resisting resistance...releasing release

I'm trying to improve my vocabulary, understanding that words have power and are a structure of society. I'm sure you're all familiar that eskimos have a hundred words for "snow" and americans have two zillion words for "money". We work with what we know and we focus on what is important to us. In this way, we strengthen the structural supports that create our reality and direct our lives. Language is no different. And so here I am, trying to write a message about change and am having a difficult time finding vocabulary that is not routed in the structures of struggle, aggression, and conformity that support our world.

How do you talk about change without implying that the current situation is harmful. Subtle differences may seem inconsequential, but realistically, struggle reinforces struggle and ease reinforces ease. Are the words, no, don't, stop, resist, tied to pain, tension, stress?

I'll attempt to evoke without inciting. What I want for you is to let go. Embrace loss of control. Lose control, because control is one way that we struggle against the ways of the universe and against ourselves. As Humans, we are a part of a giant mass of energy that flows and ebbs continually like waves in the ocean. We cannot control that, all we can do is try to enjoy it and allow ourselves to be not like pillars supporting a pier, firmly rooted deep into the ocean floor struggling to hold their ground. And not like a buoy floating lazily from side to side with a chain maintaining its range of motion, inhibiting it from straying too far. I want you to be like the surfer who realizes that the best option really is grab the best wave you can and ride it.

In a similar fashion, I want to say that living can be a more and more effortless process. Not that it will always be easy, but even in times of strain, there is a path of least resistance. This path is our authentic self. It is through increased effort that we resist that self. The weariness we feel after a long day in the world is that resistance. We effort to sit at our desks for long periods of time when our true self wants to walk and dance. We effort to hold in our emotions and maintain composure when inside we feel and want to express. We effort to 'fit in' 'be' a certain way, "find" ourselves when in reality we are already perfect.

But the truth, as I see it, is that the answers are not found through effort, they are found through release. We do not have to compel ourselves to grow, develop, achieve. This is what we do naturally and have been doing for thousands of years. It is our biological imperative. Just as a flower even in the harshest of conditions will find the easiest way to sunlight and water. Flourishing in human terms is often about getting out of our own way and allowing our natural, authentic selves to develop and thrive. The simple fact that we have evolved and continue to evolve allows me to say that.

Try something: pick an activity, any activity. Maybe something you do regularly. I want you to start cultivating ease and gentleness. In this way, you will slowly be training yourself away from resistance. So pick any activity. Can you do it without struggle? Can you find a way to do it effortlessly, gently, with pleasure. Can living itself be effortless, gentle, pleasurable? yes, yes, yes, yes, yes...