by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
It Is What It Is & You Either Accept It Or You Make Yourself Miserable
There’s a deceptively simple line that has echoed through psychology, spirituality, and everyday life advice for decades:
“What you resist persists“.
Carl Jung is often given the credit for coming up with this phrase – whereas really it’s just an aphorism that sums up some of his core ideas (another similar one is “perception is projection”) – but whether he said it in exactly those words or not, the truth behind it is profound and it’s worth embracing if you want to live your REAL life.
We can sum up the heart of the idea as follows:
Life has a way of making us face up to the things we most want to avoid and the more we push against something – like a feeling, a truth, a reality – the more tightly it seems to grip us.
“What you resist persists” isn’t just a clever turn of phrase but a basic and universal principle of the human condition:
If we look closely, it’s the difference between living a fragmented life (always running, always fighting, and always being exhausted) and living a whole one (grounded in truth, free to move, and actually able to build something real).
At the heart of it all is a simple choice:
We can either live for resistance or we can live for acceptance.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
What You Resist Persists: What We Cover in This Article
- It Is What It Is & You Either Accept It Or You Make Yourself Miserable
- Two Paths in Life: Resistance or Acceptance
- Why the Ego Resists Reality
- The Trap of Judgement
- Example 1: The Self-Resistance Cycle
- Example 2: The Relationship Blind Spot
- Example 3: The Reality We All Resist
- REALNESS: Awareness, Acceptance, Action
- Resistance Creates Fragmentation
- Practical Ways to Shift from Resistance to Acceptance
- Trust: The Fruit of Acceptance
- “What You Resist Persist” Conclusion: Acceptance is Always the Way
Two Paths in Life: Resistance or Acceptance
Every moment, no matter who we are or where we find ourselves, we’re faced with two broad approaches to life:
- Living for Resistance: Which often happens unconsciously, but which fragments us, blocks our flow, and keeps us spinning in the void.
- Living for Acceptance: Which aligns us with reality, grounds us in truth, and gives us a foundation for wholeness.
On paper, the choice looks pretty obvious:
Who wouldn’t want wholeness, truth, and flow over fragmentation, illusion, and chaos?
Well, I’m pretty sure the answer would be “nobody” if it wasn’t for one small problem:
The human EGO.
Why the Ego Resists Reality
The ego isn’t some evil entity or villain plotting against us and it doesn’t need to be “killed” (people love trying to kill their egos but you can’t kill something that’s unreal) but it is a kind of filter or self-protective mask and storyteller that tries to keep us ‘safe’ in the short-term.
In order to try and keep us ‘safe’ in this way, it the ego edits reality to fit a narrative it thinks we can handle and dismisses any information that comes into our experience from reality in truth but which threatens the illusory bubble of ‘safety’ it tries to keep us in.
The problem with all this is that the ego is the opposite of reality (as it says in Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness): this means that it’s never the full picture – just a narrow set of fragments we cling to because it helps us ‘survive’ facing everything we really want (wholeness).
This is important because it means that whenever reality threatens to crack that familiar narratives that our identity rests upon, then the ego resists, then denies, judges, and suppresses.
In general, this resistance can play out on three levels:
- The Self: Which means that we resist what we really think, feel, want, know, and need.
- The World: Which leads to resisting truths about society, relationships, or others that don’t match our ego’s survival story.
- Reality itself: We resist the unavoidable laws of life like impermanence, flux, cause and effect, death.
In each case, resistance means we’re fighting against truth which is basically pointless because the truth never goes anywhere and so we just end up making things worse, prolonging unnecessary pain, and giving ourselves battle scars that are totally unnecessary.
The Trap of Judgement
One of the biggest causes of resistance is judgement (which is always the opposite of acceptance which is what we need to always be aiming for if we want to keep growing in the healthiest (realest) way possible):
Take our feelings, for example:
We get angry, anxious, ashamed, or sad and then the ego steps in with its verdict:
- “This is bad”.
