How to Stop Resisting & Leave Pain Behind – A Practical Guide
Something is not going your way, and you’re frustrated.
You might notice yourself saying things like:
- Why is this happening to me?
- This shouldn’t be happening.
- They shouldn’t be doing that.
- This is unacceptable.
It can seem like life is riddled with things designed to push your hot buttons. From big challenges in your relationships, career, health or finances, through to tiny irritations day to day.
You might feel completely justified in being upset about what’s going on.
“I’ve never been so calm and light before. It liberated me from long-standing headaches, and has been a big boost for my mental and emotional well-being. It’s allowed me to harness all my inner gifts onto things I create in life.”
But whenever you notice yourself saying, “It shouldn’t be this way”, you’re in resistance and you’re on a quick ride to pain city.
There is no other outcome available when you resist the facts of the present moment.
Resistance guarantees you will suffer.
Why? Because what is happening around you in that moment is fact, and unchangeable in that moment. It is what it is.
If you don’t accept the facts, then you reject the facts.
Rejection of the facts is resistance.
“I’ve never been so calm and light before. It liberated me from long-standing headaches, and has been a big boost for my mental and emotional well-being. It’s allowed me to harness all my inner gifts onto things I create in life.”
Resistance = pain.
The Cold Hard Truth
Resistance steals your life from you.
And the cold hard truth is that you do it to yourself.
The world around you is not causing your pain and suffering, as hard as that is to stomach.
All the things going wrong, the outcomes not meeting your expectations, the difficult people and challenging circumstances – it all just is. It’s happening. It’s fact.
What causes the suffering is your reaction to it.
The only way to end that suffering, is to stop resisting what is going on.
“What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is?” – Eckhart Tolle
See the insanity of resistance…
- You say, “It shouldn’t be this way!”
- And yet it is this way.
- So you are arguing with fact.
- Who is going to win?
Hint
You will never win fighting against life.
“Whatever you fight, you strengthen” – Eckhart Tolle
The more you resist what is happening, the more tangled in upset you become.
The deeper you go into that upset, the less clear and capable you are of creating any positive way forward out of the situation you don’t like.
As a result, it seems like whatever is upsetting you becomes worse, or at the very least it continues to stay in your life, or show up in different costumes.
It’s like problems follow you around. Negative people get drawn in like magnets. One problem leads to another. That’s because…
And the cycle of things going wrong, and you being upset, continues until you stop resisting.
Check out this Daily Inspiration video I did with steps to help you get out of resistance right now…
1. Start with a Choice
You eventually get to a point in life where you’re done with resisting, simply because you’re done with the pain.
You start to see the cost to you – impacts on your health, your happiness, your relationships, your career and much more.
I got to that point a few years ago. I’d spent my entire life trying to control the uncontrollable, getting frustrated at anything/anyone who didn’t meet my expectations and freaking out whenever something didn’t go the way I wanted.
Then something changed.
I finally made a new choice. I said, “Even though I don’t like this, I’m done with resisting it. It’s too exhausting.”
I got wise in that moment. I knew if I kept being that way with life, I was going to end up at the same destination every single time.
When you buy a ticket on the Resistance Train heading to Pain City, you know 100% that you will end up in Pain City! So just stop buying a ticket!
My rationale for this choice to stop resisting was quite logical. It went like this:
- I’m going to stop resisting because this “thing” is fact.
- Resistance is futile. It is a dead end.
- It has already happened / is already happening.
- I can’t change that.
- Fighting it won’t make a difference.
- There is no solution available in resistance.
- Being upset won’t make it better.
- Being upset actually only makes it worse.
- If I resist, this persists, and I stay here stuck and upset.
- My only access point to feel better AND create solutions/positive change is to go into non-resistance.
- Non-resistance means I have to accept the facts.
- Accepting this situation doesn’t mean it has to stay this way.
- Accepting this situation doesn’t mean I have to like it or pretend it’s somehow good.
- Accepting this situation is just me saying, “I see the facts. I’m sane enough to acknowledge this”
- Accepting this situation actually makes me feel more peaceful.
- Feeling more peaceful gives me back my energy.
- Now that I feel peaceful I can do something positive to effect change in this situation.
- I can think more clearly and give all my precious energy to helpful decisions and action.
2. Get Calm!
Now that you’ve made a logical choice to stop resisting, it’s time to calm yourself down. Logic alone doesn’t do that!
It is incredibly challenging, as I found out, to get out of non-resistance when you’re really emotional. Even if you logically really want to stop resisting, your emotional state will either hinder you or help you.
So if you’re worked up, your job is to get yourself into a physiological and emotional state that supports you.
This means DO something to support yourself to feel better, to calm down.
You have to get tough with yourself, and not make up excuses, and not continue to feed your story of resistance. It can be alluring to do nothing, and continue blaming, complaining, crying, questioning … and perpetuating the pain while delaying your peace.
