Today’s passage, “What you resist, persists,” said world renowned Swiss psychologist Carl Jung who died in 1961 and whose teachings of the collective unconscious have been very influential in the field of psychiatry, religion, philosophy and other related fields

The idea is that what you fight only strengthens.

So what are we fighting? Anything we view as a disturbance.

What is a disturbance? In Latin, the word ‘emotion’ or ‘emovere’ literally means ‘to disturb.’ Another way we could deconstruct this is to look at the way we fight disturbances in life as a means of understanding how much control that disturbance has over us. Take for example, road rage, when two drivers are participating in road rage, they have lost all control.

But what if we experienced disturbances in life without resistance, without any emotional charge? What if we recognized disturbances, for example, a driver shooting you a bird, without stress or upset?

One way we might stop fighting disturbances is by practicing acceptance, in order to stay present.  Another would be practicing polarity which is using an oppositional response to create balance, meeting anger with neutrality

An example taken from the Bible (from Luke) is the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus met evil with love. He didn’t cry out, “Father strike these people down for putting me on the cross!” He said, 'Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do’.  Jesus responded to the unconscious deeds of others, with consciousness, underscoring the importance of bringing light to the darkness through employing compassion and forgiveness in order to transcend his circumstance.

If what you resist persists, then what you embrace will dissolve.

Connect with me: Instagram.com/megan_nycmom