What if life could be simple?
What if life could be absolutely and totally safe?
And what if life knew, moment-by-moment, exactly what you needed, so that you would never want?
Most of us try to create a life that gives us all of these things. We try to find our own path to happiness.
But what if happiness were right here, waiting to be discovered in the last place we would expect?
And, finally, what if the only key to that happiness was the willingness to say, absolutely and unconditionally, “yes” to life as it arose?
By using the key of radical acceptance, unconditional freedom, peace, and happiness can be attained.
I’ve hinted at this in my recent posts, but today, I’d like to take that to the next level.
The Result of Resisting Life
What most people do is resist life, or at least parts of it. “There’s this part over here that I like, but that part over there, I really dislike and want nothing to do with it.”
Abundance is good, but poverty is bad. Health is good, but sickness is bad.
We’re stuck in this tug-of-war between pleasure and pain. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj referred to it as the river of life flowing between the banks of pleasure and pain.
“Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem. By flowing with life I mean acceptance — letting come what comes and go what goes. Desire not, fear not, observe the actual, as and when it happens, for you are not what happens, you are to whom it happens. Ultimately even the observer you are not. You are the ultimate potentiality of which the all-embracing consciousness is the manifestation and expression.” (I Am That, Ch. 3)
As long as you are trying to avoid one bank while wanting to stick to the other, you will suffer.
That is what we call having attachments and aversions. You have an attachment to, say, financial security, and an aversion to financial lack.
The thing about attachments and aversions is that they come in a package. You can’t have one without the other.
That’s the issue when law of attraction teachers tell you to only think about what you want. As long as you have an attachment to what you want, you also have an aversion to what you don’t want. And so, every time you bring to mind what you do want, you simultaneously bring to mind what you don’t want.
This is called duality. This is called illusion.
For instance, if you have an attachment to financial security, and an aversion to financial lack, then every time you think about your desire for more money, you will simultaneously think about how little money you have now.
There’s no escaping this trap, through the common means employed, other than what will be shared later in this post. You can’t visualize enough, or affirm enough, to break this bond between attachment and aversion. It’s an all or nothing package.
And so because of these attachments and aversions, you are afraid of life. For, if you fear one part of life, then you fear life itself. It has you in a bind—a trap which you seemingly cannot escape.
Fearing Life
When you fear life, anxiety rises. I believe this is why anxiety and depression is such a major problem today, because people are simply running away from life.
Once again, to contrast this with traditional law of attraction teachings, we are meant to only focus on certain thoughts, and keep away from others.
But as I said above, the more you try to keep away from a certain thought, the more power you are giving it.
I see a lot of people who post in law of attraction forums and groups that they’ve been focusing on their desire for months or even years now, and nothing is happening, or things are even getting worse.
And the reason is this: they are attached to the outcome, and bringing the aversion to its opposite right along with them.
They fear one part of life, and that fear will hold that which they fear in existence.
Whatever you reject, grows stronger. Whatever you push away, pushes back just as hard.
This is why we find ourselves in a cycle of pleasure and pain, tossed back and forth between these two extremes.
Life is meant to flow. As long as we fear life, we do not allow it to flow as it should. Nisargadatta referred to it as a “river” for this very reason: that it is meant to flow effortlessly, and we are meant to flow right along with it.
But when we cling on to certain things, or push away other things, the river turns into a whirlpool, threatening to pull us under.
The Path of Radical Acceptance
Now hopefully you see the issue with attachment. It resists the flow of life, because as long as we are attached to one thing, we are averse to another.
There is really only one way of escaping this trap: radical acceptance.
This has been called many names over the years: surrender, mindfulness, detachment, acceptance, allowing, etc.
But it is all pointing to the same thing. In order to let life fully flow through us, we must allow.
And when I say we must allow, I mean that we must allow everything, the good and the bad alike.
If you don’t like your current situation, that must be allowed. If your desire isn’t coming fast enough, that must be allowed.
If there is any attachment or aversion, that acts as what I call a sticking point. Life sticks to, gets caught up by, these attachments and aversions, which causes it to stagnate.
When we live in complete allowing, in radical acceptance, then it is free to flow through, unimpeded.
Why does this really matter? Why does it matter we are completely detached and allowing of all that is?
Simply because, the way life works, whatever sticking points we do have, life will take advantage of over and over again.
Imagine this. You start in a state of complete allowing.
Then, you form an attachment to, say, a particular job you really want. Suddenly, life just isn’t complete unless you have this job.
