unraveling hard times

You may not believe it, but all your problems, if you have any, really boil down to one. Whatever may seem to be wrong, it's always the result of the same thing, spiritually speaking. That one thing is resistance. If there's a problem, there's resistance. If there isn't resistance, there isn't a problem. This is a helpful bottom line for unraveling hard times.

If you pay attention at those times, you develop an eye, or really more of a feel, for the role of resistance. Are you suffering? You must be resisting something. It's perfectly natural. After all, who wants to feel something painful? You lapse into resistance before you know what you're doing. But as long as you persist in it, that's where the suffering comes from.

The suffering is the problem. The actual pain underneath it is not. You have to train yourself to understand this distinction. Suffering equals problem. Pain equals natural. Pain and suffering are not the same thing, although suffering is also painful. Once you understand the difference, you can leverage a new relationship to pain, and put an end to suffering.

The new relationship to pain is to cut out your the resistance to it. If you catch yourself suffering, you know you are resisting. Try not to. Try not to deny pain when it occurs in you. Remind yourself at those times that resisting pain keeps it around indefinitely, while not resisting it is the only way it will pass. Make it your new intention to feel it for the sake of moving through it and past it.

The reward for this intention, if you practice it earnestly, is a surprising discovery: pain isn't so bad. You'll have to try for yourself to believe me unless you already know. Pain is pain. It isn't worth all the heartache of suffering over it. It isn't worthy of plunging yourself into a personal hell. Not when the other alternative is simply to feel it and recover your wits, no heartache, no hell. Why add those dark dimensions if you have another choice?

You'll be amazed how much time you save if you don't add them. If you learn to cut out your resistance, the pain passes in a very short time. It lasts no longer than pleasure once you get the hang of it, and we all know quickly pleasure disappears. The pain comes, the pain goes. In between those events you permit yourself to feel it, which is why the second event happens. Then you reflect on the whole thing and marvel at how quickly things transitioned. You will probably ask yourself afterwards why you never handled your problems this way before.