Question:
Hi Adam,
Love your books and online meditations. They have helped me accept the anxiety or "feeling" as I now call it as its easier to accept that way.
One question I have and I think I already know the answer is. I am in a job I dislike, the job itself is fine but it's a desk job and feels wrong to be sitting at a desk for 7 hours a day. I have tried to accept it but find it difficult. Is the next step to accept the resistance to the job?
Thank you.
Carl
Response:
Hi Carl,
Thanks for your words of support, I’m glad the content has been helpful for you, that’s great to hear. Yes, the word “anxiety” can add a futile load.
To answer your question - yes. If resistance is there, it is part of the moment, so you can accept it rather than try to get rid of it. Remember that resistance is not the enemy, whatever I say that might present a useless case for resistance, still does not mean that the resistance is wrong or should not be there.
I understand that the office environment tends to be unnatural. Artificial in many cases. So, you can take it day by day. If you are going in to work, see if your resistance is helping you in any way. Often we feel as if resistance is like a secret buddy who will fix things for us, like if we resist life enough internally, it will force a change externally.
Occasionally this works - someone hates their job so much that they quit, or they look for a new one. But even in these cases, the internal resistance is not necessary.
Something inside might say “I can’t help but resist this.” This is fine. If this is true, then of course all you can do is accept the resistance, but things like this often stay alive inside us when we believe on some level that they are serving us. Question what purpose your resistance is serving. Be honest. Is it helping you in any way at all? If the answer comes to no, then it loses strength. If the answer is yes, then you have found a reason for it being there.
If you are stuck in traffic, you could be there without having any resistance to the traffic. You look up and see a magical path, just for your car, that you can drive on to and it will take you to your destination very quickly (forgive my unrealistic example). In this case you would not just remain in the traffic because you are in a peaceful non-resistive state. You would naturally take the shortcut because it just makes sense. In the same way, resistance does not have to be your motivator for change. You could not resist your current job, because you have realised your resistance was just making you feel even worse, adding a greater burden to your day, and yet you could still be in a place internally where you naturally see that you would prefer a different kind of job, perhaps outdoors, perhaps with a different company - or anything else.
The job might just feel out of alignment with yourself, and so resistance seems natural. From an energetic point of view, if the law of attraction resonates with you at all, to bring about a life that is in alignment with yourself means that you must first bring yourself in alignment with life. The resistance inside might hate this idea, because it feels like giving up, like on the other side of non-resistance is despair and hopelessness, but this is not the case. Your life in terms of your attention and action becomes far more about just this moment, not about tomorrow or yesterday or all the things you have to do in the rest of the day. Nonresistance makes arduous or unenjoyable tasks far more bearable, because there is no longer the added weight of the inner conflict.
Remember that “presence” is not about telling a story about your life or situation and then trying to accept that story. It is about less stories, less interpretations, less ideas about the world, and just being presence.
And from here, there is more space in you, a bit more lightness - which actually allows for new things to flow more easily
If the resistance has not made you quit your job today, then see that for the rest of the day, it is not going to help you. You may still feel resistance, and there is nothing wrong with that.
And as I have said, in the meantime you can still look for alternative paths, feel what it would feel like to have an enjoyable career - because it simply makes sense to do so, and is in alignment with how you are feeling when you are no longer separating yourself from life through resistance.
Re-reading your message I noticed that you mentioned that the job itself is fine. Even this can be something to be grateful for. Many people not only hate the office environment, but also hate the work that they do.
No job is forever.
It really comes down to this: If there is resistance to what you are doing AT THIS VERY MOMENT, then there is suffering, and a sense that you are trapped in your own life. If there is no offering of resistance to what you are doing at THIS MOMENT, the suffering entity loses its shape, and yet your intelligence and alignment with the universe is enhanced.
I hope this response can help, but please feel free to ask more if you wish.
Thanks Carl,
Adam
Carl:
Hi Adam
Thank you for your reply. Yes, now that you put it that way there is something inside that feels or in fact hopes the resistance will somehow change the external situation. I look at other work colleagues who seem to like the job and have been here for ten years. I think part of me fears giving up resistance will have me stuck here for a long time. Thinking about it rationally, it sounds ridiculous.
