In today’s world, we face many challenges, from the material cost of living to the existential climate crisis. As well as the impact of these, we also meet difficulties and challenges in our personal lives, at home, at work, and in our relationships.
The story of the Saxon King Canute, who sat on his throne on a beach and tried to turn back the tide, is often misrepresented as the deluded arrogance of someone who resists the inevitable. The actual story, written in the 12th Century, sixty years after his death, paints a wiser picture. Canute ordered the tide to reverse to demonstrate to his followers that a King has no power against the greater laws of nature. Most of us learn from an early age that the universe does not revolve around us and that life does not always go the way we want it to. We develop ways of coping that become habits and patterns of reaction. There’s a quote attributed to Lao Tzu, the ancient Taoist philosopher, who said “Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” This can be shortened to watch your reactions as they become habits, which determine who you are. Our main ways of reacting are to avoid or resist whatever we see as unpleasant, unwanted, or a threat in our experience. As they become habits we can become trapped in cycles of repetition.
When we come across or anticipate difficulties in our lives it’s normal to experience anxiety. We sometimes try to reduce anxiety by avoiding the difficulty, for example when we procrastinate. Although avoidance lowers our anxiety level in the short term, taking this approach can increase our anxiety over the long term. Resisting a difficulty is a more active form of avoidance, where rather than passively hiding, we push back on what’s happening. These automatic reactions are driven by the instinctive fight-or-flight response that’s hardwired in our brain and body by evolution. These generally unconscious ways of reacting are a non-acceptance of reality as it is and tends to increase our anxiety and stress and lower our self-worth.
It’s perfectly normal to feel a bit anxious and stressed when we hear about a potential threat, for instance about a change in our role at work. When we react with resistance or avoidance, we direct our energy into pushing back or denying it’s not happening. Although many difficulties that come our way would have happened whether we existed or not, we tend to take them personally. What if there was a wiser way of responding that changes our relationship to the difficulty and channels our energy towards a more skilful and productive outcome?
This is to use acceptance; fully accepting the situation just as it is and not taking it personally. This involves using courage and trust together with an open and aware attitude that works with and embraces whatever arises. Acceptance means consciously allowing things to be as they already are, without wanting to immediately change them, or for them to be different.
One way of exploring the explore avoidance, resistance, and acceptance is to imagine them as a physical stance:
- Avoidance is turning to one side with our head lowered, with our hands covering our eyes as if, “This is not happening.”
- Resistance is turning in the other direction and pushing back with all our willpower and energy with, “This will not happen.”
- Acceptance is facing forward with our arms open, embracing whatever happens with openness and trust.
Sometimes avoiding something can be useful, like “dodging a bullet” by not taking on a difficult and doomed project. We also come across things that are not right or unjust that we need to push back on. This type of conscious and considered avoidance or resistance is not the same as the automatic and unconscious and habitual reactive patterns that we’re covering here.
Using acceptance is not about passively giving way or making ourselves a victim. As Eckhart Tolle, the author of The Power of Now, says, “Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” When we practise acceptance, we think more clearly and have greater freedom and flexibility to respond skilfully to work with ease with whatever arises in our experience.
Suggested weekly practice
- Set the intention to be alert to situations or events where you tend to avoid or resist and observe them as clearly as you can with openness and kindness.
- Bring the light of awareness to investigate your patterns of reaction. Were you aware that this is a repeating habit? Did the way you reacted serve you, others, and the situation?
- When you come across challenges or setbacks, try accepting them as if you had chosen this option and see if that changes your relationship with it.
Guidance
Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware.
There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes, or lower your gaze while the meditations play.
- Play the settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
- Then play the second audio to explore avoidance, resistance, and acceptance. Part of the exercise involves some visualization.
