Resisting a thought or a feeling is kind of like trying to yank your fingers out of a Chinese finger trap. The harder you pull, the stronger its grasp becomes on you. When you stop trying to force that release, the contraption, like the thought or the feeling, easily slides away. The finger trap doesn’t magically disappear of course. The absence of struggle and moving inwards loosens the grip, which then creates space and allows you to effortlessly remove your fingers.

The same is true for our minds and in our lives. Sometimes the most effective and least painful way of shedding our struggles, is simply to move towards them, acknowledge them and then let them go. By creating space for that movement to occur, the outcomes we seek come more fluidly and more quickly. Of course, it can often be surprising to discover that what we struggled so hard for, was in fact quite easy the entire time. I suppose self-created struggle is a very human quality. All the more reason to bring awareness to resistance, and then, even if for a moment, let it be.

This post is part of a series called Things Unfinished. It is an exploration of creative endeavors that I started, but never completed. In many ways it is also an inventory of my fears.

This little analogy has been sitting in my journal, tucked away for later. It felt precious and made me smile. I wanted to package it in something worthy, something big, something important. But creativity doesn’t have to be big or important. In fact, these lovely little nuggets can sometimes stay with us longer, coloring our understanding of the world.