- “This means I’m weak”.
- “This proves I’m broken”.
- Etc. Etc. Etc.
In these moments, we might think we’re “dealing with it” by labelling, repressing, or pushing the feeling down but what’s really happening is suppression so that the ego can stay where it is and we resist learning and growing with reality (instead of against it).
This is worth knowing because suppressed energy doesn’t disappear; it festers, builds pressure, and seeps out sideways through whatever cracks it can find in the form of stress, outbursts, addictions, or numbness.
As I often remind coaching clients:
“Emotions are e-motion, energy in motion”.
If we accept them, they can flow through us and move on but if we resist, we block the movement, and the energy gets stuck.
The only thing that cause us to resist and lead to this state of stuckness is our own ego ‘stuff’ and this is the persistence Jung was talking about.
Example 1: The Self-Resistance Cycle
Imagine for a moment somebody who feels unfulfilled in their career:
Deep down, they know they want to write, create, start their own business, or whatever but their ego fears failure, judgement, or financial instability (because of underlying shame which is almost always the deeper issue).
Instead of facing these feelings head on and putting themselves on their own real path, they resist and so they keep pushing down their real desires with thoughts like:
- “I shouldn’t want that”.
- “It’s not practical”.
- “I’ll just be grateful for what I have”.
- Etc. Etc. Etc.
All of these thoughts – or anything similar – simply just keep the ego where it is and stop people from going into a deeper acceptance of reality (this is why in coaching etc. these kind of thoughts are usually called self-limiting beliefs).
On the surface, they’re ‘coping‘ with their perceived reality (not the actual truth about things) but underneath, frustration grows that eventually leaks into their relationships, their mood, and even their health.
In short, the more they resist their truth, the more it persists – gnawing at them and demanding to be faced.
If, on the other hand, they accept the truth – “Yes, I do want this [real goal]” – then they can actually start doing something about it and moving away from the unreality that the ego has presented to them.
Acceptance, in this case, doesn’t mean they immediately quit their job – it just means they stop lying to themselves and accept the truth they’ve been resisting about themselves.
This kind of radical honesty with oneself is the first step toward building a life on something real rather than resistance.
Example 2: The Relationship Blind Spot
We’ve all had moments when we suspect something about someone close to us but don’t want to face it:
Perhaps we notice our partner’s toxic patterns and catch glimpses of manipulation, dishonesty, or deep incompatibility.
Even though, we’ve clearly ‘seen’ this, the ego doesn’t want to accept this and so it resists because what we’re perceiving threatens the picture it’s built: “We’re happy, we’re secure, and everything is fine”.
This inner conflict between perception and ego causes a state where we start to go around in endless circles ruminating, doubting ourselves, wasting mental energy.
It’s another classic example of resistance keeping us stuck.
It’s unfortunate because the moment we stop resisting and accept the truth (“Yes, this is real and this is who they are”) then we suddenly get our power back:
The power to choose, the power to act, and the power to move forward – acceptance always opens the door that resistance keeps locked.
Example 3: The Reality We All Resist
Perhaps the hardest truths to accept are those that lie beyond our control and simply just point towards the inevitable laws and principles of life that are universal to all of us (literally all humans past, present, or future):
- We’re all going to die.
- Life runs on cause and effect and so our actions have consequences.
- We cannot bend reality to our will forever.
- Etc. Etc. Etc.
The ego hates this because it wants to play God in our lives and have total control over things – this means it resists the ultimate truths of existence itself (again, because the ego is the opposite of reality).
Again, this is rather unfortunate, because when we finally accept these truths, we become free to live in alignment with our REALNESS:
Accepting death makes life vivid.
Accepting cause and effect makes us responsible and better-equipped to get results in life.
Accepting that we are not God aligns us with the true flow instead of trying to force everything.
Resistance always keeps us trapped in illusion but Acceptance always returns us to reality.
REALNESS: Awareness, Acceptance, Action
In my writing and coaching, I use the philosophy of REALNESS to help people return to truth.
