The more you fight it, the heavier it becomes. The more you avoid it, the tighter it clings. What you resist, you carry.
That’s not punishment. That’s cause and effect.
The tension doesn’t release when you push it away. It softens when you stay with it.
Zen doesn’t ask you to conquer your pain. It asks you to witness it. To hold it. To breathe with it.
Because whatever you refuse to feel… You end up living with anyway.
Avoidance is natural. We’re wired to run from discomfort. But presence is a choice. And presence changes everything.
You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to fix it. You just have to stop pretending it isn’t here.
That tightness in your chest? That clench in your jaw? That loop of old thoughts spinning in your mind?
They aren’t mistakes. They’re messengers.
You don’t need to decode them. You need to sit beside them. Like a friend. Like a witness. Like someone who’s finally ready to stop running.
We spend so much energy pushing against the parts of ourselves we think we shouldn’t feel.
Grief. Anger. Envy. Fear. Confusion. Loneliness.
But the truth is: whatever you resist becomes part of your burden.
The only way to lighten it is to turn toward it.
So breathe. Not to escape, but to stay.
Feel what’s here. Not because it’s comfortable, but because it’s real.
This is your life. And every part of it belongs.
Even the hard parts. Even the ones you wish you could ignore.
Especially those.
You don’t carry pain by accident. You carry it by resistance.
Let that be your practice: Not fixing. Not analyzing. Just feeling. Fully. Without a story.
And in that stillness, something shifts.
Not because you forced it. Because you finally stopped fighting it.
What you resist, you carry. What you carry with presence, begins to let go.
Enlightened Life Fellowship 