Resisting Love |
Wednesday Jun 20 2007
Bio
- Resistance causes persistence.
- You get what you resist.
- Practice non-resistance.
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.
Written by eldering at Personal Empowerment
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