What Everyone Resists

Have you ever considered that we are all resistors (of others) in one way or another?  Some people resist any guidance from others or they resist taking any advice from another in a somewhat passive-aggressive manner.  Others resist being told what to do no matter who they are with.  While yet others resist even the directions they are given by those in authority over them at work!

What is it about being given direction that so threatens us that we seem to run from it?  I’d like for you to consider that there is a set of behaviors that we have in common with everyone in the human race.  And then also consider that one of those behaviors that we all share is that we all resist being controlled.

Our Resistance to Being Controlled.

Consider that one of the fundamental driving forces we all share is a resistance to being controlled by others.  Simply put, we resist being told what to do.  When we are working in teams at our places of employment, we resist allowing the outcomes of our circumstances (our fates) to reside in the hands of another (the team leader).  If we disagree with the direction that the team leader is taking the team, we fight against that direction in one of many ways: we become directly confrontational with the team leader, or we talk to others on the team to try and sway them to our way of thinking so that we can form a coup to show a majority stance against the leader, or we go over the leader’s head to someone higher-ranking in the company in order to try and convince that person of our way.

In my own life, one place where I’ve resisted another is in allowing my partner to navigate our way anywhere when he was driving us in the car.  In order to fully understand where I was coming from, you must first know that my story about my partner was that he had zero-sense of direction.  I tell you this not because it’s true about him, but because that’s the way that I viewed him for quite sometime.

If we were going somewhere in the car, I really held him accountable if he got us lost, or made us late in getting somewhere, especially if I had told him to take a different route or turn.  I would sit in the passenger seat and get really quiet.  I just wouldn’t talk to him (because that’s the adult way of handling disagreements – right?)!  I know that none of you have ever done this, but I’m sure you can imagine how well that strategy worked out for me/us!

Once I realized that I was being controlling every time we got into the car, and once I realized that I wasn’t allowing him to be responsible for getting us to where we were going, I decided to run a silent experiment.  I decided that I was going to allow him to be fully responsible for getting us to our destinations and I wasn’t going to be upset about him taking wrong turns, taking a route that I wouldn’t, or even getting us to our destination late.  I just was going to be in the car and not get upset!

Now there’s a big difference in the way that I prepare for going somewhere and the way my partner prepares.  I’m driven to not only know the address of where we’re going but I also have to know the phone number in case we need to call ahead and let someone know we’re going to be late due to traffic.  I will also typically have directions with me or I will have looked at a map enough to have a general sense of what roads would best get us to our destination.  My partner? – his preparation usually involved getting in the car, sometimes having the destination address, and using his trusty GPS.

At the beginning of the experiment, we would get in the car and my partner would just start driving!  I would ask, do you know where you’re going?  And he would say, “no, I thought you did.”  If I had the address, I would tell him so.  Then he would ask me to get his navigation system out of his glovebox and enter in the destination address for him.  Oohhh, how frustrating!  He was depending on me but only under his conditions and he still wasn’t conceding control to me!  Everything else, for me, was a lesson in taking control of myself by letting go of my attachments to “being right”, having things my way, having to be places early by a particular amount of time, or taking the route that I would take.

The part of my experiment that involved me not dominating and not getting upset turned into a lesson of accepting that which is rather than fighting against not getting upset (which as you know is a losing battle).

Ultimately, I ended up learning that my silent experiment was as much about me as it was about him!  I didn’t realize what I was doing at the time I was doing it, but more than allowing him to just be responsible, I was hoping that he would come to his senses and realize that my point-of-view (that he had no sense of direction and needed my guidance) was right and then he would ask for my help (knowing that it always works out better when someone asks for direction rather than receiving unsolicited advice).  So as you can see, my experiment was really just another strategy for me to try to get my way and get him to relinquish control of getting us to our destination!  (One might even say that I was being passive-aggressive.)

Take a look at your life now.  Where can you see that you’re being controlling and uncompromising about how things have to be?  Can you give up having to control those situations?  Will you give up trying to control those situations?  Can you accept that another’s way of doing something is just as valid as your way?  It may be that you have great ideas for cutting corners or improving a process.  However, if your ideas aren’t welcome or solicited, they’ll simply be ignored and that may leave you feeling unimportant, unwelcomed, or diminished.

