From Resistance to Courage

God grant me ......the courage to change the things I can...

 Resistance comes in many layers.  In an attempt to avoid feeling uncomfortable feelings as they arise we may resist them by  squishing them down under other feelings, thoughts or behaviours that are less uncomfortable and easier to handle. So when we feel something we decide we would rather not feel we most of us resist it in one  of  many ways.  We push it down or away ( which  always means it doesn't actually go away but gets stuffed inside).  We then reach  for something else, that is less uncomfortable or painful,  to cover it up with.  Before long, the root cause of our suffering is hidden under layers and layers of resistance. ...and this resistance is made up of many emotions that have been trapped under each layer. 

I realize this is what I did with my present living situation. The root cause of my discomfort here is buried under layers of other "stuff" .  The original pain related to this did not go away with my attempts to resist it.  It has been  bubbling under the surface pushing itself up through each layer.  I knew in order to "let go" to it...I needed to first look at my resistance, notice and then allow the experience of feeling and thought from each layer to pass through me as it was exposed. Despite its very personal nature, I share that layer exposure and  revealing here.  It is a good honest example of what it can look like.  

Layers of resistance and where I am at now:

·         Top Layer of resistance : Blame: As I see an individual I do care about slipping into old behaviours or at least getting to the point it is not being  hidden very well anymore...especially now that this gut instinct has once again made its way to my awareness .…I feel a certain resentment in realizing that all I sacrificed in the last ten months to "help" was not only not beneficial... it was unrecognized,  unappreciated, and used to serve an energy I did not want to serve. (Not that this was done with malicious intent...it is just at this level of unconsciousness, awareness of the rights and needs of others is greatly impaired.) It did not help the cause I was intending to help.  I don't want to feel this resentment and anger inside me  so I resist it . I squish it down and cover it up by pointing a finger and blaming others for my being in a situation that felt so unhealthy for me for such a long time. That’s the top layer of resistance I encounter: a resistance layer of "blame" thrown over the anger and resentment  I don't want to deal with.   

·        The second layer of resistance is built with this idea that I have a right to have  anger towards others. I am actually resisting an anger I have at myself for allowing myself to stay in an unhealthy situation, one where my energy, my space, my time and what I thought was "mine"  was constantly being depleted by others who didn't seem to notice or care. No one out there put me in this  situation...I somehow, because of my desire  to serve and help this person in need;  because of a  core belief that others needs are more important than my own; because of a deep rooted fear of 'not being nice'; because of fear that I might destroy my relationship if I said 'no';  and possibly because of some pathological need to  sabotage my own quest for peace,  agreed to do this.  I allowed this person, who I knew was drowning in this dangerous, unconscious energy,  in my home. (I mean there were some outside pressures and manipulations but truth is...I always had the power to refuse, which I did do a few times throughout this but it kept coming back in [referring to the energy, not the person]).  I  watched myself deny the importance of my own needs, my right to space, respect, cleanliness,  some semblance of domestic order and control, a sense of safety and security  and basic consideration ...over and over again . "Little me" suffered tremendously because of this...I  felt hurt, disappointment, sadness, anger, resentment, grief over what I gave up and what I lost...as well as great frustration upon realizing it was all in vain. When I see what I did to this version of litttle me...I get mad at myself and self-deprecate. How could I allow this to happen to me!Man...I am  still stuck in that unworthiness crap where I  believe I deserve punishment and hardship  in order to pay rent for being on this planet?  Pathetic!  Having this deep rooted stuff 'touched' is a big ouch! Taking ownership of this situation and my feelings also  feels so uncomfortable.  I resist! Being  mad at others and assuming  a victim position in my mind where I convince myself I  have a right to be angry because I was "put in a situation against my will"  helps to distract me into resistance of the deeper feelings. . I rationalize that right by saying I did attempt to assert myself several times, with sit down meetings and requests that turned into 'nagging' and angry demands and eventually into a 'giving up" when the requests were not honored or even "laughed at".  But truth is, I wasn't assertive enough...I said over and over again if the house rules were not followed people would  have to leave...but I didn't follow through. I own that!!!  That is on me!!! Instead of taking ownership for what I have done to me by not being assertive enough to say "No! That is enough.  I can't handle that energy anymore  with everything else I got going on! This is not working for me...we have to make changes!"  it was easier to collect grievances and blame others for  making my life so much more challenging than it had to be. So it was easier to build a case against them and their patterns of behaviours (behaviours I knew I would confront if I agreed to let this energy into my home), instead of accepting the truth about my own responsibility in this. I spent a great dal of energy resisting self directed anger by justifying my victm status in this situation.   So I resisted this anger I had at myself, resisted my ownership in this  with a layer of other directed anger.

