“The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.”
- Ram Dass
You know when you’ve been on a journey of self-discovery a long time, and you’re trying to make yourself easy to find?
You’ve been reading the books and trying to implement changes and weighing your positive character traits against the defaults of the ego, and you’re writing your way through it, but the lesson hasn’t settled in your bones yet?
The problem is you’re looking away at the last possible second, in fear of what you’ll see. You’re afraid to gaze upon the horizon and be blinded by the light. It’s like sitting at the bottom of a lake waiting for an answer, but when it finally begins to reveal itself, you find yourself gasping for breath and needing to come up for air. It’s like climbing a mountain and having your chest constrict and your lungs flare as you reach the peak. But instead of hanging on a bit longer, choosing to make your descent.
It’s like listening to the radio on a long drive when the static kicks in at the bridge of the song. It’s like being stirred awake before the resolution of a dream.
All the suffering we endure, we choose to hold onto it because it validates that we deserve to suffer. So we continue to do so. We don’t let ourselves receive the message, part of which involves relinquishing control.
It’s lonely here on this path to inner knowing. You’ve developed this instinct to question your instincts. You’ve crafted an identity performance based on the roles other people told you you’d be fit to play.
The good mother, wife, daughter, and sister. The intellectual. The sensual woman. The self-sacrificing empath. The dutiful employee. The selfless friend.
That’s what you’ve tied your self-understanding to. You constantly question your worth in reference to those things. You forget that you’re an orb of light, attached to nothing. That your wholeness is independent of who you love and the identities you claim.
You forget that no one is truly easy to find, even if it seems so. We all hide behind pillars of roles and people who confirm the ego’s beliefs. We’re never as free as we ought to be.
Until one day, you choose to embrace the lesson.