Our position is that everyone has a place at the table.  That includes us.  So if you are feeling that you don’t have a welcomed place from which to share your ideas or opinions, look at where it is that you are trying to control the situation and ask yourself if you can give up that control and simply accept what is.  I think you’ll find that acceptance may ultimately not just give you a place to sit, but a place from which you are asked to speak, and possibly a place where your words are given great weight.

Copyright ©2009.  All rights reserved.

Acceptance and the Art of Disappearance (Part 3 of 3)

Here we are on Monday and this is part three – the final section of this series of blogs related to agreement, disagreement, resistance, and acceptance.  As a recap, this all started last Wednesday when we were examining why inequality still exists in America today.  We found that the disagreement of a thing just as strongly binds that thing in reality as agreement does. Then, on Friday we began the inquiry of what we would need to do in order to no longer be participants in furthering negative thoughts and ideas in our world.  We examined the role of resistance and how it prevents us from transforming the things in our lives that aren’t working for us.  And, we ended with discovering that (while we couldn’t transform those things by stepping over them or going around them) we could transform situations by going directly through them.  And the avenue through which we have to go directly through a situation without changing it (because change = resistance, and resistance = persistence of a thing) is acceptance.

So, today we’re looking at acceptance of the things we’ve been resisting for the purpose of transforming those areas of our lives that are not working.  This is not for anyone who is satisfied with the way in which his life is going.  And, it’s not for the person who is faint of heart!  This is only for the individual who is ready to take control of his life, to transform non-working situations into working ones, and who is willing to take a hard, confronting look at his own self for the purpose of leaving behind those things that are not serving his highest purpose.

Following, I’ve listed the steps one needs to take in order to use the powerful tool of acceptance in order to allow for the disappearance of the limiting barriers from one’s life:

Firstly, pick the area of your life that you want to transform.

Next, you’ll need to take a hard look at what it is that’s not working.  Divorce yourself from the story of why it’s not working and separate out the facts of the situation.  To go through this process, you need to become disinterested in continuing to sell yourself the story you’ve been selling to everyone else.  You may have to become brutally honest to get to the basic truth.  Hint: Look for the area(s) where your complaint(s) lies and then look at your reasons.

Thirdly, pinpoint exactly what it is that you’ve been resisting.  Look for: what you’ve been angry about, what you’ve become complacent about, where you’ve been inflexible, what you’ve been trying to change, what you’re afraid of, what you’ve been trying to control or dominate, or where you’ve been in denial or become resigned.  Next, ask yourself why you’ve been resisting this thing.  List out each reason you have for your resistance.

Now, look at each reason, one by one, and ask yourself with each one: “Can I give up that concern?”

If you answer that you can, then ask yourself: “Will you give up that concern?”

Go through your list, until you’ve determined that you are both able, and willing, to give up each and every concern.

Lastly, after you’ve given up each concern, confirm your acceptance of the thing by saying, “I acknowledge that (say what you’ve been resisting).  I accept that (say what you’ve been resisting) and I accept it exactly as it is and exactly as it isn’t.  I no longer need to change it, control it, complain about it, fear it, or be in denial about it.  I allow it to exist with no further judgment from me.”

That’s it! Now look back at what you’ve accomplished.  You’ve determined to no longer resist what you had been resisting.  Instead of trying to change it, you’ve accepted it exactly as it is without trying to alter it.  And, now, you’re on the other side of it.  As you look back at the issue, you’ll see that it’s either disappeared completely or it’s still there in present form but it no longer holds any power over you.  In fact, you’ll find that you simply feel free of that thing – regardless of whether it still exists or not.

Since we sometimes learn best by example, I am sharing the following with you as an illustration of how one can put acceptance into immediate use in his or her own life (using the steps outlined above) and thereby allow for the disappearance of issues that are plaguing him or her:

Jill was a very busy advertising executive.  She was a very bright and attractive woman and was highly sought after because of her ability to constantly produce advertising campaigns that worked well for her clients’ product sales.  But there was something that was continuously holding Jill back in her personal, and sometimes in her professional, life.  It was her weight.  Jill wasn’t overly obese.  She weighed around 45 lbs. more than a person of her height should.  She said that she worked long and unpredictable hours which interfered with her ability to exercise on a regular basis.  She had been on several diets – some of which had provided temporary and limited weight loss – but most of which had not produced the results that she desired.  Those that had produced real results were so restrictive or limiting that Jill found it hard for her to stay on them.