I am a big believer of the law of attraction and over the years have come to discover that it isn't as straight forward as 'the secret' and other books have made it out. I believe it is what is within will be reflected without.
I have been practicing being present, with no story, no person, just empty, with my mind chattering as usual. I was reading your book 'Undisturbed' a few weeks back and one of the first chapters caused a shift in perspective. I felt like I was no person with no past or personality. It was very freeing. It did not last though as obligations and mind chatter took over again.
I will try acceptance of the present moment in the job and try not to make a story out of it.
You mentioned feel what it would feel like to have an enjoyable career. Do you believe visualisation or even imagination can change the external?
Thanks Adam.
Adam:
To answer your question at the end of your message - firstly I feel as if feeling better makes sense, whether or not that shifts the external is secondary.
Can it change the external? Yes, I feel so, if it is empowered, if it feels as if it is already within you as a higher version, which you then bring out into the world through feeling. But it is important to not be waiting till things change "outside", instead BE that change, BE that higher version or higher vibration which is not waiting for anything else - because it is already one with everything. It is not wanting anything, it IS everything. Causing a split between "what's happening" and "what I'm visualising" is an error - it creates a divide where there is none. I hope that makes sense. It is all the mind playing tricks, telling its own stories about what is basically a play of light and sensation.
Indeed the resistance is portrayed as a bad move, because our conditioning says: "No resistance means no change." I feel the opposite is the case. You will have more energy for change, no addiction to the heaviness of the "rut".
The resistance to something keeps you focussed on that vibration - the vibration of what you do not want. That is where law of attraction really merges in with teachings of surrender - surrender means your vibration is no longer locked into a cycle of reacting to and strengthening what you do not want. Instead there is space, where fresh feelings, directions or visions can come up and out through you. Intelligence and grace can flow.
A tip for any kind of visualisation or law of attraction - keep it fun, keep it light, and everything is easier when you have the basis of gratitude. Just shifting to feeling grateful, for no reason, makes it easier to just feel good and to feel things going well. It is also something that shines spotlights on old resistances or beliefs e.g. that things should not go well, or "I don't want it too easy" - that kind of thing. In fact gratitude in itself is already a very high vibration. Even without necessarily having to visualise anything, your energy becomes more attractive. I would say FEELING is primary, actual vision is secondary. The visions can emerge from gratitude or from feeling good, if they do at all...
And finally, one of the biggest lies of our time is that it is only natural and normal and sane for the apparent outer world to dictate how you feel; that there is a clear good and bad, like and dislike, and how you feel is intimately linked with what happens around you. But through nonresistance, we find that this is the paradigm of a resistive and therefore reactive mind. It is stuck in the past, reacting to what has already been perceived. Nonresistance takes the strength of the separate self away, and there is a reservoir of peace that is not at the mercy of what happens.
Thanks for getting in touch, I hope that helps, and this conversation can remain open...
...one final thought - if visualisation or any kind of manifestation is based on resistance, it will feel difficult. The acceptance takes away the hardness of what you don't want, leaving your vibration to match the higher things. This is the opposite of how we are taught to live - to fight what you don't want so that one day you can get what you do want. Engaging in the unwanted means that it becomes all your eyes can see.
Carl:
Thanks Adam, makes more sense now.
I have always been conflicted about being present and visualising. Trying to not want the thing can be difficult but acceptance of desire, could that be another way?
Also in terms of gratitude, the only way I can feel it is when I think about what I have in my life, I don't feel it strongly if I am just thinking about what I have. It feels forced unless I experience something in the present moment, my mind deems as good, like winning money or booking a holiday or seeing family and friends. Is there anyway you can obtain the feeling of gratitude even when you are sitting in work say?
I appreciate the advice Adam.
Adam:
If you want something, there is no need to suppress. But it may be easier to attain when you match its frequency, feeling good as if you already have it, rather than feeling low because you are missing it. But yes, resisting desire is quite unnatural, and will leave you feeling dead. Embrace desire, then what is useful and creative is free to move, and what is not useful will not live on.
In response to the gratitude part, I made a video, let me know if it helps:
All the best,
Adam