One of the first things I notice when I open my eyes in the morning is my mind’s resistance. As I begrudgingly sit up while reaching for my computer to write before my toddler wakes, my mind goes on and on about why I should go on sleeping. “You have nothing to say. Who do you think you are? No one reads these things anyway. You should quit. What is the point of all of this?” I know this voice well. I listen to her and go on typing.
Resistance is the refusal to accept. We resist when we attempt to prevent something by taking action or arguing against it. We refuse to comply with reality. Resistance appears in our lives perhaps more often than peace. It doesn’t take long until I hear the voice of resistance poke at me again. She thinks I won’t be able to sustain my energy through the week. There is no way I will have the stamina to serve all my clients on my caseload at work. She reminds me how I may never have a new idea again when I go to plan my three classes for the week. “People are going to get tired of your voice. You should spend your time on something else. Who do you think you are? You should quit. What’s the point of all of this?”
Resistance appears when I am in the shower, driving to work, or cooking in the kitchen. The mental and physical sensation of tension that I know to be resistance also visits when I do the things I love, like teach, write, converse, exercise, and meditate. She appears to tell me where I fall short as a mother, wife, coworker, and friend. Her voice chimes in any time she fears I may be in danger. Resistance is scared so 99.9% of her fears are illegitimate. She doesn’t know we are safe when getting out of bed, shopping at the grocery store, or when going to work. There is also nothing to fear when I step outside of my physical or mental comfort zone- something she resists the most.
Luckily, I know how to overcome her resistance now that I know her well. I have tools I didn’t have before to keep her at bay and continue doing what I intend to do. I have yoga. There was a time when the only way I knew to handle her was by numbing her with substances or by busying myself. I didn’t want to pay attention to how uncomfortable I was. In my attempts to get rid of her, she only became louder. The louder she became, the more I hid from the world. It was too painful facing my outside surroundings with my cruel inner critic. My relationships suffered, and my sense of self-confidence dwindled. Her voice made me miserable and reflected on how I experienced the world.
I believe there is someone or something bigger than us who knows what we need in those times when we most resist life and question its meaning. Amid our most profound suffering, I think life hands us what we need to pull us through if we are willing to listen and surrender. During one of my deepest moments of despair, life sent me Hannah. Hannah is my childhood friend who introduced me to yoga. She grew up going to retreats with her mom, where she sat in silence, practiced breathing, and used movement to still her mind. Her radiance and self-assurance drew me to these practices that were not a part of the mainstream culture. Hannah lived differently, and I wanted whatever it was she was doing. She asked me if I wanted to join her for a silence retreat in Carmel Valley, California. My mind screamed, “NO!!!!” But another part of me overrode her resistance and said yes. I was in desperate need of a change. I would go anywhere that might relieve me of my suffering.
As we drove into Carmel Valley, I thought its amount of charm was just right to put an end to my misery. Carmel is quaint and lush. It’s where Mack and the boys drove Lee Chong’s old truck on their famous frog-hunting expedition in John Steinbeck’s book, Cannery Row. With a moderate drive outside Reno, I stepped onto a picturesque property surrounded by rolling hills, vineyards, and diverse evergreen and deciduous trees. The climate was a mixture of light rain interspersed with the perfect amount of sunlight and warm air to regulate an ideal body temperature. The air was pure and crisp. Birds sang while mule deer grazed along the edges of tree-covered hillsides. Everything about this environment emulated serenity. I should have felt peace. But my mind was still irritated and upset. She wanted to go home.
Hannah was at home wherever she went. She practically ran to each person she saw and embraced them. With my arms crossed and eyes diverted, my mind attempted to figure out a plan of escape. “There’s got to be a bus back to Reno. How dangerous is hitchhiking really?” The next thing I knew, Hannah interrupted my scheming mind and directed me to a large room for our first evening meeting. Chatter and a sense of urgency filled the room as course participants got their last words out before our summons into silence. A bell rang, and the course leader went through introductions and a summary of our daily schedule. Then, another bell rang to signal it was time to remain silent for the next 72 hours.
I was ready for silence. I didn’t want to talk to these people. I couldn’t wait to run into my room and be alone. Our instructor had other plans and told us to break out into groups of two. As I reached for Hannah, our instructor piped in, “Make sure you partner with someone you don’t know.” I cringed. We had a series of partners that night whom we non-verbally interacted with during peer-building and self-development exercises that I no longer recall. I do remember wanting to tear my eyes out and crawl out of my skin with the level of eye contact I had to make with a stranger while not being able to dampen our exchange with impersonal small talk. My internal chatter was fierce. She was loud and mean and shouted at the top of her lungs about how stupid I was for getting myself into this mess.