While she seemed to have it together in her professional life, Jill’s personal life was another story.  Her weight-consciousness kept her from accepting invitations to go out on dates.  Since putting on the extra weight, Jill had to allow herself 30 extra minutes to get ready for work because she could never choose what she wanted to wear.   (She felt that everything she put on “made her look fat.”) Her self-esteem had been so badly damaged that Jill no longer went out of the house except to go to work or to see family.

Jill sought out help from a therapist in order to regain her lost self-esteem.  She said that she wanted to get past her “mental-blocks” that were preventing her from staying on a diet and exercise program.  Jill said she was ready to do the work necessary to lose the weight.

Since Jill had already identified the area of her life that she wanted to address, Jill’s therapist asked her to tell her all of the reasons she had for not accepting herself exactly as she was.  Jill’s list included: (1) not liking the way she looked, (2) not liking the way she felt, (3) being overweight wasn’t healthy, and (4) she felt that people treated her differently since she was overweight.

For each issue, Jill’s therapist asked her if she could give up her concerns about that issue.  For instance, for the first item on her list, she asked Jill, “Can you give up your concerns about how you look?”  When Jill decided that she could give them up, her therapist asked her if she would agree to give them up.  Jill answered affirmatively to each question.  When she had completely given up her concerns, Jill’s therapist asked her to repeat the following after her.  She said, “I acknowledge that I am overweight.  I accept that I am overweight and I accept my body exactly as it is and exactly as it isn’t.  I no longer need to change it, control it, complain about it, fear it, or be in denial about it.  I allow my body to exist with no further judgment from me.”

Suddenly, Jill’s eyes had a sparkle in them.  She told her therapist that she felt free from being overweight for the very first time.

Jill’s therapist then took her through two more exercises of the same type.   The first one focused on her complaint about exercising and why she couldn’t do it.  The second one was focused on her complaint about diets not working or being too difficult to follow.  After completing the three exercises, Jill said that for the first time in 10 years, she felt free to choose whether she wanted to exercise or not and she felt free to choose what she wanted to eat.  She stressed that she was now free from the burden of needing to exercise or avoid exercising in order to keep her complaint about her weight in place.  The same was true for dieting and eating.

Two months later in a follow-up session with her therapist, Jill had lost 10 lbs!  She said that she repeated her "new mantra" (about being overweight and accepting herself exactly as she was and exactly as she wasn’t) to herself every morning as she looked in the mirror and got dressed.  Jill said that the acceptance of herself and her weight was the single factor of her success.  She said that when she gave up resisting her weight, her weight ceased to exist as a problem for her.

She told her therapist that since she accepted herself as she was every day, it gave her the freedom to choose to exercise and to choose what to eat.  Finally, she was really free to choose to eat healthily or not.  She could freely choose to exercise or not and with that freedom she found that she made her choices based on what she really wanted and not based on old patterns of complaining about a problem that just wouldn’t go away.

A Question of Zen

In a book entitled, “Zen Without Zen Masters,” author Camen Benares provides some insights, questions, and Koans of Zen on which one may meditate.  I am sharing one of these insights (“Good News, Bad News”) here as follows:

                      Good News, Bad News
There’s good news tonight and bad news.  First, the bad news: there is no good news.  Now the good news: you don’t have to listen to the bad news.

After meditation upon this insight, the reader will see that he is getting news and he is only getting news.  There is no good news being delivered.  And, there is no bad news being delivered.  There is only news.  All the rest is what we’ve tacked on.

As you look newly at each issue in your life, allow yourself to see the issue for the simple facts of which it is comprised, without all of the story added.  After all, the story is made up of the stuff that we’ve each tacked on.  We get to say what is true for us.  And, we’re the only ones who get a say in the matter.

Copyright ©2009.  All rights reserved.

