By Shae Hadden
Bio
- Resistance causes persistence.
- You get what you resist.
- Practice non-resistance.
All
these axioms seem appropriate when speaking of violence, acts of
aggression, conflict, long-standing issues of hate and fear. But why
would we resist the ‘good’ things in life like friendship, support,
trust, attraction and love?
Time and time again I find myself
turning away from what I most want as if it is a poisonous substance
harmful to my health. I live alone now and often feel an overwhelming
need for intimacy, fun and laughter. I look at my past and realize I
denied myself these very same joys when I was in relationship.
Admonitions to lighten up, take life less seriously, stop making things
so significant haunt me. Yet to accept these gifts of love, laughter
and fun—offered freely and without prompting—requires that I surrender,
that I let people in.
What drives self-inflicted patterns of
denial and resistance? Too much of a good thing can be bad for us? We
haven’t worked hard enough for it yet? If we don’t resist it, it will
vanish when we surrender? I start wondering what stories I am holding
onto that would explain why I resist what I want most.
Perhaps I
resist these things because I’m committed to maintaining control. My
unquestioning belief that I am not worthy decides whether I accept or
reject what is offered to me. I seem to have no choice in the matter.
Yet the ‘I am worthy’ (or not) conversation is neither true nor false.
It’s simply my assessment of my self—one that others tell me is
inaccurate, to say the least.
Or perhaps I have an expectation
that, in surrendering to love, I lay myself wide open to hurts unknown
and innumerable. After all, experience has shown me ‘this is how it
is’. Open my heart wide for the slings and arrows to pierce me through
again and again.
Perhaps I resist simply because that is how
we are constituted as human beings. If we didn’t resist, then life
would be an unending sequence of moments…now after now after now. So to
survive, I deny EVERYTHING and hold fast to my tale of woe.
Occasionally,
when I let go and ‘let God’, I live transcendent moments in which I am
‘present’ to the divine, brief glimpses of being one with the Mystery.
It is then that I embrace the experience of unwarranted love. The story
I was holding on to so tightly vanishes like all elusive illusions do.
And I find myself blessing all those who have hurt me. And I find the
compassion to bless myself for having hurt others.
So perhaps
tonight, when those moments of longing for intimacy and joy reappear, I
can embrace them too. For I haven’t been resisting love from others.
I’ve been resisting loving my self.
I AM LOVE dancing Life’s jitterbug with joy, Love’s sensuous tango with intimacy and Death’s dreamy waltz.