What does it feel like to deny something? Is it a good feeling, or a bad feeling? We all know that it is a bad feeling. When something happens that we do not want, and we then deny the event, it feels bad. On the other hand, what does it feel like to want something when we envision something positive? We can easily see that when we are envisioning what we want, we feel good! In order to understand the nature of wanting, try to see that within "wanting" itself exists both the bad feeling that attends denial, and the naturally good feeling that comes with wanting something positive.
You cannot be caught in a negative state without denial being involved, and denial is the same thing as resistance. As an exercise for yourself, the next time you start to feel a denying, resisting force come up in you, in that moment find something in your life to affirm, which does not mean to imagine a good feeling. When you start to feel resistance to a moment that you do not want, find something affirming instead of being identified with and carried along by denying. However, you must not deny that the denying force is there. The intent of this exercise is to become aware of the suffering that this resistance produces in a moment, even as you bring into that moment a completely different order of energy through affirming what is right and good. In the moment where there is denial, you remember that Life, Truth, God is good. There is always beauty, and there does exist a world, spiritually speaking, in which you are never shut off from it.
Dare to find what is good and affirm it in the moment, instead of letting yourself be fully identified with and carried away by resistance. Again, it is important to understand that this exercise is not about pretending that you are not feeling the pain of being denied what you want. The events in your life unfold as they do so that you can be awakened to the fact that within you lives a body of desire that meets moments with expectations, and then refuses any moment that does not meet those expectations.
We want to wake up and be conscious of ourselves. As you begin to wake up, you will start to see that, yes, you may indeed feel the pain of resistance, but at the same time you can also see and feel beauty even while the pain is there. You can understand that you are not here in this life to serve suffering. You can use your attention properly and make yourself the servant of what is good and true, and in so doing be instantaneously placed above what was formerly punishing you.