Resistance Causes Persistence (Part 2 of 3)

LOL!  Yes, I’m laughing as I write this because I had no idea how my last blog was going to turn out.  Neither did I know what I was going to write in today’s blog!  But the funnier thing is that I’ve added in this opening paragraph after having written today’s blog.  I now see where I’m going (I can hear your sighs of relief) and realize that this must be part two of a three-part blog.  There was simply too much information to write in any single blog and these three blogs are broken down into their own central themes so that the overall information can be more easily absorbed.  That being said, I hope you have a blessed weekend and enjoy today’s blog.

In my last blog (“Why Does Inequality Exist?”), I left off in the inquiry of “how we, as individuals, can transform ourselves to operate so that we are not furthering (keeping in place) the conversations and realities of sexism, racism, hatred, bigotry, homophobia, etc.”  As a recap, in that blog I wrote about the Chinese philosophy of Yin and Yang which are complementary opposites of a whole. I provided commentary from Wikipedia which read, “Yin–yang is not an actual substance or force, the way it might be conceived of in western terms.   Instead, it is a universal way of describing the interactions and interrelations of the natural forces that occur in the world.”  I devoted the blog to writing that the disagreement of a thing is actually as powerful a cause of that thing “living” in our reality as agreement is.  I wrote:

Consider that the more we disagree with something, the more real it becomes.   And, consider that disagreement actually holds agreement in place.  (Remember our mantra?. . . the theory of renowned Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung who stated that “what you resist, persists.”)  In fact, you may wish to consider that the primary function of disagreement is to create agreement.

So, since disagreement is just another form of resistance, I want us to take a broader look at the nature of resistance.  Firstly, let’s look at the definition of resistance.  The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines resistance as:

1a: an act or instance of resisting : opposition b: a means of resisting
2: the power or capacity to resist: as a: the inherent ability of an organism to resist harmful influences (as disease, toxic agents, or infection) b: the capacity of a species or strain of microorganism to survive exposure to a toxic agent (as a drug) formerly effective against it
3: an opposing or retarding force
4a: the opposition offered by a body or substance to the passage through it of a steady electric current b: a source of resistance
5: a psychological defense mechanism wherein a patient rejects, denies, or otherwise opposes the therapeutic efforts of a psychotherapist
6: often capitalized : an underground organization of a conquered or nearly conquered country engaging in sabotage and secret operations against occupation forces and collaborators

So, taking our queue from definition #3 above, for the purpose of this blog we’ll use the following as our definition of resistance: “the act of an individual using an opposing or retarding force against some one or some thing.”

Now, to better understand the nature of resistance, let’s take a look at other forms of resistance that we use.  (Some may even be methods or strategies we don’t normally think of as resistance but, nevertheless, they still are.)  Some forms of resistance are: boredom, anger, jealousy, inflexibility, rudeness, complacency, stubbornness, changing, complaining, bitterness, back-biting, gossiping, “being right” (about one’s own opinion), self-righteousness, indignity, fear, manipulation, controlling, dominating, denial, and becoming resigned about the situation.  Quite an interesting list, huh?  You may have been surprised by the inclusion of some of these ways of being I listed here.  If you’re still skeptical as to whether something belongs on the list or not, take a look at the definition of resistance we are using and see if you can find an example that might fit.  If it doesn’t fit, throw it out . . . you won’t hurt my feelings.

So, if we’re looking to get past something (but we know that resisting it won’t work except to cause it to continue on, or persist, in our lives) the only way we can get past that thing is through transformation.  This can be the transformation of yourself or transformation of that thing.  (Just remember, that if you’re going to control the outcome of your life, the only person you have control over is you.  So, it will be much easier to transform yourself than to wait for some situation outside of you to transform itself – if it ever does at all.)  Remember in my very first blog on this site (June ’09), I wrote that transformation is “giving up one form for another” as in “giving up being an orange for being an apple” and I used the example of a caterpillar giving up the only form it knows to become something completely different (a butterfly)?  Transformation isn’t the same as change because change always seeks to improve on what’s already there; it seeks to alter what’s already in existence.  In this case, transformation will provide us the opening to give up one way of being and to choose another.

