Responding to my post on "the Ego Blues," David (no last name) remarks that "resisting the ego's stuff verifies its power and fear. What a monumental Catch-22!" He echoes a dilemma that persists in people who wrestle with inner change, only to find that their underlying fear and conflict changes very little, if at all.
The basic question is how to escape the paradox that resisting fear (or evil or neurosis) only makes it stronger, while giving in results in the same thing. This situation of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" has led generations of people to desperation over their inner lives.
Some have believed that they could cut through the paradox by intense faith or devotion to God. At the opposite extreme is an existential acceptance of hopelessness as a necessary kind of courage. But most of us aren't capable of leading either the life of St. Francis or Sartre.
The paradox can be overcome with careful self-observation. What does it feel like to give in to a compulsion? Let's say that the desire in question is one you have fought all your life. It could be an habitual craving for food or sex, a tendency to be hypercritical and perfectionist, a seething sense of resentment, chronic loneliness--really, anything the mind can devise to plague us.
If one looks closely, what these impulses have in common is that they deprive us of choice. They are built-in habits that have worn a groove in the psyche. When we aren't under their influence, they seem not even to be part of our real selves. So how can choice be restored? That is the real question, not whether to give in or resist. Normally, our first reaction is to say to ourselves, "Uh oh, here comes that impulse I hate. Am I going to give in again or resist this time?" But by the time a compulsive thought has arisen, the moment of choice is past.
The power to choose can only be restored when you aren't under the sway of cravings and compulsions, neuroses and dark fears. In a reflective state one asks, "How can I get my choices back?" The classic answer was stated most simply by the poet Rumi: "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."
This would include love of the self, because all habits, addictions, and compulsions are united by judgment against the self. A person is saying, "I cannot behave as I really want to because I don't deserve fulfillment." Addictions and habits are surrogates. They give second-hand fulfillment when a person despairs of finding it first hand.
One must discover a way to return to the self that is worthy of fulfillment, but the barriers raised against it consist of many things: negative beliefs, memories of unloving situations, judgements imposed from within and without, emotional traumas, misguided identification with evil and wrongdoing, etc.
I would be love to hear personal stories of how anyone has been successful in reclaiming their sense of choice. To me, this is an abiding challenge that faces us all.
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