Resistance
Making Meaning of the Message
Resistance is one of the biggest obstacles to our peace of mind and to practicing presence. When we resist what is, we are accepting a false reality that we have created in our ego mind. As we practice presence, that becomes very clear to us. What we resist has power over us, but what we accept in nonresistance no longer has power over us. Nonresistance and acceptance free us from the inside so we are experiencing our true life now rather than reacting negatively to our life situations—all the things happening around our life in our relationships, in the work we do, financial worries, our security, our inner well-being. Then we can have the confidence to deal with them all. But when we dwell on them or obsess over them again and again in resistance, we have taken ourselves out of reality. All the things in our life situation—they come and they go. They are not permanent. Our life is permanent, eternal, and it is whole, complete, and accessible always. In the practice of presence we have an alternative, a contrast: Are we going to create our inner fears and conflicts or accept the peace of the present moment? Nothing in our life situation is as powerful as that peace.
Set the Intention
God, allow your peace to stop the resistance I put in my daily life and change that resistance to acceptance of what is happening at this moment.
Practice Presence
Bring in stillness and ask yourself the three questions to gauge your progress:
Am I present now?
How do I feel inside?
Do I have a sense of peace within at some level?
See pages 10–11 of Choosing Presence for the details of this exercise or use the Practicing Presence—A Christian Way app to help you remember to take three conscious breaths or more every hour, to access God’s spiritual energy.
*Heaney, Jim. “Resistance.” Choosing Presence, Turning Stone Press, 2020, pp. 55-68. [Adapted with permission.]