You can’t get around it or over it or to the side of it because those are all forms of resistance.  So, transformation has to be present in order for one to directly impact the thing he is currently resisting.  Instead of trying to change the issue or side-step the problem, the only way to not resist the situation at hand is to go directly through it.  So how does one go through an issue he’s been resisting?  Simple. . . he does so by using the art of acceptance!

(If you remember, I’ve blogged about acceptance on here a few times.  If you haven’t read those blogs, just look over in the tag cloud on your right (the thing that has the orange words against the black background) and mouse over the tag cloud to get the labels to spin.  When you find the word “acceptance,” click on it and all of the blogs in which I’ve written about acceptance will appear on the same screen for you to read.  You may wish to read a few of these just to be sure you understand where I’m coming from when I write about acceptance.)

Check in here on Monday when I will post the final part of this three-part series.  I will be blogging about what acceptance is/isn’t and I will explain all of the benefits of acceptance from the standpoint of transforming any situation you have been resisting.  Until then, I wish you every good thing.

To Be Continued . . .

Copyright ©2009.  All rights reserved.

Acceptance – Part II

In my blog of Friday, August 7^th, I wrote about acceptance in relation to people and defined acceptance as “the act of accepting.” I wrote that acceptance was simply accepting another exactly as they are and exactly as they are not and that acceptance should not be confused with agreeing with or condoning the actions or speech of another. Rather, we should look at acceptance as the beginning of love.

But, acceptance is also hugely important in our lives when we look at the situations in which we find ourselves. Many of us believe that justice will always prevail. We believe that only good things will come our way because of the lives we live. And we fail to believe that an outcome of injustice could possibly befall us. While those beliefs are good ones to have, they are not always realistic. And, in fact, those beliefs can render us impotent in being effective should we find ourselves in a less than optimal situation.

Have you ever heard someone exclaim, “I can’t believe this!” or, “This can’t be happening to me!”? Maybe you or someone you know has proclaimed their disbelief of a situation by saying, “This can’t be right” or, “It just isn’t fair.” Getting hung up with the rightness of a situation or your deservedness to be in a situation is a trap! It’s a trap that will continue to pull you under so that you eventually will be unable to keep your head above water and the enormity of the situation will swallow you whole.

But that doesn’t have to be the way things come to closure. What happens in these situations is that we must be fully aware of what is happening. We must be profoundly related to every detail of what is happening and be fully present to it. Getting caught up in the trap of “unfairness” is simply a form of resistance. When we resist the situation, it will persist.

This principle, to my knowledge, was first presented by Carl Jung (1875 – 1961), noted Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology known as Jungian psychology, when he wrote: “what you resist, persists.” This is a hard concept for many of us to grasp. Our predisposed way of being has us resist everything that we are against, everything that we don’t believe should be, and anything that is a hindrance to us. But, let me provide an example and see if that makes this an easier concept to comprehend.

Let’s say that I’m driving down a gravel road in the country. It’s pitch black out and there are no street lamps. It begins to rain which only helps to obscure my vision. All of a sudden, a deer runs out into the road in front of me. Knowing the damage that’s possible upon impact, I swerve to avoid hitting the deer. My car skids on the gravel and the next thing you know I’m off the road, in a field, where the tires on my car seem to be buried half way down into the mud.

At any given point in the above illustration, if I didn’t have a profound relation to the reality of what was happening and accept what was happening, I could have found myself in a much bigger mess. When the rain began I could have been caught up in that and been stuck with the “fact” that I didn’t deserve to be in this situation. If I were really stuck there, I might avoid turning on my wipers because my belief that I didn’t deserve what was happening would come with a corresponding belief that the situation would change because it wasn’t deserved!

When the deer ran out in front of me, I could have been stuck in my belief that this was really unfair. The belief that something is unfair also comes with a corresponding belief – the belief that the situation will change because only things that are fair and right should come my way. I could avoid swerving to miss the animal believing that it would move out of the way of my vehicle because it had unfairly run into my path. But not swerving could have caused irreparable damage to my vehicle and could have even cost me my life.

