Dr. Gail Brenner

Sacred Space for Awakened Living

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Ending the Inner War of Resisting Your Experience

resisting your experience“What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.”
~Carl Jung

It’s our natural, awakened state to resist nothing.

When the illusion of separation is seen through, there’s simply the free flow of experience continually welcoming everything.

There is no threat, no fear, and no sense of a person who needs to avoid or defend. It’s effortless.

But add in human reactions, fears, desires, and expectations, and the world divides into the duality of inner and outer, acceptable and unacceptable—otherwise known as human suffering.

If you want to know the luminous peace of your true nature, then get to know how and when you resist.

What is resistance? It’s an activity of the agitated mind that says a resounding, “NO!” to your present moment experience. It’s a desire to cling to some experiences and push others away—a desire for things to be different than they are.

Take a moment to reflect:

  • What feelings do you resist?
  • Where in your life do you say no to what’s actually appearing?
  • Where do you want or expect things to be different than they are?

Someone wrote to me recently saying she hates the the way she feels when she wakes up in the morning, with too much tension and too many worrisome thoughts.

Hating your experience is resisting, and resisting is a recipe for feeling stuck.

You’re locked in a fight with what’s happening, leaving no room for the experience itself to shift or move. Resisting energizes the experience rather than giving it the liberating space it needs to come and go without attachment.

We’re masters at resisting our experience. How do you resist? Here are some possibilities:

  • Compulsive behaviors such as overeating, excessive use of alcohol or drugs, excessive shopping, texting, or gossiping
  • Being too busy or preoccupied to be present with your experience
  • Recycling thoughts of worry, judgment, complaining, or blame
  • Resenting how you feel
  • Waiting for or hoping that things will change

The common motive behind all of these behaviors is to keep you from relaxing with your present moment experience. How can you possibly know the peace of your true nature if your own experience is an enemy?

What’s the alternative?

You make the sacred choice to stop the outward momentum, slow things down, and lovingly turn inward. Things now have space to shift as you create a new and loving relationship with what arises.

Instead of hating what’s happening, you’re friendly, open, and curious. You let things be as they are. You become the welcoming presence that ends the inner war with your experience.

Why not try it out so you know how it feels? Simply go inward and say a warm and loving hello to any thoughts, feelings, or physical sensations that are present. Breathe and stay…

The mind quiets as the one who wants to resist starts to fall away. With no attention to the story in your thoughts, you’re one with what appears, loving it with a warm embrace like a long-lost child coming home.

And here you are as awakened awareness…radiant, open, and resisting nothing…

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Stop…Be Still

“To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.”
~Chang Tzu

It was a lightbulb moment for me when I realized how much I had been putting up barriers to life—and happiness.

I was in a place on my path where I was diligently studying my in-the-moment experience—and I discovered that my first response to people, situations, and new possibilities was to pull away in fear.

For many years, I had been automatically saying “No”—before I considered what was being offered, before I let myself feel the excitement of something new and unknown. I probably missed out on a lot.

I was moving away from what was being given, and it felt bad.

As soon as I saw this tendency, I was committed to changing it. I didn’t want to be tamped down by a wall of fear. I wanted to relax and feel peaceful more than anything. I just knew there was more to life, and I wanted to figure out how to find it.

Over time, I learned to turn inward toward my inner experience, right into the blocks and walls. I learned to deeply accept everything without any resistance.

I shifted from moving away to staying, opening, and fully receiving things as they are. Finally, I was saying “Yes!” to life. It was a happy revolution in my whole way of being.

Caught in our conditioning, we tend to move in three ways: toward, away, or against. Which is your style? See how your mind and body moves—and how you move along with it—and you will discover the endless peace that comes with not moving.

Moving Toward

People who move toward feel a well of need and lack inside. If this is your style, you leave your inner grounding and grasp at people and things to fill you up and give you what you think you’re missing.

You believe your thoughts that try to convince you that you’re not enough.

Who you are is not defined by these limiting thoughts. Who are you if you don’t believe them?

Let your attachment to these thoughts go, and you’ll see that you are openness itself, whole, full, and lacking nothing.

