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Within the rollercoaster we call life, there is an ever-present flow of energy that pervades every aspect of our lives. This flow of energy is especially recognized within Daoism, but it’s something that’s universally referenced regardless of the spiritual interpretation.
You experience this flow within your thoughts and feelings. They come and go at their own beat and trying to prevent them leads to suffering. You may experience this flow when you’re doing something creative, glued to your work, or engrossed in an interesting conversation.
Here’s the thing.
This flow of energy is always there, but in today’s world where everything moves with a sense of urgency, it’s more difficult than ever to be present with the natural rhythm of consciousness.
For the most part, we have forgotten how to be present with our experiences – without judgment or denial, and you wonder why so many people nowadays feel anxious, depressed, stressed, and overwhelmed. It’s because we have forgotten how to be present with the experience of consciousness without trying to do something.
When we’re not calibrated with this natural rhythm of life, we create resistance. Resistance is a root cause of suffering. It creates tension and overall makes the experience of life much bumpier. The law of non-resistance is a doctrine that helps us find equanimity within ourselves by adopting an approach to life where we surrender to our circumstances, thoughts, and feelings.
So how do we experience this flow within all dimensions of our life experience, to live more wholesome lives? Let’s look into it.
Law of non-resistance meaning
The law of non-resistance is a philosophy that suggests friction is caused when the natural course of any given thing is impeded. On a personal level, living in flow with your life experience leads to harmony, while resisting it leads to suffering. Non-resistance is one of the laws of the universe.
Non-resistance is the act of allowing rather than combating. It means to live a life without any forcing current within it. The law of non-resistance doesn’t mean to be a passive bystander, but to be calibrated with your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
I’ll tell you why non-resistance should be a doctrine in every spiritual seeker’s tool set.
First, let me get something straight. Non-resistance doesn’t mean that you allow bad things to happen to you. Nor does it mean that you stop exercising because it causes discomfort, or overindulge because you feel like it. What it does mean is to find a rhythm in your life. It’s to listen to what your mind, body, and spirit are telling you, and to act in calibration with those messages.
If your intuition is telling you to get out of a certain situation, the act of non-resistance is to listen to this internal guidance. If you feel like eating some chocolate, then eat some chocolate. If you feel like crying, then cry. Of course, everything in moderation, but if you listen to your body, naturally it will seek balance.
When you’re calibrated with your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, intuition, and experiences in general, there is much less friction in your life.
Less friction = less stress.
Less stress = less suffering.
Seek equanimity with your experience of consciousness, and you’ll find that the experience of life becomes much more enjoyable.
How non-resistance can change your life
The law of non-resistance has been a huge stepping stone in my life because once upon a time, I resisted everything. I just couldn’t accept the hand of cards I had been dealt and fought relentlessly against my life condition.
Do you know what it lead to? A whole lot of misery. My life sucked, but what I found is that the act of resisting made everything so much more difficult.
While backpacking solo for many years, I’ve been in a few hairy situations. From being robbed and losing my phone, wallet, and any means of receiving money, to being stranded in a foreign country with no passport or identification. When you’re in a bad situation that you have no control over, the first instinct is to panic.
Your mind breaks down into dysfunction as you scramble to put the pieces together. You begin overthinking, resisting, denying, and scratching for any solution you can find. But where does this get you? Does it help the situation at all? You’re faced with two options in times of distress:
- A) Panic: This option will lead to no good and make the situation a whole lot worse
- B) Surrender: Accept the situation for what it is, stop fighting life, and allow yourself to feel what you need to feel
I learned very quickly that path B is the way to go. When I’m in a difficult situation, the magic happens when I let go of control, rather than try to reclaim control. Of course, it’s easier said than done, but by accepting the situation and discovering a deeper peace within the chaos, that’s when a deeper wisdom shines through.
Within this quiet is where you’ll create space for practical solutions and better outlooks of the situation. Therefore, surrender to your situation when you’re going through a rough time. Going inwards and feeling everything fully allows you to get into the calm of the storm, where you can then work towards a solution.
The philosophy of non-resistance
Non-resistance is simple on the surface (don’t fight your experiences), but the law is a way of life rather than an action (or inaction). It’s a belief that all things that are happening are exactly how they’re meant to be, so instead of denying your experiences, be fully present with them.