Well, along with that attachment, an aversion is formed, to the lack of that job. The more you want the job, the more you reject not having the job.
Now, a sticking point has been formed, where more and more energy will build up, which we call resistance.
First it starts out very subtly. You would really like to have the job, and you’ll be slightly disappointed if you don’t get it.
But, the more energy you put into this desire, the bigger it gets. Soon, you are so excited about the job, but equally fearful of the possibility of not getting it.
You are now caught in an endless whirlpool of suffering.
It shows, too, why visualization and affirmations often don’t work. NO matter how much you increase the energy of this desire with these techniques, you’re only pouring the same amount of energy into its matching aversion. Even if you try not thinking about it, it’ll still be there.
What is the way out? Only by releasing the energy.
To release the energy, you must allow the whole thing. If you get the job, fine. And if you don’t get the job, that’s just as fine.
Allow it all. And only by allowing and radical acceptance, will all that resistant energy be released, because you have removed that sticking point.
Now, free of stuck energy, you can happily set a pure intention for the job, and it will likely come, and quickly at that.
But, the difference is, you don’t need it. You won’t suffer if you don’t receive it.
Now, reflect for a moment on how many attachments and aversions you have in life. Imagine the above effect, but for each of those sticking points.
Now, is it any wonder that you suffer as much as you do?
And what do you think would happen if you would just accept all of that, right now?
Imagine all of those sticking points just being removed at once, because you made the deliberate decision to let life flow through you, without resisting any of it.
If truly accomplished, suffering would vanish in an instant.
The Allowing Challenge
Of course, it’s a lot to ask to simply and perfectly accept everything all at once. However, you can accept moment-by-moment, as much as you can. And, you can even accept your non-acceptance. 🙂
What would happen if, just for this present moment, you just accepted everything?
Accept all your thoughts, your feelings, your present experience, and everything else.
If you do this properly, you’ll instantly feel a sense of great openness and expansiveness within you. This is you opening up to life as it is.
Imagine holding this acceptance, moment-by-moment. Life could simply flow through this wide open space, without getting stuck anywhere. Even if it does get stuck temporarily, you can accept that, too, and immediately release it.
There is truly nothing wrong, once you learn to accept and allow everything.
So that is my challenge to you right now. Take one whole day, at a minimum, and just completely accept everything that comes up. Strive to allow life to flow unimpeded, not clinging to or resisting any part of it.
Don’t do this because you secretly want to get your manifestation. Just do this because otherwise, you are suffering. Simply do this because it is the key to true happiness.
I guarantee that if you truly do this challenge, things will change for you. I can’t tell you exactly what will change, as it is up to your particular situation. But, things will change.
And if you’ve tried it for a day and life hasn’t fallen apart for you, then try it for a second day.
Pretty soon, you’ll realize that this way of living is a whole lot better than the way you were living before.
You’ll find yourself being happier, more often, and for no reason whatsoever. You’ll just feel lighter and freer overall.
Are you ready to take the challenge?
I know it can be scary. It’s hard to let go of all of our attachments and aversions, because it feels like they are literally holding our world together.
But, just try it for a single day, and see what happens. I guarantee your world will not fall apart in a day. 🙂
So try it out, and let me know the results you get in the comments. Also check out our discussion about The Allowing Challenge in the forum.
How About You?
Now it’s your turn. Did you try the challenge? What were your results? Let me know in the comments below.
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I can attest to this. When I just can’t go on anymore, I let go and things change. An active, flowing volcano comes to mind. it happens no matter what, so no point in resisting. Maybe not the best analogy because you should get out of its way, but that’s what came to mind. The sky with clouds in it is a good example, too.
Being more in flow with what is instead of going against puts more in the zone, in the natural flow of things I’d suppose.
Yes, exactly. The thing is, once we’re in the flow, we have infinitely more power than if we try to control things using ego. It’s like the Taoist concept of wu wei (non-doing). That’s what I find fascinating, that truly we are powerful, but only if ego is not involved.
I just tuned in to an old Madonna interview and she mentions that in one of her videos she is chained to a bed, which she is, but her point is that she put the chain there, being is chained to her desires. That is what she does to herself, enslaving herself. Kind of like what we do, not allowing ourselves to be free.
That’s so fascinating. Yes, we really chain ourselves to our desires. And in order to achieve them, we must be freed of the want of them—or of the attachment to them.
I can attest to this. When I just can’t go on anymore, I let go and things change. An active, flowing volcano comes to mind. it happens no matter what, so no point in resisting. Maybe not the best analogy because you should get out of its way, but that’s what came to mind. The sky with clouds in it is a good example, too.