Moving toward looks like this:

  • Seeking approval and attention from others
  • Concern about the image you present in the world
  • Sacrificing yourself for others, then feeling resentful
  • Perceiving yourself as lacking and flawed
  • Difficulty walking away from relationships that aren’t working
  • Attachment to your personal dramas
  • Grasping money, people, and objects
  • Feeling that you are special and avoiding your ordinariness

When you notice these tendencies, stop. With loving acceptance, let the feelings and urges arise, but don’t act on them. Be the space that they arise in.

Relax back into yourself, and realize that life is complete, just as it is, in this very moment.

Moving Away

Moving away is about fear and avoidance. There is tightening in the body, contraction in the breath, and a physical pulling away from whatever is arising. Threat is seen everywhere.

Moving away is built on a perceived lack of safety and security. What are you really afraid of, anyway? Can you consider trusting that you are OK and that you can engage with life as it’s unfolding right now?

Moving away looks like this:

  • Doubt and indecision
  • Nonstop thinking fueled by fear
  • Avoiding people and situations
  • Trepidation in the face of anything new
  • Fear of committing to anything
  • Excessive worry
  • Holding yourself back

Moving away has strong physical and mental elements. Learn how to relax your body and nervous system and breathe deeply. Experiment with not running your life by all the thoughts that appear in your mind. Put the thoughts aside (they aren’t helping you), and stay here and present.

Open yourself fully to the wonder of what’s actually here now. What are you experiencing through your senses? What is the space that these sense perceptions arise in?

Moving Against

You’re moving against when you’re stuck in anger, frustration, and entitlement. Some of us live at odds with the world, resisting everything. We show up ready for a struggle, while missing out on what is actually here when we let our guard down.

Moving against is a defensive posture that avoids vulnerability. What if you allowed yourself to tenderly open to the reality of what’s here now?

Moving against looks like this:

  • Anger and resistance to people, situations, and the world
  • Rebelliousness
  • A sense of entitlement—things should be the way you want them to be
  • Judgment—either outward toward others or inward toward yourself
  • Stuffing anger by eating, sleeping, and avoiding conflict at all costs
  • Desire for power and control

It takes so much effort to face the world primed for a fight. Really, there’s nothing to protect. Feel the sensations of anger, and notice the effortlessness of being open, soft, and receptive. Relax into life as it’s unfolding.

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The strategies of moving toward, away, and against sap your energy. They divide, fragment, and keep you from relaxing into the infinite space of what’s true and real.

What to do when you notice these tendencies? Stop…be still. Feel the conditioned movements—and don’t move into them. Be the vast welcoming openness that they arise in.

You’re lovingly noticing the thoughts and feelings, but giving them no energy that makes them real.

They shed like a snake sheds its skin. And here you are…not moving and fully available to all of life.

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Start with One Small Action

“I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed, for where I am closed, I am false…”
~Rainer Maria Rilke

​​​​​​​I’m going to say something utterly profound. Are you ready?

Here is it: if you want something about you or your life to change, you have to actually make the change.

Change isn’t going to happen by hoping it will happen. It won’t happen by reading that next self-help book. It won’t happen by talking about how miserable you are and how much you want to change.

How Does Change Happen?

Change happens when you take action—when you do something that’s different or unfamiliar, when you step out of your comfort zone and into the possibility of freedom.

  • If you want to stop smoking, you need to not pick up the next cigarette.
  • If you want to be more present, you have to stop listening to your mind starting with one second.
  • If you want to trust yourself more, you need to turn your attention inward rather than obsessively look outside for approval and validation.
  • If you want to lose weight, you have to not put that next cookie in your mouth.

I’ve been a psychotherapist for a long time and have studied many theoretical approaches. And in the end, it all boils down to one essential point. If you want to change, you’re going to need to do something differently.

I know it’s not rocket science, but it’s a vital truth you need to know.

Reframing Fear

So start contemplating: what small action can you make?

For many people, change is scary. We get used to our patterns—and stuck in them—even if these patterns bring us stress and unhappiness. Doing something different feels terrifying.

