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There are many polarizing issues we can resist and fight over. The word "resistance" can mean fighting against what we don’t agree with in counterproductive ways. It can also be the illusion and futility of mentally fighting against reality of 'what is'. But acceptance, non-resistance, of what is doesn’t mean powerless resignation. Another way to resist is to accept and love whole-heartedly, with empathy and care for the people doing the things we are resisting.

With coaching or counselling clients, their resistance can show up as “bracing against” something. But if we push back against their resistance, we miss noticing what they're protecting or embracing. By going into resistance clients build awareness and often shift when they get clear about their underlying needs, and new choices. Some clients don’t shift even after we’ve tried everything. In that case, read on to learn about Frank Farrelly's "provocative therapy".

In this inspiring 3-part audio recording, Mary Mackenzie, renowned for her self-empathy practice, speaks about the value of self-empathy as a daily practice and the profound healing that naturally occurs as a result.

• Focus on living from the inside out
• Bring a field of inner kindness to your inner distress
• Attend to your inner experience with compassion
• Cultivate an inner spaciousness of freedom

When something happens that we don't like no amount of resentment nor magical thinking will make it disappear. Instead, we can mourn to dissolve our own resistance, resentment, and numbness of resignation. Mourning can allow us to feel pain with acceptance, and without needing to be okay with what happened. Acceptance can bring us to a place where even all the anguish in the world is fully, part of life.

Pay attention to when you're motivated by guilt, duty, obligation, shame, and worry. How do you feel? Does it bring up resentment, rebellion, submission, reactivity or resistance? When you're motivated by joy notice how that feels, and how others respond. Read on for a related story.

Join Eric Bowers in transforming past relationship pain, coming alive in community and creating thriving relationships. This 12 session Telecourse recording brings together Eric's passions for Nonviolent Communication, Attachment Theory and Interpersonal Neurobiology.

During this course, you'll deeply examine this process of blending and integrating your inner and outer selves. Not only will you explore various states of being, such as defensive / protective and being / essence, you'll delve into the primary levels of relationship: to others, to the world and to life,  acquire tools for transforming resistance into unconditional acceptance, and much more.

This exercise brings forth presence, awareness, and witnessing regarding what you observe. And also the inner form of experiencing: thinking, feeling, sensing, longing, and noticing any inner resistance. This exercise is designed to allow self-compassion to clear the inner space, and to help you feel it as a flow of energy, presence to the other, and bring in a more relaxed experience and more availability to vulnerability.

Grief is often confused with anguish. Anguish is a painful feeling that comes along with deep resistance to an experience or truth. Grief that leads to healing is an expansive state. It is a willingness to be with an experience and truth. If you're not resisting grief, then it's a neutral-to-pleasant experience. Pleasant sensations can include a sense of space and relief as something is integrated and tense holding releases.

Getting "feel good" empathy can become an addiction. Even to the point of seeing people who don't offer empathy as "not being NVC". Rachelle urges us to notice how this view of NVC can be seductive, and even dangerous. In this article, she explains how we can expand our compassionate awareness when we go beyond equating NVC with harmony and empathy. She asks us to become more open to noticing others' experiences even if it challenges our personal and collective belief systems -- and especially when it upsets us to consider it.

What do we actually mean by “use of force” and what counts as such? Here's a template that will be unpacked in this article: "Use of force is consistent with nonviolence to the extent that we use the least amount of force possible, with the most love possible, aiming at (re)creating conditions for dialogue; that we make the choice using as much nonreactive discernment as possible, with as much support for the choice as possible, and while mourning not seeing another way to respond to a situation in which vital needs are at stake except to use force". Read on for more.

How we relate to life parallels how we relate to others! Learn how to have a more healthy way of relating to situations and people when your needs are not being met. Bob Wentworth offers some wisdom on moving from suffering to aliveness through not fighting what is.

What parts of yourself or others are hard to embrace, understand or even notice?  What parts do others have difficulty embracing, understanding or noticing?  Why do we condemn, loathe, hate, deny, judge, blame or feel shame around certain needs, feelings and parts of self and/or others? This article talks about the hidden parts of ourselves and others that shapes views and behaviours.

In lasers, light bounces between the mirrors, with each pass the light grows more intense. Our minds work similarly. Because of the "mirror" effect, where we can react to our reactions to our reactions to our reactions (and so on), changing our thought pattern even modestly at every level of reaction, can dramatically affect our ultimate experience.  Usually the greatest amplifiers are the ones we notice the least.  Learn what to notice -- to amplify more love rather than pain.

As you witness injustices in the world, tension, anger, hopelessness, despair and more, may rise up in you. These feelings may lead to reactive thinking that doesn't contribute to healing nor wise action. Mourning is a universal need. If your culture pushed away grief and its emotional expression, you may have habits that block your access to the aliveness of grief. Read on for ways to give grief the space and support it needs.

Anger is a sign that you're resisting what's happening because you perceive an overwhelming threat, not trusting yourself to handle what's happening directly. Vulnerable feelings under anger are usually fear, hurt, or grief. Experiencing and expressing these feelings and connecting them to your needs, gives you access to more skill, insight, compassion, and wisdom. Read on for 3 questions to ask yourself when angry.