I've written many times about the gift of holding a stance of "no struggle" when moving through challenging situations.  This doesn't mean to give in to things that are wrong, or to go along with things that would hurt you.  What it does mean is that we have a rather constant opportunity to "become water" and allow ourselves to move through where the flow of our experience takes us without the added stress of struggle.

There are Buddhist meditation practices that have to do with "softening", with opening up to, rather than fending off, our experiences.  When I work with people using hypnosis or Somatic Experiencing, there inevitably comes a moment when I invite the person to explore what happens if they soften into the distress or pain they're feeling.  When we soften, when we move into a stance of "no struggle", we offer ourselves the gift of spaciousness, of creating enough room for an uncomfortable experience to arise, move through and then move on.  When we struggle with something - either by trying to fend it off or keep hold of it - we increase our activation and discomfort.  When we are able to soften and allow experience to move through us, we offer ourselves greater ease, even in the presence of stress-inducing challenges.

For example, let's say you're stuck in a traffic jam and you're going to be late for an important appointment.  That's just the way it is, and there's no way around the fact that you're not going to make it on time.  The stance of "no struggle" would be to allow yourself to accept the situation and notice what happens when you soften into the fact that things just are as they are in that moment.  To spend time wishing it weren't so, or railing against the fact that life is unfair and you *have* to be on time, adds to the activation and stress of the moment.  Softening into what is, the situation that can't be changed, may allow you to find some relief and ease that you didn't expect.

Or, let's say you have an uncomfortable or unpleasant emotional experience and you don't like the feelings you're having.  Softening into what is may allow you to shift into a compassionate observer stance, where you notice how uncomfortable you are without adding anything more to it.  If you are like water, moving through your experience without becoming stuck in it, you discover that the feelings arise, move through and move on when they aren't fueled by struggle.

For this week's experiment, I invite you to revisit the practice of "no struggle".  It sometimes helps to allow water to be your teacher around this kind of practice, since water doesn't tend to struggle.  When it encounters a block of whatever kind, it tends to either move over, under, or around it, or evaporate and come down somewhere else as rain, fog, or dew.  Remember, "no struggle" doesn't mean to give into something you need to move away from, or settle for something that isn't good for you.  But, when there's a circumstance you can't change, and you need to somehow get through it, softening and "no struggle" are powerful ways to ease the journey.

As with all the experiments, the goal here is to offer you a way to strengthen your capacity to choose how you want to respond to what life brings your way.  As I've said so many times, while we can't control what confronts us, or what emerges within our feelings and responses, we can choose how we want to move through what arises as we engage our daily lives.  These experiments offer opportunities to practice, practice, practice, and to be curious about what happens to our quality of life when we choose to do so.