RESIST A LOT?

Carolyn and her daughter Jessie are individuated in the midst of a pandemic. The arguments are, well, unpleasant.

After a layered exploration of Carolyn’s Jessie experience, the good, the bad, the ugly, she felt better. Feeling more stable, Carolyn was ready to return to the fray.

I was glad he felt better. However, I am a mother. As transformative as AAIT can be, mothers and daughters often have a little more energy than can be addressed in an hour.

Committed to her practice of embodying at home, Carolyn accepted the suggestions to stay more balanced with Jessie.

Basic PEAT is a powerful little dynamo to help with emotional regulation, a useful tool for mothers of teens and young adults. Carolyn is consistent in her practice with BP and is ready to dig a little deeper.

I suggested that every day for the next week he chew two questions regarding Jessie. What am I resisting from Jessie? About the way she thinks? Acts? do you feel? relate? And what ELSE do I resist from Jessie?

The next question is the counterpoint to the previous contemplation. What’s so good about Jessie? About the way she thinks about her? Acts? do you feel? relate? What ELSE is good about Jessie?

This type of examination can feel a bit like debriding a wound. Or what I imagine what it would feel like, the very idea disgusts me. This practice can be challenging because you will inevitably come across things that you don’t like, that you resist. The idea is to accept whatever comes up without inhibition, evaluation, or judgment.

Parenting requires a lot of patience and inner strength. Our children deserve our patience and strength more now than perhaps ever. Not just our children, WE need access to patience and inner strength for our own well-being. This practice can be enormously helpful in releasing charged energy in relationships and helping us find our way back to a less rocky path.

Being relatively free of inner charge, being able to stay in your own presence of being and make decisions regarding your responses to others is naturally difficult at this time.

So what we’re working with is slowly, almost delicately disentangling ourselves from charged reactions so that we can be together as easily as possible. From there, without the tangled charged tension, there is more space inside, revealing solutions and perspectives we might otherwise miss.

As you ask yourself the question, first wait and watch what comes up, watch any thoughts, images, emotions and sensations. You don’t have to agree, just accept that yes, you resist that about him. You may not like what comes up. It’s okay. Just allow yourself to accept whatever comes up.

Keep the question in your awareness as you wander through the day. And/or, sit down and write your answers. Whatever helps you is fine.

Says so:

What am I resisting from ________?

What am I resisting the way _______ thinks?

What ELSE am I resisting the way ______ thinks?

What am I resisting from his behavior, what does ______ do?

What ELSE am I resisting from the way ______ acts?

What am I resisting about how _____ feels?

What ELSE am I resisting about how _____ feels?

Then, take the game higher, switch to another person’s perspective on you, as if looking over your shoulder at yourself through their eyes.

Like (the other person), What am I resisting _____?

or you can ask What resists _____ of me?

What resists _____ about how I think?

What ELSE does _____ resist about my way of thinking?

What does _____ resist about how I behave or act?

What ELSE does _____ resist from my act?

What resists ______ about how I feel?

What ELSE resists ______ than I feel?

He then explores, from his point of view, What does _____ appreciate about me?

What MOST does ______ appreciate about me? About my way of thinking? What I do? How do I act? How I feel?

The idea here is to continue this, back and forth from your perspective until it is empty and then from their perspective until you come to an inner space that is empty of thoughts, images, emotions, or sensations. This can take days. But what else are you going to do? We are all in the middle of a pandemic with people we care about and who we meet.

It can be valuable to close your practice with metta, loving-kindness.

May you be happy.

May you be free from internal and external damage.

May you be healthy and strong.

May you feel peace and tranquility of being.

May you be free