It unfolds in three movements:
- Awareness: Seeing what’s real by deconstructing the ego.
- Acceptance: Letting it be real without judgement by integrating the shadow self.
- Action: Responding to reality with trust and courage by taking real action.
Most people get stuck between awareness and acceptance because they see the truth, but the ego resists it.
That’s when pain lingers, problems persist, and fragmentation grows as they live out their lives with the restless feeling of the void.
But when acceptance ‘clicks’ into place, action becomes natural and aligned and so you don’t need to force it because reality itself always shows you the next step that you need to take.
All you need to do is take it.
Resistance Creates Fragmentation
Every time we resist, we split and fragment ourselves a little more:
One part of us knows the truth but another part refuses it and so we get locked into an inner war that fragments us and drains energy and clarity.
- We resist our feelings and so we become numb or volatile.
- We resist our needs and so we live lives that don’t fit us.
- We resist the world and so we end up bitter, cynical, or naïve.
- We resist reality and so we live in delusion, shocked whenever truth intrudes (which it always will in the end).
Fragmentation leads us deeper into what I keep calling the void – that hollow space where nothing feels solid, meaningful, or trustworthy.
Acceptance, by contrast, brings integration because it unifies the parts of us into wholeness and wholeness is the only foundation strong enough to build a real life on.
Check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace if you’re ready to stop resisting life and to build something real.
Practical Ways to Shift from Resistance to Acceptance
Theory is one thing but how do we actually practise acceptance in daily life?
Here are some practical steps to get you started:
1. Notice the Signs of Resistance
Resistance often shows up as:
- Tension in the body (tight jaw, clenched stomach) and a frazzled nervous system.
- Loops of overthinking.
- Harsh self-judgement and mind gremlins.
- Avoidance behaviours (like scrolling, drinking, numbing oneself by any means necessary).
Simply becoming aware of these signals is step one.
2. Name What’s Really Happening
The next step is to learn to stop pushing the truth away and to start bringing it into the light.
Ask yourself some probing questions:
- What am I feeling right now?
- What am I afraid is true?
- What part of myself am I refusing to face?
Writing your answers to these questions down can be powerful because it will help you to see and articulate things that may have been swimming around in your mind for a while but that you’ve never fully grasped.
3. Drop the Judgement
Acceptance doesn’t mean liking or approving of something – it simply means letting it be whatever it is.
Remind yourself of the truth about things:
- “This is what I feel and that’s okay”.
- “This is who they are and that’s how it is”.
- “This is how life works and I can live with that”.
4. Let the Energy Move
If emotions arise, then let them flow:
Cry, shake, breathe, move, speak and remember: emotion is e-motion, energy in motion.
Resistance freezes things and leads to friction, frustration, and misery but acceptance lets it pass.
5. Act from Reality, Not Illusion
Once acceptance lands, the next step often becomes obvious:
The job is not to force an outcome but to trust reality enough to act in alignment with it.
Trust: The Fruit of Acceptance
The final piece of this puzzle is trust.
When we resist, we’re essentially saying:
“I don’t trust myself or life because I don’t trust reality…I only trust my ego’s version of events.”
On the other hand, when we accept, we step into trust:
We align with the Godwave, with the deeper intelligence of life itself and so that trust dissolves fear, loosens the ego’s grip, and makes us active participants in creation rather than frantic resisters of it.
“What You Resist Persist” Conclusion: Acceptance is Always the Way
Jung’s phrase, “What you resist persists”, isn’t just a cool psychological concept but a map of the human struggle.
Resistance keeps us locked in ego, fragmentation, and illusion; Acceptance returns us to reality, wholeness, and trust.
When we accept, we stop wasting energy fighting truth:
We let emotions flow, e face the world as it is, and we come to terms with life’s truth.
Only then do we have the solid foundation we need to build something real, meaningful, and good.
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you’re ready to build a foundation of real acceptance in your life then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll help you start building.
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