Hello, and welcome back to Practicing Human, the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life.

I'm your host, Corey Muscarra, and in today's episode, I am going to share some alternative thoughts on working with resistance.

More to come on that in a moment.

First, let's settle in together with the sound of the bells.

Okay, so I recently ran an eight-week program on the topic of working with thoughts, where we really took a deep, comprehensive exploration around navigating the thinking mind and all the different forms that it can take.

And naturally, one of the things that came up for many people was a resistance to thoughts and negative thoughts and different aspects of people's experience.

So resistance to emotions, resistance to circumstances, and yeah, different thoughts that arise just a feeling like a frustration with the mind being the way it is.

And for many people, they come into my teachers, my teaching containers with a bit of an understanding, maybe of mindfulness or meditation, or like a caricatured or even deeper idea of what these practices are about.

And one of the things that many people perceive to be true with mindfulness and meditation, and I think it's even fair to say, is true in terms of how these practices are typically taught, is that resistance leads to suffering, which at a high level is absolutely true.

You know, you fight against something, it's going to create tension, and I talk about that experience times resistance equals tension.

And so there's a truth to that. And then when navigating that through the mindfulness meditation lens, there's a deep belief that I need to practice softening the resistance, relaxing the resistance.

When I find myself agitated around something, resisting a thought, resisting an experience, resisting an emotion, I need to take a breath, I need to practice, relaxing, not resisting.

And again, this is something where there's like some truth to that and merit to that, of course.

And I think it can also be a pattern that actually reinforces certain patterns that are actually at a more fundamental core of why we're suffering.

So for instance, let's say you are someone who just for your whole life, you've really been taught to be good, to be obedient, to be well-behaved, to follow the instructions really well, to become and self-regulated.

Sure, some of you can resonate with this. And so you come to these practices of mindfulness, meditation, you learn the instructions, you see little statues of Buddhas, and oh, they look so calm and peaceful.

Maybe you see an Instagram reel of mine, and I'm talking slowly, and I look like I never freak out.

Just, oh man, he must be so calm all the time. Yeah, come into my world one day.

So you see all these things, and it starts giving you an idea of what you need to do in order to do it well.

And it's well-intentioned, of course, and it's good to want to do things well.

That conditioning, those patterns, into the practice. And so now you notice the resistance that's coming up for you.

Maybe it's just related to some life circumstance you're going through, and it's just a real frustration and anger that things are the way they are.

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