Embrace Life

Whatever comes in the way of life, to accept it, embrace it flow with it, rather than resisting it and wasting our energy. This is the way to progress. Life is like a hurdle race, in which hurdles shall come in the way, as they are the part of the race; we cannot stand, wait or resist the hurdles, rather we have to move across them.

Whenever there is a new hurdle on our way, we should embrace it, it has come to teach us how to jump, and there is a new lesson to be learnt. It has come to increase my tolerance and acceptance power. Hurdles are not in the way, they are in the head and the moment we create a new perception towards them, we can easily overcome it with success.

Welcome the resistance itself play with it, give in to it while remaining alert to the ways of redirecting the energy. This requires ego resiliency, the ability to respond flexibly and persistently to challenges.

If we resist and do not accept, it invites struggle. It works against us, the situation or the person gets even difficult to deal with. Struggle strengthens resistance. Let the situation or the person be hard, let me get softer, by accepting it or him/her. Like flowing water, when the stones come in its way, due to its softer nature, it crosses around it and moves ahead. Similarly this person or situation is not difficult, it is just a different situation or a different person to deal with.

By embracing resistance we are actually utilizing it. Resistance should be openly accepted, in fact graciously accepted, since it is a vitally important part of communication and often can be used as an opening into new realm of possibilities, if the energy of an opponent’s attack is not resisted or rejected, rather is welcomed as an opportunity to restore the disturbed harmony which resistance represents. The attacker’s energy is accepted with flexibility and without struggle, and redirected away from the point of attack. The attacker can find nothing to push back or resist against. To challenge resistance with rigid rejection only limits the range of potential responses and strengthens the other person's resistance. To welcome resistance with flexibility invites cooperation that can’t be resisted. Understanding and releasing resistance can create ease and efficiency where struggle and impediment exist.

Let us take an example how differently people working on the same job profile make meaning of their work. Some see what they do for a living as just a job, others view it as a career and the rest think of it as a calling. People who see their job as a calling work more hours, miss less work and report higher life satisfaction than others doing similar work. While working in the same organization, it raises the question, “How can people doing the same work, sitting next to each other in the same organization, think so differently about their jobs?” Those who see their job as a calling, talk about it in glowing terms, like what they do and describe it as needing a lot of skill. Those who see their job as just a job, on the other hand, see their work as being simple and involving no skills. This shows that people are themselves responsible to actively shape the meaning of their life's experiences.

For embracing life fully it has five components to the best of my understanding:

1. Find the meaning in life in living of each moment.
2. Passionate commitment to a way of life, to one’s purpose and one’s relationships, is the highest form of expression of one’s humanity.
3. We have freedom of choice and responsibility for our choices.
4. Openness to experience allows for the greatest possible expansion of personal expression.
5. In the ever-present face of death itself, we find the deepest commitment to life itself. (The threat of death may be seen as “a dark, unsettling presence at the rim of consciousness” or everyday awareness of death may provide the motivation to live life more immediately.)

The extent to which we are experiencing life is the extent to which we are being fully alive. When we fail to experience, by denying awareness or avoiding opportunities, we waste our potential.” Embracing of life is being fully alive, and resistance to life is any self-sabotage that denies and thwarts our potential.
The individual remains locked in resistance until he experiences them both, owns them both, and indeed embraces the totality of himself with compassionate self-acceptance. One is energy of attraction and openness to life and growth. The other is energy of withdrawal, disintegration, and resistance to life and growth.

One’s reaction is often to flee the dreaded reality by creating an inauthentic life with self-sabotaging neurotic anxiety, defenses, resistance, repression, addictions, distractions and dissociation.

At the time of conception, the spirit has the choice of fear or faith, is it a passionate and committed leap of faith from spirit into earthly life, or avoidant, ambivalent or controlling? Similarly at the time of birth, leaving behind the security and predictability of the womb again requires a monumentally trusting leap of faith. The fetus willingly surrenders itself to the unknown force that will carry it to a new infinitely expanded world. Of course, again, it can also be done unconsciously, in fear or pain or rage. The difference between these choices sets in motion influences of vast proportions on the lifespan to follow. Similarly the choice whether we are embracing or resisting a situation would set in motion the energy which shall flow with that choice.

The moment we embrace, a new power is generated inside us, to take care of that situation, then why do we want to resist, after all each and every scene in this drama is for our ultimate good and benefit, let us accept it as it is with faith and hope, putting in our best actions.