pain medication? Ice for swelling? Get good medical advice of course, then listen, you are the one in your body, what is it telling you?
- Do not judge yourself (trust me, you needed to hear that again.) Every cell in your body has awareness. If even you cannot be on your side, what kind of message (energetic vibration) are you infusing yourself with and sending out to the world, about how to treat you? Low — very low is the answer — don’t do it. It’s just a bunch more resistance.
- If you’re having a hard time seeing how amazing, perfect and innocent you really are, try to picturing yourself as that sweet vulnerable baby(before you picked up the baggage you’ve been hauling around.) Do this until you start to see yourself, as you really are.
There are many more tips and tricks for letting go of resistance but it’s all very subjective. We all have different life experiences and perspectives. Use these tips as starting points and then experiment with what works best for you to let go and instead, be in the flow.
Feel free ask us about the energetic release work that Tara specializes in, to help you find a way to release your resistance.