You might resist change when change is beneficial for you. You might resist new situations that make you nervous when getting out of your comfort zone is good for you. Likewise, you might resist your thoughts and feelings, which is counterproductive.
See the pattern here?
Usually, resistance prevents you from growing, learning, and developing as a person. Whatever you’re resisting, I can assure you there are better ways around it. Resistance tends to manifest as stress, anxiety, or frustration. By resisting, you create tension in yourself, your work, and your relationships.
Imagine your body as a channel. Information passes through you in the form of thoughts, emotions, ideas, and so forth. When everything passes organically (without intervention), that’s when you enter a state of flow.
This state of flow is the aim of non-resistance. It’s to achieve a state where there’s no friction in your life, and things organically pass through your channels without any obstruction, tension, or intervention.
Once you’re in this flow state where you experience everything through a lens of acceptance and non-judgment, that’s when your life starts to take on a new meaning: One that brings you a deeper sense of peace and stillness.
The flow state is not something you do. It’s a state of consciousness that occurs when you tap into this universal flow of energy.
Some elements of non-resistance include:
- Letting go: Stop holding onto situations, thoughts, and feelings, and allow things to organically pass.
- Live without friction:ย Friction means there’s tension from forcing something in a way that it doesn’t want to go. Non-resistance is to live a life with as minimal friction as possible.
- Allow rather than combat: Allow thoughts, feelings, and experiences to happen without combating them, even if they’re painful.
- Surrender control: Acknowledge that you don’t have control over most of the things happening in your life. Control what you can, and accept what you can’t.
- Accept your situation: Accept the situation you’re currently in. Denying a situation builds tension because the situation is a reality.
- Non-reaction: Space yourself from events where you can observe without being reactive. This means you don’t unconsciously react to things, rather you see them from a higher point of view and base your actions around them.
- Nonjudgement: Avoid judging experiences and let them be for what they are.
Understanding resistance
To understand the law of non-resistance, you need to understand what resistance is. Just to be clear, non-resistance doesn’t mean simply bending over and having no backbone. It’s a state of equilibrium with your experiences.
Resistance is a common experience in life. It’s the feeling of pushing against something that you don’t want to happen. Resistance comes in many forms. Some are obvious, some not so much. But one way or another, I can guarantee you that there are things you resist.
Some of the most common forms of resistance involve:
- Emotions: It’s quite normal to resist painful emotions because we don’t want to experience them
- Thoughts: Don’t try to streamline your thoughts or make them productive. Thoughts are thoughts and you just need to witness them, not try to change them
- Situations: Certain situations might cause friction where you fight against them instead of accepting them and being present with the experience
- Intuition: You might feel a certain way about something, but resist your intuition because it doesn’t seem logical
- Possibilities: You shut down possibilities and ideas because you don’t agree with them, or they make you uncomfortable
Resistance can be hard to avoid at times because the ego gets a kick out of it.
The act of arguing with people who challenge your beliefs or convincing yourself that you have a hold on everything is usually the ego at play.
It’s easier to put on a movie and drown out your troubles with comfort food or alcohol than it is to just fully experience those painful emotions and sit with them. Resistance is easy because it makes you feel like you’re in control. Naturally, the ego wants to rebel which can make the act of non-resistance tricky.
Non-resistance sounds pretty simple, right? Just don’t resist what’s happening and you’ll be fine. But there are nuances to it. If you’re pushing yourself to let go or trying to force yourself not to resist an emotion, that’s also an act of resistance because there’s a forcing current there.
Non-resistance is to not have any forcing currents, it’s to be in harmony with the experience you’re having. That means feeling and expressing your emotions. Channeling your anger and directing the energy towards something productive rather than trying to prevent yourself from feeling it at all.
Riding the riptide of life
When you’re learning to swim in open water, you learn not to swim against a rip if you get caught in one. You will exhaust yourself because the current is stronger than even the fastest swimmers. Instead, you allow the rip to pull you away from the familiar until the water settles and you can swim back.
The currents of life are the same.
When things go south, we panic and resist because we fear where life is going to take us. We fear that it might ultimately lead to death when the fear is exacerbated because we donโt allow the currents to take us to where they want us to go.