Being more in flow with what is instead of going against puts more in the zone, in the natural flow of things I’d suppose.
Yes, exactly. The thing is, once we’re in the flow, we have infinitely more power than if we try to control things using ego. It’s like the Taoist concept of wu wei (non-doing). That’s what I find fascinating, that truly we are powerful, but only if ego is not involved.
I just tuned in to an old Madonna interview and she mentions that in one of her videos she is chained to a bed, which she is, but her point is that she put the chain there, being is chained to her desires. That is what she does to herself, enslaving herself. Kind of like what we do, not allowing ourselves to be free.
That’s so fascinating. Yes, we really chain ourselves to our desires. And in order to achieve them, we must be freed of the want of them—or of the attachment to them.
wonderful article Brandon ! I believe we should become like a water. Water takes the shape and color of the things it gets in yet find its own way to flow. Just don’t get stuck in there and keep flowing. What I started doing is looking forward and feeling excited about small small things. Like cup of tea,listening music, reading , taking walks, making phone calls. I just like to experience those things every time they happen. It’s always a new experience if I m paying attention to it. And slowly slowly I started feeling I already have what I was after. It doesn’t matter now if desires manifest or they don’t. I think once we deliberately decided to think and feel in certain way after sometimes it becomes so easy to face day to day life. At least that’s what my experience is. And like u said total acceptance and allowance takes u there where u wanted to go. Thank you.
Beautiful comment, Rhea. Thank you for posting.
Yes, I really think you are beginning to see the beauty of your true Self. For when that beauty shines through, everything is made beautiful, even the simple act of drinking a cup of tea.
Life becomes so simple, and nothing else really matters, because all is perfect.
This is truly the end and the goal of all seeking. I think it’s wonderful that you are experiencing this. 🙂
Let me first quote this part that you wrote: “But, the more energy you put into this desire, the bigger it gets. Soon, you are so excited about the job, but equally fearful of the possibility of not getting it.”
As you probably know, Abraham says that whenever we are experiencing the unwanted, we automatically ask for more, and what we want is getting even better in our Vortex. Like some sort of refining. That would be like, the more we experience the negative side of the spectrum, the better the things become in the vortex. Or simple whenever we want a desire, the result gets refined in the vortex. What do you think about that?
I love this post, it explains things so well!
Hey Z,
Thanks for your question.
I don’t agree with Abraham’s point on this. Theysire, see the central point as getting your desire, while I see the central point as getting ever closer to freedom.
It’s all energy manipulation, like I just said in the forum. It’s all about flowing energy.
Having resistant energy doesn’t mean that you are somehow improving the vibration of your energy later. You are just clearing out the resistance.
I think though sometimes it can feel like a greater sense of relief when you move from resistance to flowing, but that has no effect whatsoever on your actual desire. It is just a kinesthetic sense of relief.
It’s like that feeling when you’ve not eaten all day, and you finally eat a really good meal. At first the meal tastes like the best thing ever, because of the contrast between that and your previously hungry state. But soon, it returns to its normal level of satisfaction, if you will. Your prior hunger doesn’t permanently make the meal better in any measurable way. If, say, you’re eating a slice of pizza, it’s still just a slice of pizza, no matter how hungry you were prior to eating it. 🙂
The refining isn’t because you are experiencing the negative, and asking for more. It is because you are releasing the negative, and leaving more room for the positive.
I hope this makes sense.
Yeap, it makes a lot of sense.This resonates more with me than what Abraham says. Thank you!
wonderful article Brandon ! I believe we should become like a water. Water takes the shape and color of the things it gets in yet find its own way to flow. Just don’t get stuck in there and keep flowing. What I started doing is looking forward and feeling excited about small small things. Like cup of tea,listening music, reading , taking walks, making phone calls. I just like to experience those things every time they happen. It’s always a new experience if I m paying attention to it. And slowly slowly I started feeling I already have what I was after. It doesn’t matter now if desires manifest or they don’t. I think once we deliberately decided to think and feel in certain way after sometimes it becomes so easy to face day to day life. At least that’s what my experience is. And like u said total acceptance and allowance takes u there where u wanted to go. Thank you.
Beautiful comment, Rhea. Thank you for posting.
Yes, I really think you are beginning to see the beauty of your true Self. For when that beauty shines through, everything is made beautiful, even the simple act of drinking a cup of tea.
Life becomes so simple, and nothing else really matters, because all is perfect.
