It's not difficult to recognize how deep are the ways our mind has been conditioned to deal with unpleasant situations when we examine how we resist those situations. Throughout our entire lives we have been encouraged to do anything we can to escape "from" rather then to explore and investigate "into" our unpleasantness. Our society literally consumes tons of aspirin daily. It is not just the physical pain we try and avoid, but all kinds of unpleasant conditions: boredom, restlessness, self doubt, anger, loneliness, hurt and the list goes on. In our culture we do all we can to push these experiences aside, or keep them at a distance. When you think of "it" this way, we actually choose to be entertained in the fashion that we are.
So
As long as I was pushing away the pain, it had me nailed to the wall. But then I stopped resisting it. I sort of let it in. It was actually a relief. I felt better in spite of it. No longer at odds with everything.
adapted from How Can I Help Ram Dass
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