·         The third layer: I am using a spiritual disquise to soothe the pain "little me" feels. I seek the  spiritual in all my life circumstance, especially this one.  I am telling myself that what I am losing in terms of space, property, peace, health, time, sense of self care, is "good".  I tell myself losing "me, my, and mine" is part of my spiritual path. I beleive that and this is partially true here...but it is not 100 %  genuine at this point. Ego is still around directing this resistance, using a spiritual disquise  to create another layer of resistance  over uncomfortable feelings I get when I am angry with myself  for my responsibility in  being in this situation. Though my overall intention is to actually “let go” of ego , the “me, my, and mine” in the long run, I am not letting go here because the intention is not purely  spiritual…it is more mental…I realise it is just the mind trying to protect me from  more pain by diminishing and justifying this deep sense of loss as a postive aspect on my spiritual journey.  Thinking it is all "opportunity for growth and expansion"  does alleviate some of  the discomfort so it may have some spiritual benefit but not enough to call it a spiritual practice…It is, at this point, more a form of escape from the uncomfortable..it is another layer of resistance. 

·         The Forth layer: Over compensating and rationalization to resist spiritual shame. I am  resisting the feelings of discomfort,  mostly of shame and guilt,  that arise when despite my spiritual practice of giving, attempting to see only the good in others, providing service, being truly helpful, compassionate and kind,  removing the clinging that comes with ownership etc I  find myself  reacting very negatively  to the unconscious behaviour of others.  I am not only paying attention to it, I am collecting evidence of it and spend periods of time denying the positive and good I do see in this individual...There is some positive energy here as well, and when the other energy is napping I can see it. There has been some progress ...a bit more honesty maybe, refraining from the hard stuff for almost a year, a few attempts made to actively recover and get out there, love and concern for his dad, gentleness around the pets at times ( as long as they are not 'annoying' him) ...When I am in reactive mode, I push those things aside because I want to focus on the negative, to make it a clear case of "right or wrong"... ....which is far from evolved behaviour.  I catch myself watching with some pair of mental binnoculars on my face for evidence of that very unconscious and destructive energy emerging in the form of disrespect, passive aggressive lashing out towards me or others, destruction of property, a sense of entitlement  and I judge it harshly.  I even actively react to it or get verbally angry.  These reactions intensify when I see evidence that what I have offered so far is  not helping…that I am enabling, feeding this negative energy instead of the positive energy within this individual, at cost to my Self or at least to my little self…I hear myself saying “I don’t want this in my life” which fills  me with guilt for being so selfish. I know is is a preference judgement, a clinging and a resistance in itself to what is which I believe I "should not" be doing if I am trying to awaken. So I have an intense feeling of spiritual shame and personal guilt.   I resist that by over compensating and  becoming  more selfless.  I compensate and attempt to redeem myself from this shame by being more self-less.  In some weird way it is like I am  renouncing and sacrificing  my own rights and needs for another and not "judging" this other. It means giving up any semblance of “my home, my space, my peace, my time, my needs”   to this hungry energy that keeps wanting more…telling myself that this “renouncing” of some kind is a spiritual practice that will serve some greater good in the long run.  At the same time I know  it is actually a self  and other destructive practice. What I am doing is not helping him and it is not helping me. In a true spiritual practice we have compassion for all...and self is included in that all, not denied. 

·         The Fifth Layer: Changing the story or at least the characters to cover this knowing I have that what I am offering here is not helpful. Little glimpses of evidence of this unhealthy pattern for me and others, but especially for me, keep coming up. I don't see true change and steps toward recovery. So I ask myself..."Why am I doing this? This is crazy"...I feel like a failure, that I wasted my time and energy trying to help in a situation where my help was not used for the "right" reasons. That is hard to accept...so I resist. I change the story and remove self responsibility from the individuals.  In my mind, I turn them into  victims without the power or know-how needed to choose a better way of  being. I tell myself I can make respond like a martyr by making my mission one of selfless giving to them because the unconsciousness I am noticing is a sign of their need.  Maybe if I become more conscious, it will pull their consciousness up. (There is definitely a spiritual superiority at play, as well)    I will convince myself that this person truly wants to rid self  of this energy and just needs the love and support from others, like myself, to do so. So I resist the reality  of his responsibility in his own life  by changing the story in my mind....they the victim...and me the selfless martyr. Yick!

