Dealing with Resistance from Others

 

Often we want other people to change, or we want to make a change but other people resist that change.

 

Why can’t they just let go and accept the change? Because we can’t force change on other people — we don’t control them.

 

And so letting go becomes a process of accepting that we can’t control other people, or even control much of the world. Life isn’t something we control, no matter how much we try.

 

Let go of our illusion of control.

 

A good example of this is when you become a parent: at first, you seem to control your child’s life completely, because you control their home and clothes and food and play. You think you are shaping this young child into the human you’d like them to be.

 

As they get older, this becomes very frustrating. They don’t behave the way you’d like them to behave. They aren’t interested in the hobbies you’d like for them. They don’t always have the values you insist they adopt. They don’t agree with much of what you say.

 

You want to control them, but they resist. It turns out, they’re their own people. They are independent, individual people, and they’ll grow into people they want to become. You have some influence on that, of course, but not control.

 

And it turns out, we never really had control in the first place. Even when they’re babies and toddlers, we control their environment, but they decide how to internalize that, and different babies react differently. And we react to their reactions, so actually they’re changing us just as much as we’re changing them.

This is true of all people in our lives. We don’t control them, and we can’t. We can influence them. They influence us as well.

 

Let go of wanting to control people, of wanting to change them. Their resistance is natural. Instead, focus on yourself, and be the shining example. Be the compassionate center. See if you can help in ways that they find helpful.