How Letting Go of Resistance Reduces Suffering and Creates Peace
“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.”
– Eckhart Tolle
Have you ever gone through moments in your life when seemingly small circumstances threw you off centre? Or times when you faced genuinely difficult challenges but, to your surprise, navigated them with relative ease?
This is a topic close to my heart. It has taken me decades, and plenty of personal struggle, to understand what I now see as a universal truth:
Our suffering has less to do with our external circumstances and much more to do with how we relate to them.
In my own life, the moments of deepest suffering were rarely caused by the events themselves, but by my unwillingness to accept them.
I’m almost embarrassed to admit that something as simple as being stuck in traffic, or an interaction that wasn’t as cordial as I would have liked, could spark frustration and throw me off balance. Maybe you can relate?
And yet, when I’ve been able to surrender in the face of truly difficult circumstances, the experience has been lighter than I ever imagined possible. For example, when my father passed away, I found unexpected calm and even moments of gratitude by allowing myself to fully accept the reality of loss.
This raises an important question:
Why do we resist small inconveniences with such intensity, yet sometimes find unexpected strength in the face of larger challenges?
After years of observing this in my own life and in the lives of my coaching clients, I came to recognise what many Eastern and Western philosophies also teach:
Our suffering is directly related to how much resistance or acceptance we bring into our lives.
In other words:
How we relate to what happens, more than the events themselves, determines whether we suffer or move through them with greater ease.
Think back to moments of stress in your own life. If you look closely, you’ll likely notice a correlation between the depth of suffering and how strongly you resisted the reality of what was happening.
A Personal Story – Resisting Reality
A few years ago, I was in transit at an airport during the Christmas period. The queues for immigration were indescribably long, like lining up for a theme park ride where you wait an hour for a few minutes of excitement.
After more than an hour in line, I began to fear missing my connecting flight. My mind spiralled into catastrophising about all the terrible implications. My body tensed, my mood darkened, and I grew increasingly frustrated. None of this made the line move faster, but in some strange way, resisting reality gave me the illusion of control.
At one point, I paused and asked myself:
What would happen if I fully accepted this moment, just as it was?
I closed my eyes and made a conscious choice:
either resist what was happening
or
bring full acceptance to it.
To my amazement, the moment I chose acceptance, everything shifted. My body softened, my mind relaxed, and the uncomfortable emotions began to subside.
Did the queue suddenly speed up? No. In fact, I missed my flight.
But my experience of the situation transformed. Instead of spiralling in stress, I began to see possibilities:
rest at a nearby hotel.
catch up on sleep.
prepare for the event I was travelling to.
This example may seem small, but it revealed a truth I now see repeatedly in my coaching sessions: suffering often arises less from circumstances themselves, and more from the resistance we bring to them.
I wrote a whole blog post about this concept of radical acceptance in the context of my father’s passing.
Resistance – Fighting with Reality
Resistance is the act of mentally or emotionally arguing with what is. It shows up when we wish circumstances were different, cling to certainty in an uncertain world, or try to control what cannot be controlled.
Fighting reality in this way is exhausting, and it multiplies stress and frustration.
A few years ago, I was coaching a client in a fast paced organisation in the engineering sector. My client was incredibly organised, his boss was the opposite. Her energy was chaotic and ungrounded, to say the least.
The difference in their styles created tension and confusion in my client and the rest of the team such that my client often came into our sessions with a list full of arguments of why his boss was “wrong” and the situation was “terrible”.
Even with empathy it was hard for him to make the shift towards acceptance of the situation. Our sessions would help a bit, but somehow he felt stuck in fighting the situation, which in turn made it hard for him to see how to best work with his boss.
The more we resist, the more energy we expend on the fight, often creating suffering far greater than the situation itself.
Surrender – Going with the Flow
Surrender is often misunderstood as giving up or being passive. In truth, it’s quite the opposite.
Surrender is an intentional choice to accept reality as it is, so you can act from clarity rather than resistance.
It frees energy previously tied up in fighting, creating space for creative thinking and aligned action.
To understand more about aligned action, read this blog post on The Antidote to People Pleasing.
The benefits of surrender include a deeper sense of calm, the ability to respond thoughtfully rather than react out of tension, and often the discovery of opportunities invisible while consumed by resistance.
Recently, I was working with a client who was starting a new organisation with a business partner. My client had been resisting the inevitable truth that he didn’t want to invest as much into the project as his business partner wanted. After listening to his struggles around resisting what he truly wanted to do I pointed out:
“Not sharing your truth is unfair to yourself, to your business partner and to your future clients.”
With that phrase his body language changed immediately. It was as if he had finally stopped fighting and was ready to accept. From this initial acceptance, my client was able to let go of who he thought he "should be” and an opening became available for him to explore who he truly was and how he authentically wanted to contribute to the organisation.
We spent the rest of the session exploring what his ideal day/week would look like and how to communicate that skillfully to his business partner to make it work for everyone.
At the end of the session, my client was experiencing none of the suffering he had been carrying for months. Instead, he was full of possibilities that felt authentic and true to him.
The turning point didn’t come from exploring new possibilities to begin with, it came from letting go of the resistance and accepting his truth, which in turn brought an opening to exploring how to turn that into reality.
The Paradox – Things Often Turn Out Better
Life often unfolds beyond our expectations when we allow it to. By releasing resistance and accepting what is, we notice opportunities that were previously obscured, just as my client did in the previous story.
The paradox is simple:
The act of letting go often leads to outcomes better than anything we could have forced.
Practice for the Week – Moving from Resistance to Surrender
To explore surrender in your own life, try these practices:
Notice resistance. Where in your life are you currently resisting reality? What is this costing you in energy, clarity, or peace?
Experiment with letting go. Choose one small area where you feel resistance. What would it look like to loosen your grip, even slightly? Observe the shifts in your mindset or energy.
Distinguish control from non-control. Make two lists: what is within your control and what is not. Redirect your energy toward the first and release attachment to the second.
Trust the possibility of more. Recall a time when acceptance opened unexpected opportunities. Can you trust that the same might unfold now?
Closing
Fighting life creates unnecessary suffering. Surrendering, even in small ways, creates freedom.
This practice is easier said than done; experiment gently this week. Notice where you resist, and ask what might shift if you leaned, even slightly, towards acceptance. No judgment, just curiosity.
As always, I would love to hear how this practice lands for you. Share your insights about shifting from resistance to acceptance in the comments.
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