This is truly the end and the goal of all seeking. I think it’s wonderful that you are experiencing this. 🙂
Let me first quote this part that you wrote: “But, the more energy you put into this desire, the bigger it gets. Soon, you are so excited about the job, but equally fearful of the possibility of not getting it.”
As you probably know, Abraham says that whenever we are experiencing the unwanted, we automatically ask for more, and what we want is getting even better in our Vortex. Like some sort of refining. That would be like, the more we experience the negative side of the spectrum, the better the things become in the vortex. Or simple whenever we want a desire, the result gets refined in the vortex. What do you think about that?
I love this post, it explains things so well!
Hey Z,
Thanks for your question.
I don’t agree with Abraham’s point on this. Theysire, see the central point as getting your desire, while I see the central point as getting ever closer to freedom.
It’s all energy manipulation, like I just said in the forum. It’s all about flowing energy.
Having resistant energy doesn’t mean that you are somehow improving the vibration of your energy later. You are just clearing out the resistance.
I think though sometimes it can feel like a greater sense of relief when you move from resistance to flowing, but that has no effect whatsoever on your actual desire. It is just a kinesthetic sense of relief.
It’s like that feeling when you’ve not eaten all day, and you finally eat a really good meal. At first the meal tastes like the best thing ever, because of the contrast between that and your previously hungry state. But soon, it returns to its normal level of satisfaction, if you will. Your prior hunger doesn’t permanently make the meal better in any measurable way. If, say, you’re eating a slice of pizza, it’s still just a slice of pizza, no matter how hungry you were prior to eating it. 🙂
The refining isn’t because you are experiencing the negative, and asking for more. It is because you are releasing the negative, and leaving more room for the positive.
I hope this makes sense.
Yeap, it makes a lot of sense.This resonates more with me than what Abraham says. Thank you!
Hi Brandon,
I really enjoy your latest posts, all your posts the last few months have been great I think, and really really helpful! So thank you so much!
I have been working on accepting what is, and even though my life is wonderful and keeps getting better, I still get manifestations that show to me one of my big hang-ups: my fear that things will not change. A fear that life will not get better. I always want things to more, better, and to feel more freedom.
Would the best approach be to just allow this fear? To just feel the fear, welcome it to stay as long as it will? I sort of worry that doing this will not be enough to move past this fear.
Thank you for any and all suggestions on how to handle this.
Hey Astrid,
Thanks so much for your comment, and also your compliment about my posts. 🙂 I am glad they’ve been helpful.
The thing about fear is that it will try to convince you to do something about it. It’ll convince you that it is real, and that you need to worry.
Yes, what you suggested is perfect. See if you can accept the fear as it is. Notice that despite this label “fear”, when you really go within and notice what’s there, it’s just a series of images, sounds, and sensations in your mind and body. See if you could just accept that, and then let it go.
And also see whether you could just accept life as it is now. You said yourself life is wonderful, so it seems you have many great things going on. Try not to obsess over what seems to be wrong in life, and just notice what’s going well. And even try to see how even that which is “wrong” is actually just the Universe showing you where you hold resistance, so all of life is deeply perfect.
Tomorrow (Tuesday, September 6), we are holding our weekly support call for spirituality and the law of attraction. It’d be a great place to bring up your question and get some more involved help on it. Just go here for more information: http://www.darkascent.org/library/spiritual-freedom-support-call/
I hope this helps.
Brandon
Thanks Brandon, I really appreciate your answer to my comment☺
You have the best posts on accepting what is, and how to work on our resistance – your blog has helped me A LOT this last year, helped me to turn my life around from depression and unemployment to now living in abundance, freedom and looking forward to the future. Well except for a few moments of fear, haha!
Wow, thank you. That means so much. 🙂
Hi Brandon,
I really enjoy your latest posts, all your posts the last few months have been great I think, and really really helpful! So thank you so much!
I have been working on accepting what is, and even though my life is wonderful and keeps getting better, I still get manifestations that show to me one of my big hang-ups: my fear that things will not change. A fear that life will not get better. I always want things to more, better, and to feel more freedom.
Would the best approach be to just allow this fear? To just feel the fear, welcome it to stay as long as it will? I sort of worry that doing this will not be enough to move past this fear.
Thank you for any and all suggestions on how to handle this.
Hey Astrid,
Thanks so much for your comment, and also your compliment about my posts. 🙂 I am glad they’ve been helpful.
The thing about fear is that it will try to convince you to do something about it. It’ll convince you that it is real, and that you need to worry.
