“What you resist, persists. What you fight you get more of. What you embrace, dissolves.”

Letting Go: The Paradox of Fighting Our Problems

When we push against something, it often pushes back with equal force. This simple truth applies not just to physical objects but to our emotional lives as well. “What you resist, persists. What you fight, you get more of. What you embrace, dissolves.” This wisdom contains a powerful insight about how we handle challenges in our lives.

Think about a time you couldn’t fall asleep. The harder you tried to force yourself to sleep, the more awake you became. Or remember trying not to think about something embarrassing—only to have that memory play on repeat in your mind. These aren’t coincidences; they reveal how our attention works.

When we resist an emotion like anxiety, we actually give it more power. We create a second layer of suffering: now we’re not just anxious, but we’re anxious about being anxious. Our resistance becomes a spotlight that illuminates exactly what we’re trying to avoid.

The alternative isn’t giving up or pretending problems don’t exist. Instead, it’s about changing our relationship with difficulties. When we acknowledge our feelings without judgment—”Yes, I’m feeling anxious right now, and that’s okay”—something interesting happens. The feeling often loses its grip on us.

This doesn’t mean problems magically disappear when we acknowledge them. Rather, our resistance to the problem is what causes much of our suffering. By embracing reality as it is—not as we wish it to be—we create space to respond thoughtfully instead of reacting automatically.

Next time you find yourself fighting against an unwanted feeling or situation, try this approach: pause, acknowledge what’s happening, and ask yourself, “What might change if I stopped fighting this?” The answer might surprise you.