So let’s call this fear something else. It’s the excitement of stepping out into the unknown. It’s part of the path out of our perceived limitations. It’s the aliveness of truth and authenticity and the end of self-betrayal.

Right in this moment, you get to choose: being limited, stuck, and self-defeating or excited, real, and free.

Getting Practical—Do One Small Thing

I find it useful to think of small changes as experiments. You don’t need to change forever. You just change one thing one time and see what happens. You try something new and see how it goes. Simple, right?

My friend, Angie, constantly asks other people for their opinion. What should she wear? Should she go for a walk or see a movie? Should she eat now or later?

Her mind spins in whirlwinds of self-doubt. She’s lost complete trust in herself.

Of course, the answers to all of her questions are within, but how can she discover that?

She needs to do an experiment. Just one time, when she’s ready to pick up the phone to call someone for their opinion, she stops instead, and looks beyond the urge to reach out.

From a place of curiosity, she goes within and wonders if maybe she already knows the answer to the question she feels compelled to ask.

And that’s the beginning…

Come Up with an Experiment

If you want something to be different in your life, do an experiment. Make one small action, and see what you discover. Because when you do, you’ve just set the stage for wondrous things to happen.

Often, the best first action is a non-action, which is to stop. The patterns we carry out unconsciously are the source of our suffering. So the change is to not follow the pull of the pattern, and stop.

Stop and take a breath. Go within to connect with the wisest place in you. Take a look and see if want you want or need is already here.

Here are some more suggestions for one small action.

  • Just once, do a familiar conversation differently. If you tend to tell the other person how right you are (and how wrong they are), be quiet instead. If you tend to put up walls, say one vulnerable thing about yourself or give the other person a sincere compliment.
  • If you tend to judge—outwardly or within, put your hand on your heart and have a moment of compassion instead.
  • If you engage in a compulsive behavior, stop, breathe, and connect lovingly with what is happening in your body. Don’t do the behavior, so you can see what is driving it.
  • If you’re self-absorbed in your own mind or blocked and cut off, go to a cafĂ©, and silently offer love to each person there.

Making one small action is a huge start. But for things to fundamentally change, you need to keep at it.

Make your happiness a priority…one action at a time.

What About You?

What action will you take? What experiment would you like to do that takes you outside your zone of conditioning? Feel free to say in the comments below. I’d love to hear…

What You Need to Know About Emotions—Part 1

“Open your heart to who you are, right now,
Not who you would like to be.
Not the saint you’re striving to become.
But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.
All of you is holy.”
~John Welwood

Whether you are well established in knowing the peace of your true nature—or you’re new to the spiritual path—if you’re human, then you experience emotions.

We grieve and feel sad, we’re fearful at times, or we feel the burn of anger and maybe even explode. So far today, I noticed a jittery feeling in my chest when I woke up, and I felt the immediate rush of frustration in response to an email I received.

Emotions Are Normal

Our human bodies are designed to react to the outside world. Here’s how it works.

Our brains process information that comes in through our senses and sends signals out to the rest of the nervous system to prepare us for fight or flight.

If what we perceive is familiar and comfortable, we relax. But if there’s danger, the nervous system goes on high alert, ready to react.

Things get complicated when our thinking minds try to make sense of what’s happening. This leads to rumination, worry, confusion, and irritation.

And for those of us who’ve had traumatic experiences when we were young, our nervous systems are highly sensitive and subject to strong reactions such as terror, rage, hate, and chronic anxiety and hopelessness.

Returning to Being Aware

If you’ve made it a practice to study your emotions with curiosity and meet them with deep acceptance, the emotions won’t grab hold of your reality—and the natural state of peaceful awareness illuminates quickly.

Emotions still occur, but you notice them like clouds floating across the sky—and they don’t disturb you.

This happens to me a lot with fear. Fear is a highly conditioned reaction in my mind and body. I’ve studied it and felt it thousands of times, so usually when I notice it, I take a few breaths with the sensations in my body, then move on. The fear doesn’t create an inkling of a problem, and there’s peace.