·         The Sixth Layer: Supression, Repression and Denial the fear and shame. I squish down the feeling, the twisiting in my gut, the memories of past incidents and the evidence that keeps coming up to warn me that we are dealing with a lot more here than meets the eye. I see the lack of remorse, appreciation, of concern.  I see how quickly very empty “thank you”s can turn into rage when someone stands in the way of desires and needs being met. I see the sense of entitlement and the desire to use what I offer  as a safe place to hide in …rather than a  place to heal in. I see the intention  this energy has to grow and its need to be fed by others, overpowering the positive energy in him. It is very painful for me to think that someone could be this unconscious…could lack so much concern for the Life God blessed them with or to be so careless and unconcerned about the well being of others. (Judging, I know! Thinking I am spiritually superior because I landed on a different place on the game board after throwing the dice)  Despite all that...It also scares me.  As I get closer to the root cause of my resistance I notice the fear. There is a fear for my own safety and the safety of others here. There has been since the beginning! This energy has put  this individual and others at risk in all ways. My memory will chirp in and remind  me that I,  and others, were in harm’s way many times before whether it was directly or indirectly related to this energy. I didnèt process through those fearful incidents...I just stuffed them.   I ignored the consequences of such an energy. It is actually a very dangerous type of unconscious energy.  As soon as I say that out loud…I feel the fear.  I tell myself I cannot deal with that with everything else I got going on so I squish it down. I cover it up by  telling myself : I   am judging, creating a monster out of a mouse, being too dramatic.  This supresses the fear but creates more shame. So I  ignore, supress, repress and deny any of the evidence that might pop up in little ways to prove that a destructive and potentially dangerous  energy is simply being fed here. I resist facing my fear  through old practiced defense mechanisms.

·         The seventh Layer:  Ignoring the Gut instinct.  Then as I get closer to the root I see that this all began because I resisted my gut instinct. What my gut instinct was telling me from the beginning was to keep my distance...that  this energy was damaging and poetentially dangerous. "Love and be kind but keep your distance! It is not safe!  "  I resisted my gut instinct because the reality of what it is telling me is too hard to deal with and because it is seldom validated by others. When I tried to express the fear and concern this intuition was bringing up before I always got shot down.  Had a psychiatrist tell me that I basically was wrong for feeling the way I did.  She countered my expressed concerns  with the fact that the individual  was her best patient and I was more or less told he had to come home with me.  I later asserted myself, refused to take him back,  stressing also that he should not go to another loved one’s place…she wasn’t well.  That was ignored…he went there.  Two days later she died.  I took  him back in with a sincere desire to help him with his grief and neurological issues …for a month...just for a month...expressing again and again to outside forces that he is going to get stuck in a comfort zone here... and  many months later we are still here. He has dug so deep into this comfort zone....I don't see an end to this unless I do something! There is no intentions of leaving.  No one else seems to see it or care about this or my powerful gut instinct and what it tends to pick up. So I gave up expressing my fears and concerns …I gave up trusting my gut instinct.  I resisted what it was telling me. I lost hope that things would change. I accepted a life situation that was not good for me. 

Underneath all these layers of resistance in this circumstance is a gut instinct that wants to be heard pushing its way up through all the layers.  It is coming up regardless if I want it to or not. I am willing, however, to let it come up…so I can look deeply into it. 

I may find that it has little validation or, I assume I will find, like I do with most of these feelings, that it does.  Regardless ...I need to heed its message.  I need to realize that is okay to exercise my rights and needs in my own home, to maybe...just for now...put Self first.  The most important mission in my Life right now is to connect and operate from that peaceful center.  Though this might be a wonderful learning platform for a more advanced student...I am obviously not that advanced. I seem to be failing miserably. 

I cannot stress enough...this is not about the person.  Inside the persons involved in this unconscious energy , which is btw basically just the pain body Eckhart Tolle teaches about, is a beautiful perfect being.  I truly believe that and I see that being emerging from time to time.  I do! There is hope and potential for this person to become more evolved! It is just not going to happen here. This , what we are offering, is not helping. 

I really am not like a lot of people either. I need to protect my energy so I can learn, grow and expand.  Because I am so sensitive to the energies of others. I do need to be careful who I am around. 

This sitution is not working for me and that should be enough reason to make change. I do have rights in my own home and I can exercise them. Why give up those rights when I am not helping, possibly enabling an energy, that is self and other destructive , to grow? There is nothing spirtual about that.

I know I focus a lot on the first line of the serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...but I tend to forget the second line . ..the courage to change the things I can. 

Delving into these layers of resistance that are exposing themselves to me is showing me that though accepting what is without resistance is always the  first step...sometimes we need to advance to the next step and change that which can be changed. We can ask for the courage needed to make change with love, compassion and kindness  whenever change is called for. It is called for!

All is well