So when the universe is pulling you in a particular direction, you need to apply the same logic. I’m not saying to avoid taking action or to let people take advantage of you. But surrender to the experience that’s outside of your control, and be completely present with it instead of trying to change the direction of something that clearly isn’t working out.
Get into your feminine!
Feminine energy is associated with water and is much more flowy.
Arguably, women in general tend to be better at non-resistance. This is why women are generally more in touch with their emotions, present with their experiences, and more involved in spiritual practices such as yoga and meditation where non-resistance plays a crucial role.
If you’re having a hard time letting go, it could be because you’re too far in your masculine energy. In this case, it’s important to embrace your feminine energy. This might take you some time, especially if you have a hard time letting go, but with a little guidance, you can do it.
Accept what's outside of your control
You want to have control over every aspect of your life because you think it’s necessary. After all, if you don’t have control of the situation, everything is going to break down, right?
While there are plenty of things that are within your control, it’s important to realize that your realm of control is small. There’s so much in life that you don’t have control over. Unexpected events, other people, outside influences. Sometimes things will happen and there’s nothing you can do about it.
The first instinct is to try and control the situation, but what good is it going to do? This is why you need to realize what is outside of your control, and let it go. Do what’s in your power to manage the situation, but accept what is outside of it instead of causing yourself unnecessary stress.
The need for control comes from a lack of trust. You don’t trust that you’ll be taken care of, or that things will unfold the way they need to. Of course, you will hold onto any smidge of control you can get because you believe that letting go of it will cause everything to come crashing down.
So if you want to let go of control, you need to cultivate trust. Believe that you will be taken care of by the universe and what happens will unfold exactly how it’s meant to.
Believing that everything happens for a reason will soften the punch.
Non-resistance: A philosophy for non-suffering
Besides being an important philosophy to live a life with less tension, non-resistance is a key factor in managing your emotional pain. That’s because when you naturally let experiences pass without resistance, you facilitate healing and growth.
Especially when you’re faced with a difficult experience such as heartbreak or loss, your instinct is to resist. So you hold on, bottle up your emotions, and prevent yourself from passing through these painful experiences organically.
Life is going to hurt sometimes. You will get caught in difficult situations, and life won’t be fair at times. That’s why I urge you to surrender to what’s outside of your control because resisting life can turn it into a personal hell very quickly.
So when you’re in a state of being where you’re constantly trying to have control of every situation, you’re denying your circumstances and exhausting yourself by continuously thinking, doing, and acting, you’re mental health is going to take a hit. You’ve got all the perfect ingredients for a very distressing, overwhelming life.
See painful experiences as important messengers
The best way to look at pain is as a carrier of wisdom. When you go through situations that cause you a lot of grief in whatever form it may be, the pain won’t fully go away until you understand why it’s there in the first place, and how it serves you.
There is always something good to come out of your pain. As long as you surrender to it and allow it to teach you a deeper wisdom, not only will it begin to leave, but you will grow because of it.
If you have your break broken, you can suck up the pain and become bitter and resentful (the path of resistance). If you deeply feel that pain, however, besides your heart healing from it, it’s also going to open your heart.
By organically allowing those emotions to be, you’ll feel more compassion and love in the long run because you’re leveraging the painful experience.
Create a vent for your emotions
Unless you process painful emotions, those energies build up.
You see people who hold a lot of tension in their bodies, and they’re usually the type of people who act tough and probably haven’t cried in 20 years. But those energies need to go somewhere, and without actually getting rid of them you just end up storing them.
You can’t just block out pain and magically recover. That’s not how healing works, because if you’re just pushing those feelings away then you’re not processing them, learning from them, or discarding them, they aren’t going anywhere. You may repress them, sure, but that’s not doing you any good.
If you refuse to acknowledge painful energies, you’re just pushing them into the subconscious to be stored essentially. They start to come out in the form of dysfunctions such as bursts of anger, feelings of overwhelm, tension in the body, and instability in the emotional body. The reason why these emotions start leaking out is because they are still there.
To truly body the law of non-resistance, you need to acknowledge painful emotions and create a vent. In this case, resistance is blocking that channel by preventing you from processing the painful things you experience. This is why it’s so important to be an open channel by letting everything pass through you organically.
1 comment
I like it good explanations