Turning Toward

Emotions are asking for our tender loving care. Left unexamined, they leave us in pain and are the culprit behind behavioral choices that get us in trouble.

We’re frustrated because we want them to go away, but we just don’t know how to make that happen. They detract from our quality of life and block us from knowing the peace and happiness that are available in any moment.

So let’s take emotions out of the shadows and bring them to the light of consciousness—even the hard ones. Because only then will you be able to learn what to do with them so they don’t overtake you.

A Slow and Conscious Breath

We’ll be talking about emotions in the next couple of Fridays, as there is a lot to say. What I’d like to leave you with today is the simple practice of taking a conscious breath.

Whenever you feel tense or grabbed by an emotion or any conditioned pattern, stop and take a slow, conscious breath. Put your attention on the breath and take a slow inhale and exhale. You might put one hand on your heart and one on your belly as you breathe. Enjoy a few breaths as it feels right for you.

Conscious breathing is a reset for your experience and right away brings your attention back to the here-and-now. What’s happening? You’re just here breathing, and all is okay.

It’s a very helpful tool for when you’re caught by an emotion. By taking a conscious breath, you’ve stopped the momentum of the emotion and you’re in a position to let love and wisdom show you the way forward.

For more—and a guided audio meditation to support you, you can check out this article.

Wishing you expansion beyond your problems to the peace and ease of this now moment…

What About You?

Do emotions overtake you? How do you relate to them? I’d love to hear…

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I have a few openings for one-on-one sessions. If you’re interested, please click here for the information or reply to this email. I would love to work with you—and you can be anywhere in the world! Our conditioned patterns can be very embedded and tricky. Conversations tailored just for you and the ways you get stuck are so useful! Private sessions have been—and still are—an essential part of my path.

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Out of Habits; Into Freedom

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
~Albert Einstein

If you’re interested in finding freedom from automatic habits that overtake you, where do you start?

How can you begin to make the sacred shift back to yourself?

Just asking this question is an opportunity for celebration because it’s the beginning of a new relationship with your own experience.

Rather than being gripped by the patterns that arise in you, you’re ready to bring consciousness to them. You’re ready to move beyond same old, same old to a way of being that is fresh and free.

You’re poised to discover the stable field of ease and well-being that’s always available beyond any painful story of lack or need.

Whatever your pattern is—fear that blocks you, the need to please others, a sense of not being good enough, a tendency to criticize, compulsive behaviors or addictions—these arise in you, but they aren’t the truth of you.

How to meet these conditioned habits so they serve your awakening?

Find the Gap

If you look carefully, you’ll see it’s possible to find a gap between you and the thoughts and emotions that arise in you.

Instead of being locked into the content of your stories, notice your thoughts. Observe how emotions move in your body. Be aware of the urges behind your behavior.

Get curious about what these patterns are and how they bring about suffering.

And notice that the observing part of you, that which notices, is peaceful and problem-free.

Press Pause

When you’re caught in the energy of a habit, press pause. Habits are automatic and repetitive. They run outside of conscious awareness.

As much as you can, stop the momentum by pressing pause. Take a conscious breath. Look around you and deeply experience the present moment.

Feel the radical shift from the tension of conditioning to expansion into present moment awareness.

Now move from this sense of being fully alive rather than from the fog of conditioning.

Ask Questions

Forget the self-bashing and shame when you realize you’ve been locked into a pattern. Instead, with great kindness, ask questions. Be curious about the answers that appear.

  • What is happening in my experience right now?
  • What stories am I believing that may not be true?
  • What can I surrender right now that isn’t serving?
  • What am I avoiding that is asking for my attention?
  • Can I open to what’s happening in my body right now?
  • Can I stop, breathe, and simply be aware?
  • What is most alive in me right now?

See how you can have a whole new relationship to your experience? You don’t have to mindlessly play out patterns that take you away from peace.

Find the gap, press pause, and ask questions. No longer stuck in the story, you’re here: awake, openhearted, and fully intimate with life as it is in this precious moment.

What About You?

What is your experience with these practices? Questions? Reports? I’d love to hear.

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