Onward through resistance
One of the keys is recognizing that resistance is fluid.
It is something one feels and then has the chance to move through. Resistance is not static. It is not healthy or natural to feel resistant and get stuck there. I think it is scary if you feel stuck in resistance because it is uncomfortable, sometimes painful and blocks love from consciousness.
“Take this cup from me,” Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. We have all felt the intensity of that prayer in our lives when we are in the throes of resistance to what we are presently experiencing in the lives and health of our loved ones and ourselves.
My sister was vacuuming her living room and her just turned 4-year-old daughter was napping upstairs. There was a loud pounding on her front door. She turned the vacuum off and opened the door to discover her bloodied shaking daughter standing unsteadily after having fallen out the second story window.
My sister immediately enveloped Jena in her arms and carried her inside and called 911. Jena seemed to be in shock and was having some trouble breathing. When the ambulance arrived my sister rode with her baby to the hospital and after calling her husband had a moment to call me. There was a lot of resistance in my sister’s voice as she shared the horrible story and expressed her fear, disappointment, anger and resentment about the faulty window screen, her daughter’s ridiculous ability to climb up walls and her own inability to have heard the accident because of the noise of the vacuum.
What I witnessed unfolding before me was when my sister was focused on telling me what state Jena was in and sharing information from the paramedics, there was no resistance. When she relived the whole incident there was a lot of resistance in the form of regret.
I discovered that resistance is not only a way towards acceptance that leads to love and healing, but there is also an opportunity to take a shortcut directly to love. Resistance and acceptance are opposite ends of the same pole and are connected much as love and hate are connected like different circuits in the same system.
The love my sister had for her daughter pushed her to jump from resistance to love in one swift leap. The nature of the emergency made any resistance ridiculous and unnecessary. If my sister could do this, then we are all capable of shortening or eliminating the resistance in our lives that blocks our access to love.
Do you believe we could practice this without an all-out emergency? How would our lives look if when faced with adversity we went directly to love? Is that optimal or do we sometimes need to learn from what resistance teaches us?
Michelle is a longtime Taos resident and can be reached at michelleterrillheath@gmail.com and more information can be found at michelleterrillheath. com.