Learning to Sit with the Present: Why Peace Begins When We Stop Resisting

For many years I believed peace came when difficult emotions disappeared. Meditation slowly showed me something different. I learned that most of the time we are unable to sit still because we create resistance to all the emotions that we feel. During meditation today, sadness appeared. My first instinct was to understand it. Then another thought came.

“What if I simply sat with it?” Nothing extraordinary happened.

The sadness didn’t disappear. My resistance did.

Why do we resist emotions?

Categorising emotions as either positive or negative.

My experience is that emotions that are universally called negative, can be the door to awareness. Therefore, how are they negative? The label doesn’t come from the emotion itself – it comes from what we’ve been taught to do the moment it shows up. For example, if you are feeling sad, you ask yourself why you are feeling sad? And then you try to cheer up intentionally; forcefully. Because you don’t want to feel sad. In society, it is taught that sadness is a bad thing. You shouldn’t be sad about anything. The moment you realize that you are sad, the resistance begins. Instead of sitting with sadness, watching it and living it fully, we resist it. We try to distract ourselves with mundane things like watching TV or eating snacks or calling a friend. That’s how we begin to assume sadness is a negative emotion.

Denying to accept that humans are built to feel.

As humans, we feel all sorts of emotions: affection, love, jealousy, envy, sadness, happiness. We can smile, cry, laugh, clap when we are overjoyed. We experience so much; so many wonders. This is no less than a wonder to feel. When we love, not only our heart flutters but our entire body tingles; when we are sad, not only our heart longs for oxygen but every part of us feels the pain. We are humans and we are built to feel emotions like the ocean with waves and tides. If we simply sit and watch them, emotions begin to feel like
a natural part of being human.

Disconnection from ourselves.

Where does all this resistance come from? Over time we can become disconnected from what we genuinely feel. You wanted to cry when you felt pain. But you didn’t. Why? Because that’s what society has been teaching for ages. Sadness is a negative emotion. As soon as it appears, it should be shut down and be replaced by enjoyment. Observe a child. They eat when they’re hungry, smile when they’re happy, and cry when they’re sad without fearing judgement. Because they haven’t been taught to shut their emotions yet. Many of us gradually learn to hide our emotions in order to fit into the expectations around us.

What happens when we stop resisting?

What if, instead of immediately trying to get rid of sadness, we became curious about it for a few moments? Just sit with it and watch what happens.

Moments of totality with your emotions.

Have you ever experienced that some event shook you to the core and you couldn’t stop tears rolling down your face? Someone tells you, ‘Don’t cry. People are watching’. It must have happened with everyone without exception. There starts the resistance; those are the moments when you practiced shutting down. The same is true when we feel overwhelming joy.

On the inner journey, these can be the moments when the door to your inner world opens. There, let yourself experience those emotions in totality and be a watcher; no judgement, no resistance, no reasoning, just be in the present. That moment will make you realise that any emotion is not bad; it should be lived and gone through. Over time, emotions will lose their power to pull you away from yourself.

This is close to what being present actually means, not analysing the moment, not managing it, just meeting it directly. What Does It Actually Mean to Be Present goes further into that distinction.

Even in pain, you won’t need to run from yourself anymore. Even in the moment of restlessness, you will carry the peace within you.

If you don’t resist then there will be no noise.

We often assume our emotions create the disturbance. In my experience, it is our resistance to them that creates the noise. We judge, deny, ignore, suppress our emotions. This resistance causes the stir; the discomfort. Result? We can’t sit still. Resistance has to be unlearned. When you learn to sit with emotions, resistance disappears. It doesn’t happen in one day. It will take days of practice.

The same practice holds for whatever else arises, fear, old hurt, anything the day brings. Fear and Do We Really Need to Forgive? walk through how this plays out with each.

How to experience this yourself?

The next time you sit for meditation, try this.

Whenever you feel restless during meditation

Don’t rush to follow a meditation technique.

Sit quietly for a few moments.

Ask yourself:

“What is bothering me at this moment?”

Don’t try to answer immediately.

Wait.

Let the question settle.

See what begins to reveal itself.

When it does, don’t judge it.

Don’t reason with it.

Don’t try to fix it.

Don’t push it away.

Simply stay with it.

Watch it.

Let it be exactly as it is.

Give it the time it needs.

Then notice what happens.

You may find that the emotion wasn’t disturbing your peace. Your resistance to it was.

Don’t believe these words.

Sit quietly.

Observe.

Then let your own experience answer the question.

The next time restlessness appears…

Can you give it your attention before giving it a solution?