Resistance

Another look at resistance. I have to say, that every time I had to write about resistance, an article, or a reply to a question on LU forum, resistance was playing its part. I mean that it felt like some kind of mysterious force holding something up. Even with this video, it took me a long time to get it uploaded, as the internet connection was playing up.

We all feel resistance sometimes and it can be like a blind spot. How to get rid of that unwanted resistance?

What if resistance is really a friend?

Sometimes just seeing it in a different light can change the whole show.

From Seeking To Seeing

I was a seeker once. I was looking for something. I did not know what that was, but I had heard stories about enlightenment, awakening, constant bliss—I wanted that. I knew that where I was at the time wasn’t it. I had an urge to find out what the holy grail was that would make my life better in every way.

Somebody once asked me straight, “What are you looking for?” And I replied, “Enlightenment.” Did I find that? No, but I am not looking for it anymore. I stopped chasing ideas and found something else instead: peace. Not in a way that everything is quiet and slow, but in a way that there is much less internal narration about what is “not enough.” Everything is just fine. There is no more judgment of good versus bad, no more fight of good versus evil. There is a silence of mind that is much more delightful than fighting what is.

The seeking pattern has stopped running. The drive that was here before, trying to get/achieve/improve something, is now absent. There is openness instead, a spaciousness that allows all happenings to pass without internal friction. If I get annoyed, which I still do, it lasts only a short time and gets resolved quickly.

Seeking is a form of striving energy that wants to get somewhere. This, here and now, is not what it wants. There is something else to get so that the tension will cease. But it does not cease; it only takes small breaks. The “happy tomorrow” does not arrive; it feels like you are trapped in an unwanted time and place, a prison that has no doors. The seeking continues. New books, videos, talks, gurus—they all seem to have something desirable, yet not achievable. How to get off of the seeking merry-go-round?

There is a flip from seeking to seeing, and it is not what the mind thinks. It is not about making something external change so that I will feel more comfortable; it’s internal. The energy that feels intense wants to be felt—fully, openly, purely felt. When we look at what seeking itself is, rather than toward the direction of where our attention is going, seeking can be seen as a mechanism, a pattern, a strong energy. Observing it with conscious awareness, recognizing it, and then feeling the sensation melts it like a sun melts a cube of ice.

So, if you are looking for something, stop for a minute and feel the sensation that is driving the search. This sensation is here, and it does not matter so much why it is here, or who put ideas of “not enough” in the mind. What matters is that this sensation is recognized and fully felt. Seeking for flips to looking at. Once the energy is allowed to be fully present and embraced, the mind becomes relaxed, spacious, soft; it no longer feels the tension.

Try this exercise. Feel the sensation of “not enough.” Feel the sensation of lack. This sensation has a location in the body. Observe it. Allow it. Let it be as it is for a minute or two. Don’t think about what should be different or how much you dislike it; just feel it as it is. Be honest with your own feeling. Be curious about the sensation. Let it enfold you fully, even if it is intense. What is behind it?

Doing this a few times a day may feel like practice. But it’s worth it to remember and engage with this, because the more you become honest with the feelings that are arising—the more you look at what is—the less there is striving for something else. It’s a focus shift from seeking to seeing; all it takes is a conscious look at what is actually happening here and now. The mind can find peace, and that’s the end of the seeking pattern. Then a whole new world opens up—the one that was always here, always present, but was ignored or unnoticed, because of that constant nagging feeling of it not being enough. Thoughts stop running wild; there is more spaciousness felt. There is ease and lightness.

Seeking ends, but exploration continues. And exploration is a different kind of energy—it has a sense of wonder, curiosity, playfulness, and childish innocence. There is no more striving to get out of an unwanted situation, but rather resting in the situation that is neither wanted or unwanted but simply is.

Unfolding Contractions

Last Sunday I held a group Deep Looking event in google hangouts. It was a powerful session where we sat with sensations and invited contractions to come up and gently unfold. Here is something I wanted to share with you after the session:

Sometimes we feel stuck in an uncomfortable feeling and nothing seems to work. Or, it works temporarily until the next treatment, the next attempt to resolve something that keeps coming up again and again. What if I told you there is a hack to that, that is very simple and effective. 

Imagine you fold an origami. It was once a flat paper and now it is a 3D form, it has volume, it's like a container, a new form that holds space in. Contraction is like the origami form, it's folded in and it holds something. What we can do is unfold it and by doing that, it returns to its natural form--which is spacious formlessness.

How does this look in practice?

The contraction/ tension that is felt, is a sensation. That sensation feels like it's intense, unpleasant, unwanted and the repulsion to the sensation is called resistance. (It's actually a protection) Let's rename contraction to protection, there's a lighter feeling already and an invitation to welcome it.

Just look from this angle: Some time ago some hurt happened and there was an unconscious decision to guard yourself from something like that in the future. This is normal human behavior (avoiding the unpleasant and seeking the pleasant). It's like the mind's computer wrote a program that if 'this' happens then it must activate protection. So every time 'this' happens, there is a sensation that arises, the protection is activated and it kicks in automatically and we notice a reaction happening. By focusing on the sensations of protection we have no more access to the sensation that the protection is covering up. We also call this mechanism--fear.

The protection is felt, but what is it about?

Try this exercise:

When feeling protection, ask it- who are you? What are you? What are you protecting?
And just wait. The answer may come up or not. Notice what happens. This way you can look into a feeling of tightness and see what is behind it--what is it that needs or wants protection.

Some other questions you can ask are:

What do you want the most?
What wisdom do you have for me?
Are you helping?
Do you want to relax?