I couldn’t avoid my mind by speaking, drinking, exercising, or eating. I had no choice but to sit with it. The voice in my head was LOUD and offered one criticism and critique after another as I sat next to a stranger and tried to communicate with my eyes. “This place and these people are insane.” I thought. “Maybe I’m insane?” As Hannah ran to hug another person after the bell for our dismissal, I ran even faster to my bed, where I curled up and shut my eyes to cope with my screaming mind. I fell into a deep 12-hour sleep and awoke to another bell. It was time to wake up and tend to our daily schedule. My mind picked back up where she left off the evening prior and told me there was no way we were going back into that room with those people. But Hannah appeared at my bedside. She waited for me to follow her where I least wanted to go. I couldn’t escape her or my mind and accepted my fate. I silently dragged my feet into the room, where I knew I would have to have awkward interactions and slowly become better acquainted with the voice inside my head.
Before the retreat, I had developed a beginner but committed relationship with the physical practice of yoga known as asana. I regularly attended classes at a purple yoga studio. This studio became another saving grace. I didn’t realize how much my commitment to this practice saved me and set me on a different course. At that time, I also believed I was learning a new physical form of movement to build strength and stamina. I liked how I felt during that 75-90 minutes on my mat. I unknowingly was learning to relax and move past my physical comfort zone by easing into it.
Asana practice moves the practitioner into different positions where they find a balance between stress and tension. Changes occur when the practitioner learns how to relax into these tense states. The more you relax into tension, the greater the shift of energy. The physical practice of yoga changes us when we discover how to relax past our resistance or the point where we naturally want to go. That is what Asana practice did for me. I learned how to go past my comfort zone using my physical body. The problem was I didn’t carry this skill with me off my yoga mat. My mind and body continued to hold so much resistance for the remainder of my 22-23 hour day. I had no sense of “okayness” when not on my yoga mat.
Relief flooded my body when I saw yoga mats spread across the meeting room on the first morning of the retreat. I ran to to claim one. We moved our bodies and practiced breathing during a 2-hour practice. I felt a renewed sense of lightness as we settled into the final poses. But the sound of a bell interrupted my carefree spirit. Its signal meant we would sit in meditation for an unknown period. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Any sense of peace I may have had was gone in an instant. My mind was back online and yelling about its unwillingness to participate. But another voice started to overpower my inner resistance. “Focus on your body. Focus on your breath. Relax into it.” Sitting practice was no different than movement practice, except it required me to notice my mental tension states. Like physical tension, I knew I needed to acknowledge my mind’s resistance rather than run or hide from it. I could observe my thoughts without attaching myself to their constant motion. “Breathe into tension, breathe out to release.” I knew how to do this. Slowly, my mind quieted down. She no longer screamed. Behind her voice was a nothingness that filled me up like nothing I had felt before.
Time passed, and shifts occurred that stayed with me off my mat. These shifts resulted because I allowed myself to use silence as a portal to strengthen my relationship with my mind. I developed the skill of helping my mind relax whenever she began to yell her fears, judgments, or critiques at me. Each time I opened my eyes after sitting in silence during the retreat, I noticed a new sense of lightness, confidence, and energy. The buzzing in my body halted, and I could tolerate being in my own skin. The more I listened to my mind without reacting or resisting it, the more I felt in control over my life. My outer experience also shifted. I could look others in the eyes without the urge to run. I noticed the beauty that surrounded me. I didn’t have to go someplace else in hopes of feeling better. I was ‘okay’ now. It was a step toward peace.
Unfortunately, keeping my mouth shut for 72 hours in beautiful Carmel didn’t result in enlightenment. This experience was one of many that taught me how to work with my mind rather than listen to its resistance. My mind still chatters on and lists off her complaints. Sometimes she unknowingly convinces me to take her advice. But it doesn’t take long before I realize I am in a state of resistance rather than acceptance. I know because my body tenses, and I become more reactive. I feel a sense of urgency to get someplace else to feel okay. Resistance is likely present when I rush, complain, or attempt to escape the world. In those moments, I know I need silence.
There is no need to run to a retreat in a charming location to understand, practice, or access silence. We can build our relationship with silence by finding stillness and drawing our attention inward to notice our mind’s chatter. It won’t take long for us to discover what our minds resist. It likely will be upset about the past or worried about the future. That’s okay. Breathe into whatever it resists. Then, breathe out and relax into it. The more we soften into our mind’s resistance, the less our minds fluctuate, allowing us to reclaim control over our lives without changing our outer environment. Silence teaches us to remain steady in an unsteady world. We can be ‘okay’ as we move through changing circumstances if we allow ourselves to relax into the noise of our inner world. Silence is how we can access stillness within ourselves, and from this place, we begin to take more constructive individual actions that add to the goodness of the collective whole.