Yes, what you suggested is perfect. See if you can accept the fear as it is. Notice that despite this label “fear”, when you really go within and notice what’s there, it’s just a series of images, sounds, and sensations in your mind and body. See if you could just accept that, and then let it go.
And also see whether you could just accept life as it is now. You said yourself life is wonderful, so it seems you have many great things going on. Try not to obsess over what seems to be wrong in life, and just notice what’s going well. And even try to see how even that which is “wrong” is actually just the Universe showing you where you hold resistance, so all of life is deeply perfect.
Tomorrow (Tuesday, September 6), we are holding our weekly support call for spirituality and the law of attraction. It’d be a great place to bring up your question and get some more involved help on it. Just go here for more information: http://www.darkascent.org/library/spiritual-freedom-support-call/
I hope this helps.
Brandon
Thanks Brandon, I really appreciate your answer to my comment☺
You have the best posts on accepting what is, and how to work on our resistance – your blog has helped me A LOT this last year, helped me to turn my life around from depression and unemployment to now living in abundance, freedom and looking forward to the future. Well except for a few moments of fear, haha!
Wow, thank you. That means so much. 🙂
We’ve got no agency, no control, no power… nothing. Universe is everything, does everything and controls everything.
I get it. We are mere pawns in a universal game which we don’t understand nor have any control over.
CJ,
No, not at all. But with the tone of this comment, along with that on my other post, I’m guessing something isn’t going so well. I’m happy to answer specific questions about how this works or why certain things happen, if you like.
No, we are not pawns. And yes, we do have power. We have the power to set our intention. The Universal flow responds to that instantly. But, it just takes zero effort on our part. Really, it does.
The only way to open up to this flow is radical acceptance. And, when you’re closed to the flow, well, life doesn’t go so well, because we are literally attempting to close ourselves to the source of our sustenance. It would be like trying to live life while holding your breath, or refusing to eat. The Without the Universal flow, there is simply no possibility to create anything.
When you go on the computer, just because your computer does thousands of operations in the background, do you say you are just a pawn of your computer? No, because you have full control over the types of operations it does. You have no idea what’s going on inside, but it really doesn’t matter. You just trust that it will relre iably check your mail or load a certain website.
That’s how the Universe is. You don’t know what’s going on under the surface, but you know how to reliably move towards the things you want. Unless, you need further training on how exactly the Universe works, just as you might need training how best to use your computer. But then, one could say it’s user error.
We’ve got no agency, no control, no power… nothing. Universe is everything, does everything and controls everything.
I get it. We are mere pawns in a universal game which we don’t understand nor have any control over.
CJ,
No, not at all. But with the tone of this comment, along with that on my other post, I’m guessing something isn’t going so well. I’m happy to answer specific questions about how this works or why certain things happen, if you like.
No, we are not pawns. And yes, we do have power. We have the power to set our intention. The Universal flow responds to that instantly. But, it just takes zero effort on our part. Really, it does.
The only way to open up to this flow is radical acceptance. And, when you’re closed to the flow, well, life doesn’t go so well, because we are literally attempting to close ourselves to the source of our sustenance. It would be like trying to live life while holding your breath, or refusing to eat. The Without the Universal flow, there is simply no possibility to create anything.
When you go on the computer, just because your computer does thousands of operations in the background, do you say you are just a pawn of your computer? No, because you have full control over the types of operations it does. You have no idea what’s going on inside, but it really doesn’t matter. You just trust that it will relre iably check your mail or load a certain website.
That’s how the Universe is. You don’t know what’s going on under the surface, but you know how to reliably move towards the things you want. Unless, you need further training on how exactly the Universe works, just as you might need training how best to use your computer. But then, one could say it’s user error.
Brandon,
Will Life support you and make life comfortable if you truly let things flow? Or will it retain that tendency to strike you down (but it bothers you less)?
I guess either way it’s still better than living with resistance.
CJ,
Life definitely gets a lot easier. Actually, from my perspective, I’d say that life is always supporting you. It is just difficult to see that when there is a lot of resistance.
The more you open up to life, the more beautiful and magical life will appear to you. I promise that. 🙂
Thank you.
Brandon,
Will Life support you and make life comfortable if you truly let things flow? Or will it retain that tendency to strike you down (but it bothers you less)?
I guess either way it’s still better than living with resistance.
CJ,
Life definitely gets a lot easier. Actually, from my perspective, I’d say that life is always supporting you. It is just difficult to see that when there is a lot of resistance.
The more you open up to life, the more beautiful and magical life will appear to you. I promise that. 🙂
Thank you.