Don't try to fight protections, they are here to help. Only not all old programs are still useful, helpful or necessary. Some programs are very old and no longer needed so they can be seen and let go. When protection comes up, welcome it as it comes up to be reviewed and adjusted. Those that are still needed can stay, but those that are only creating unnecessary tension can drop. It is safe. All it takes is seeing them. By that I mean - really feeling into sensations, giving the sensations 100 percent of your attention, simply allowing them to be fully felt.

This is the unfolding. Forms of protection can dissolve and go back to rest.

Once protection is released, there is a sense of openness, spaciousness, boundlessness, no borders.

You can ask for protections to come up and then watch where they show up in the body and talk to them. Sounds unusual? Try it. Asking direct questions in a friendly way will create an allowing space for those protections to be as they are. This is surrender, letting go, the end of resisting. Try this for yourself.

If you would like to join the next online event on the 4th of February, there are still places available. You can register by email here.


Happy Unfolding!
Much love

It's Okay to Feel

I went to Lithuania recently to visit my parents. It was great to see them again after a year and a half. I spent a week with them in my home town and shared some nice experiences.
I could see that both of them have changed since last time I saw them. My mum looked older, her face had new wrinkles, but somehow she seemed more relaxed; less suffering. Her blue eyes were shining in delight that I came to visit. My dad was keeping it up, doing his breathing exercises every day, keeping himself fit.

I noticed how differently they communicated. My dad was mostly listening and when he talked he would always throw in a silly joke. The kind of joke that is not really funny, but he enjoyed the silliness. I could frequently hear him singing some tune by himself, he appeared happy.

My mum was suffering a lot all her life. She was born in Siberia, as her mum was deported just after the war when the soviet government decided that sending people to Gulags (forced labor camps) was a great idea. She was only six years old when she and her brother came to Lithuania, alone. Her mother had to stay in exile for another few years. The little girl had a hard start in life which set her on a difficult path.


The last time I visited, she was in pain; physical and emotional. She lived in memories of the past and old hurts were still haunting her. Frequently she would remind my dad of stuff he did to her like 40 years ago. This time she shared differently. She wasn't so much into the ancient history but she was like a torrent of information about people she thought I knew and people I had never met. A few times I asked her why she was telling me this, what's the use of this information? I had no need to know who lived in the house we just passed and the what their living situation was. I could see how my mum was trying to share what she learned from others. She said people come and tell her stories, so she was just repeating those stories. Even though they were useless and boring to me, I guess she just wanted to talk and did not care much about what she was saying. After she told me yet another story about someone that was doing something, I asked her- 'mum, why are you talking about other people so much?' There was a pause. She was looking for an answer. - "Perhaps they did something hurtful to me', - she said.- 'I can see that', I said- 'but talking about them is not going to reduce that pain.'

I could then see how putting attention on someone else and their problems she found a way to distance herself from her own pain. It's like pointing at something that is wrong out there so that one would not need to look inside and feel.

In one of our conversations I had with my mum and dad, we talked about suffering. From what I've seen, suffering is feeling bad about something and wanting that feeling to go away. The problem that the human has is that they only want to feel pleasure and avoid pain, which is considered normal. But, being open to and wanting only happy, light, joyful feelings and resisting the 'negative' feelings is exactly what suffering is. "I should always be happy no matter what" - that's the idea that is responsible for the unhappiness. No state is permanent. The mood changes like the weather. Sunshine is not always there! Sometimes it's a big angry cloud with lightning and thunder, covering whole sky, with no gaps. But all clouds move, big and small, dark and fluffy, there is no glue in the sky that would stick a cloud in a permanent place. So are the feelings that arise. There is no glue. There is no hook. All feelings pass. Resisting that feeling that is already there is not going to move it. There is a way for the heavy feeling to move, but trying to get rid of it is not what we need to do in such a situation. Instead we just need to stop trying. Only by feeling that feeling fully, openly, with acceptance and okay-ness, that energy formation can change and dissolve. Any notion of resistance or feeling it in order to get rid of it, is not going to help. Well, if the feeling is here already, it wants to be felt. So what is the problem with that? It's okay to feel; nothing will happen. It's a sensation, not a permanent state.

Imagine a game of cards. There are red cards and black cards. The game can not be played only with red cards. A whole deck needs to be in the game, not just cards you prefer. So what that a black card is in the hand when you need and want the red one, the game goes on. The game is not asking you what cards you like. It gives you cards, without your consent. And that's the thrill, not knowing what comes next. Maybe it will be the lucky set of cards after a string of loosing; or maybe not. The game involves all cards, human life involves all spectrum's of feeling and emotion. And it's okay.

I had a feeling that my mum understood what I was trying to say; that sharing about someone else's pain is not going to take attention away or reduce her own. If the heart is hurting, it needs attention. It wants to heal. The wound can not be ignored. If it's time for it to be cleared and healed, it may involve those painful emotions, those sad memories and intense unwanted feelings. And, it's okay. There is no point in trying to fix the situation by resisting it.

Some feelings may not pass as quickly as the others and that's okay too. Once the idea of happy ever after drops away, so does the need to get into a better state. There can't always be summer, there is a time for winter too. Although I don't like winter, I much prefer summer, I can not make the winter go away before its time. There is no point in trying to change the natural cycle. This can only bring suffering.

There is a difference in my experience- before seeing that separate self is a concept, not an entity, I was seeking for the happiness that would stick. Now, there is okay-ness, an option -not to resist whatever feeling state is here. There is a knowing that 'this too shall pass', and all that needs to happen- happens in the right timing.


That sort of trust in life, that all is well no matter how it appears. There is no more trying to escape feelings. No more need to distance myself from feeling hurt. The idea of escaping reality no longer makes sense. I can relax into being and live life as it presents itself, with ups and downs, bliss and hurt, without chasing an idea of a happy tomorrow.