Looking at life through the eyes of resistance is not unlike looking at our own reflection in a pool of troubled waters; everything gets distorted. In fact, when seeing our lives through the narrow bars of some unwanted state, nothing is the way we see it.
Yes, it may feel as though we're stuck in some rut of painful resistance, but our original Self can no more get stuck in a rut than sunshine can be glued to the floor. So, the first step to releasing ourselves from any sense of being in a rut begins with seeing this truth:
The real nature of what we call our repetitive unwanted experiences is really just our own mind telling itself, over and over again, how much it wishes things would change. This brings us to an important lesson: As goes our attention, so comes our experience.
When it comes to how we make ourselves feel when looking at "scenes" in our lives that we don't want to see -- when we feel stuck in a rut of some kind -- to what do we give our attention? As a rule, what we see in our mind's eye is the circumstance we think responsible for how we feel in that same moment. Although this pattern of placing blame on conditions outside of us seems wise, this way of looking at our situation is a part of the very rut we wish to escape! And blaming outside circumstances for trapping us in a rut is like blaming the television for the boredom we feel while sitting watching nothing but reruns.
It's time to break our ties with anything in us that would rather complain about its situation than go to work to change it. And it doesn't matter where or how we feel stuck -- whether we're living under what seems an impossible situation, making too many self-compromising choices, or feeling like a prisoner of what seems an inescapable past. Yes, our condition may feel real, but any reason our mind gives us about "why" we're stuck there is a lie! Great nature herself proves the truth of this:
Nothing in life repeats itself in exactly the same way: not the seasons and not the path of the stars that drive those seasons, let alone the eternal genesis that sits behind all of creation. So anytime it feels as if we're a captive of some condition outside us, this sense of ourself has to be a lie, because nothing in real life remains the same!
So, the first step to breaking out of any rut in life is to no longer enable the parts of us that keep walking in them while wishing they weren't so deep! Learning to watch our own thoughts and feelings -- to be quietly attentive to what the mind is attending to in each moment -- ensures that we won't fall into these ditches, because our heightened level of attention keeps them from being dug! Again, as goes our attention, so goes our experience.
Trying to reclaim our attention can feel, at times, like trying to pull a willful child out of line just as it is about to get on its favorite amusement-park ride. This interior struggle can be very difficult sometimes, because, as hard as it is to believe, there is a momentum to all things -- including our misery over feeling stuck. Such misery doesn't just love company; it wants to continue with its life. Nevertheless, persist!
Remember. Each moment of reclaimed attention gives us a stake in the freedom it grants.
For encouragement along the way, just notice how, each time you bring your attention into the present moment, it's you who gets the gift of being made new. That's the way it works.
See how many times you can catch yourself just as you're about to go on the "ride" of not wanting to be where you are -- of not wanting to do what you must. Then deliberately step out of that long line of repetitive thoughts and feelings. Take your attention off what you don't want, and bring it into the new moment -- as it is.
This new and higher level of attention connects you to the present moment, the living now that is one and the same as your original Self. The interior task of working to remain attentive in this way grants you entrance into a world without ruts of any kind -- because no one has ever been there before you.