Simple ways to feel better and calm down include:
- Be still, restore, treat yourself with care
- Do diaphragmatic breathing
- Meditate
- Do EFT/tapping
- Listen to calming or empowering music
- Go into nature
- Exercise, yoga, walking
Engage in some type of ritual that feels good to you, to interrupt the painful thought/feeling cycle you are caught within.
3. See This Drama Differently!
Now you’ve made the logical choice to stop resisting, and you’ve calmed yourself down, it’s time to get real.
In order to stop resisting, you need to have a higher perspective about what is going on.
Seeing things differently will help immensely with letting go and staying in non-resistance.
It’s not enough to stop resisting just because someone else told you to, and it seems like the “right” thing to do, and you “should” do it.
You want to be fully onboard with non-resistance, accepting it as your best way forward.
That way, if your mind kicks back into a negative thought pattern again, you’ll be ready to interrupt it and coach yourself on a new higher perspective about the REASON you’re facing this frustrating situation and why you’ve chosen not to resist it.
I like to do this by considering 3 reasons why I might have ended up in this messy, frustrating situation in the first place. If I can see why it has happened to me, it gives me back a sense of clarity, control and personal power.
I’m sure you agree, there is nothing worse than feeling like things have no meaning and there is no sense of order as to why you end up where you do!
Just try these on for size, and use them to prompt you to stop resisting and start accepting. These aren’t necessarily “truth”, they’re simply opportunities to choose a new perspective that works better for you.
Reason 1 – I Got Myself Here
Maybe, somehow, I got myself here by my own doing.
What is happening to me is because of my own beliefs, thoughts, feelings, choices, behavior or actions.
Consciously or unconsciously, I might have contributed to this outcome that I’m upset about and resisting.
If that’s the case, the only way I can truly be onboard with non-resistance is if I OWN this. I have to be self-responsible, accountable and ask…
- What is there for me to learn about myself and life because of this situation?
- How can I be differently in future that will help me avoid this again?
- What can I do differently in future that will lead to better outcomes?
This is all about creating a change on the inside of yourself, so that you don’t repeat a pattern.
Recognition of your role in getting yourself into the mud is what will create evolution in who you are.
Reason 2 – Life Served Me Up an Assignment
Maybe I didn’t get myself here by own doing. But maybe life just served me up this challenge for a reason.
Maybe this thing I’m resisting is here to trigger me into my next level of awareness and growth on this life journey – calling me to stand up and be more personally powerful.
Maybe life is saying, “Let’s see what you got!”
Think about… how do you grow in life?
What most people don’t like to admit, because they don’t want to encourage life to give them more (!), is that the greatest growth you will experience in your life is through adversity.
It just is.
The more you accept this, the less you will fight against challenges when they arise.
So, with whatever you’re resisting, ask yourself, “What is life asking me to be right now?”
Maybe you’re being asked to practise being more peaceful, more accepting, more creative, more courageous, more forgiving, clearer in your boundaries or better in your communication.
What is being asked of me and what do I need to practise right now?
Reason 3 – I am Meant to Shine
If neither of the above two reasons resonate with you as to why you ended up facing this situation you’re so resistant to, then consider this…
Maybe you’ve been planted in that situation because you have light within you and that situation needs your light.
That person, group or circumstance needs what you have.
So you’ve been put in the middle of it and your job is to turn your light on.
How else do we elevate the planet unless someone stands up and turns on a light in the darkness?
In little moments of daily life, all over this planet, people are being moved energetically to be in the right place at the right time, to shine their little hearts out. To elevate themselves and to lift others up at the same time.
Summary – How to Stop Resisting Life
- If you’re feeling super frustrated, and you have to say it just to get it out, then say it once and only once, “I’m frustrated and it shouldn’t be this way.”
- Make a logical choice to stop resisting.
- Calm yourself (body and emotional system) with rituals
- Look at the situation differently and claim personal power in doing so – something magnificent is available to you if you a) be self-responsible and take your learning, b) accept life’s invitation to evolve to the next level or c) be the light for others
- Take action where action is appropriate – once in a state of acceptance, your mental and emotional state supports you to take effective action to help improve the situation as best you can.
I hope this has helped you and you’re ready to stop resisting and start accepting!
I’d love to hear from you so please do leave a comment below.
With love, Bernadette
Your Inner World is Telling You Something
When you feel weighed down by life — and no matter what you do, you still feel stuck — that's your system trying to communicate with you. There are five layers within you, and the reason we stay stuck almost always lives in one of them. Find out which layer is running the show in your life right now — and what it actually needs to shift — so the change you've been longing for can finally take hold. Three minutes. Five layers. Discover your exact next step for the inner transformation that creates lasting change.
“I’ve never been so calm and light before. It liberated me from long-standing headaches, and has been a big boost for my mental and emotional well-being. It’s allowed me to harness all my inner gifts onto things I create in life.”