Finally, being stuck in the muddy field I could have muttered about how unjust this situation was. I was now stuck in a muddy field in the pouring rain in the middle of the night with no one around to help me. I could say to myself, “this isn’t happening to me. I can’t believe this. This isn’t fair and it can’t be happening.” But the only thing that my resistance would provide me is to keep me stuck in the very same place. I would be taking no action to change my situation – only steaming over the unfairness of it all.

But, once I get related to the reality of the situation, I can put aside whether or not something is fair. It doesn’t even matter what judgment I make about the situation. The fact is, what is happening, is happening. And if I don’t do something about it, I will do nothing but persist the situation because of my resistance. Once I get related to my reality, I can decide to use my cell phone to make a phone call, get out of my car and walk to try and find help, or choose another course of action. Resistance, besides causing the situation to persist, also paralyzes us to the point of inaction.

There are many forms of resistance but a few are: tuning someone out, refusing to believe that something is true or even possible, inactivity, complaining, back-biting, undermining another, and complacency. You may find other ways in which you resist others or you resist the reality of events in your life. Start seeking them out to see where it is that you are in need of a reality tune-up.

So where does that leave us? We need to look at accepting what is happening in the world and in our lives. I’m not speaking of acceptance as the result of favorable judgment, but acceptance that what is happening, is happening. World hunger is happening. We must accept it. Fighting against it is just another form of resistance. If you want to change what is, work on feeding the world – not on fighting world hunger! If your finances are not where you believe they should be, you must start by being profoundly related to the reality of your finances and accept that they are where they are. Then, you will be in a place to take action; not an in-action of resistance, but an action of creating a budget and a plan that will work to bring you to where it is you want to be.

Acceptance

I wanted to write my blog today on the art of acceptance. And, I’m going to use the term, “acceptance,” a bit differently from how we normally think of it – but no differently from its actual definition.

Using the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, we see that acceptance is defined as: "1: an agreeing either expressly or by conduct to the act or offer of another so that a contract is concluded and the parties become legally bound 2: the quality or state of being accepted or acceptable 3: the act of accepting.” I’m going to use acceptance mostly in terms of the 3rd definition above (and somewhat from the 2nd definition), and not use the 1st definition as it defines acceptance in contractual instances.

So, in this blog, we will use acceptance as simply, “the quality or state of being accepted or acceptable” and “the act of accepting.”


What Acceptance Is

Acceptance is the beginning of love. Why? Because in order to accept another, love must first be present for you. Most of us don’t live that way. We generally and easily accept others who are like us – that is to say, who are like-minded (e.g. who think like us and see the world as we do). But that isn’t really acceptance. That’s simply agreement. It’s easy to accept another when you agree with their philosophies. It’s a more challenging thing to accept others when you don’t agree with them.

Some believe that when they don’t agree, love should tolerate others. No, no one wants to be simply tolerated. We all long to be accepted. And, love doesn’t tolerate. “It [love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” – 1 Cor. 13:7 (NIV)

But why, if acceptance is the beginning of love, is it not love? Acceptance only goes as far as you are willing to go. Once the acceptance of another ends, your love for that person also ends. In my eyes, acceptance has a symbiotic relationship with unconditional love. One cannot be present without the other.

What Acceptance Isn’t

Here is where we get rid of the old misinterpretations of acceptance.

Acceptance isn’t: agreeing with another person, condoning the actions or speech of another, or even giving another unrestricted access to you and your time. Acceptance isn’t giving another full-reign to walk all over you. Acceptance isn’t allowing others to take advantage of you. And, acceptance isn’t doing something for another simply because you see a need present.

My definition of acceptance is: “accepting another exactly as he is, and exactly as he isn’t.” Acceptance doesn’t require another person to change in order for that person to receive your love. Acceptance doesn’t require another to live by your rules and standards in order to receive love – that’s the definition of “conditional love.” And, conditional love, is at the root of all codependency.

Just as I’ve written the last several days, this is your choice and I’m not going to judge you for the choices you make. My job is to accept and love you exactly as you are, and exactly as you aren’t. Just understand that there are consequences to all of your actions. If you choose to accept another, there are consequences. And, if you choose not to accept another, there are consequences. Those consequences may be positive, negative, or both. You must make your own decisions about accepting others and be prepared to live with the consequences of your choices.