Resistance and Persistence

Stel and I were recently in Mexico with my family. We did a great job of balancing rest with activity and spent quality time with our loved ones. I was grateful for the the peace and insight that time gave me. I had set an intention to disconnect from ego while I was there (you know how sometimes familial dynamics can push your buttons) and was afforded a few opportunities - I'll give myself a B+ for effort and a C- minus for execution. It was a good trip. I exercised my listening skills and took the time to ask questions and hear answers without waiting to talk and learned some lovely things about my family that I didn't know before. I spent time with our "gente", met some new friends of my sister's and one afternoon went climbing up a steep, rocky, beautiful hill in order to get to the top of the Tepozteco pyramid (my older sister, by the way, wasn't even remotely winded during the climb - that's her on the left - her cardio is superhuman - I was both awed by and proud of her; she's amazing!).

And coming home to face the normal routine of the day-to-day I feel some resistance to "office life" and the problems that wait for me there every morning. And that doesn't feel okay. Even though I'm not very pleased with what my responsibilities have evolved into, in all modesty, I am good at my job and I do feel positive about the organization and the people I'm working with. So, what am I missing that makes me feel anxious about 30-40 hours of my week? What is fascinating is that the answer came to me before I asked that question. As I was emailing the below to a friend, I realized that I have been coming across these concepts a lot lately and in putting this blog entry together, I became aware of my resistance to the present moment when it came to my job. These are not my words, but a paraphrasing and summarizing of spiritual teachings and conversations:

Ask yourself, 'What is my relationship with the present moment'? Are you at peace and acceptance or in negativity and resistance? Life is the present moment, it is not tomorrow or yesterday. Negativity makes an enemy of the present moment. If you are not friendly with the present moment, you are not friendly with life. In other words, what you resist, persists. Accept what is, first. Making peace with the moment does not mean you have to approve of it or condone it, merely accept where you are. Being in a place of dissatisfaction is not a good starting point for changing your life. Action does not come from a place of resistance, it comes from a place of acceptance.

And I realize how true this is for me. Most of what I've created has been from a place of peace and stillness: while staring out the window of an airplane, when I wake up before the alarm, after a walk around my neighborhood, while sitting down at my computer with a cup of tea, after a long climb up a hill to see a pyramid... When I feel dissatisfied and try to do something about it, I tend to spin my wheels and I usually end up feeling more anxious and blocked and stressed. I have learned that when I get like this, it's best to step away for a while and occupy myself with something else. But how powerful to realize the "how" of the knowing and become aware that I can take my actions a that step further into acceptance.

This kind of awareness, "getting something", seems to always comes after I honor my feelings (another good lesson) - for me the challenge is allowing myself to feel the knowing and take the steps I need before I have to name the knowing. In my life I've often gotten bogged down with the need to understand, but not so much anymore. Of course ironically, as I started to give up "the need to know" the understanding and answers often came more easily as a result. Go figure.

So while I was writing to help a friend during a difficult time, life presented me with a tool to use with this resistance - persistence thing. Instead of fighting where I am/what I'm doing at the moment, I need to make peace with it. Only then can I really decide where to go from there. And if the answer is "Well, this is where I am right now and that's not going to change anytime soon", then accepting it will certainly take the edge off. So, I plan on asking myself often, "What is my relationship to the present moment?" This tool has been a long time coming! I remember tacking the saying "what you resist, persists" up on my bulletin board at my first job when I was in my early 20's, along with "over analysis leads to paralysis". Apparently I finally stopped resisting long enough to hear the answer and have become aware enough to connect it to the question. My relationship to the present moment? Relief and gratitude.