The Wisdom Of Surrender; Resistance Equals Persistence

One of my favorite websites is http://www.DailyOM.com ~ each day I get a new "Om" in my Email In Box. They are insightful little nuggets, that inspire, provoke thought and reflection and always get me to think deeper. Often these messages are synchronistic; coming to me at exactly the time I need them. I would like to share pieces of July 26th's Daily OM with you, titled The Wisdom of Surrender:

"We all know the feeling of being repeatedly haunted by the same issue, no matter how we try to ignore it, avoid it, or run away from it. Sometimes it seems that we can get rid of something we don’t want by simply pushing it away. Most of the time, the more we push away, the more we get pushed back. There are laws of physics and metaphysics that explain this phenomenon, which is often summed up in this pithy phrase: That which you resist persists. "

The saying "what you resist, persists" was something I learned during my training at The Institute of Integrative Nutrition. It is a lesson we all need to learn. But it's not always easy to recognize and if we aren't fully aware that that is what we're doing, we won't be able to effectively deal with it.

The Daily OM article goes on:

"Resistance tends to strengthen the energies it attempts to oppose by giving them power and energy to work against. Additionally, resistance keeps us from learning more about what we resist. In order to fully understand something, we must open to it enough to receive its energy; otherwise, we remain ignorant of its lessons. There is a Tibetan story of a monk who retreats to meditate in a cave only to be plagued by demons. He tries everything—chasing, fighting, hiding—to get the demons out of his cave, but the thing that finally works is surrender. He simply lets them have their way with him and only then do they disappear.

Now, this wisdom must be applied practically. We are not meant to get ourselves physically injured. Instead, this story speaks of how, in essence, our demons are inside of us. What plagues and pursues us on an inner level has a way of manifesting itself in our environment in the form of people, events, and issues that appear to be beyond our control. But all these external expressions are reflections of our insides, and it is inside ourselves that we can safely experiment with surrendering to what we fear and dislike. It may feel scary, and we may find ourselves in the company of a lot of resistance as we begin the process of opening to what we fear. But the more we learn to surrender, and the more the demons that plague us disappear in the process, the more courageous we will become."

I challenge you to reflect on this today, and see what place it has in your life. I also encourage you to check out http://www.DailyOM.com and sign up for their daily email. This particular article can be found at http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2007/9471.html

Ommmmmmmm....................