The Power of Allowing
Hi friends,
I have these words pinned in my phone’s notes app:
“If fighting worked, you’d be cured by now. So why not try the opposite?”
For anyone living with chronic pain, fatigue, anxiety, or depression, life can feel like a constant fight. You fight to control symptoms, to feel “normal,” to keep fear at bay. You spend hours trying to calm your nervous system with breathing, affirmations, somatic practices, and self-talk. Yet the more you do, the more tightly the body seems to hold on. The harder you try to fix, the more hopeless it feels.
But what if healing isn’t about trying harder?
What if the path forward lies not in resistance, but in allowing?
Allowing isn’t giving up—it’s releasing the struggle that keeps your nervous system on high alert. It’s an invitation to soften around what is, to let go of the exhausting effort to feel better, and to rediscover a sense of peace right where you are.
The Psychology of Resistance
Modern psychology teaches that much of our suffering doesn’t come from what we feel, but from our refusal to feel it. Carl Jung famously said, “What you resist, persists.” When you fight pain, you add tension. When you fight fear, you add fear of the fear. When you push away fatigue, you use up the little energy you have left. In Buddhism, this is known as the “second arrow,” which multiples the suffering of the first.
From a neuroscience perspective, the brain is a prediction machine constantly scanning for danger. When you meet sensations like pain or anxiety with fear or resistance, your brain tags them as threats. This triggers a protective cascade—tight muscles, stress hormones, and a nervous system stuck in fight-or-flight.
Allowing gently interrupts this loop. By meeting sensations with curiosity instead of fear, the brain learns that they are not dangerous. Over time, this shifts the brain’s predictive model, rewiring old fear pathways and restoring balance to the body’s self-regulating systems.
This is the foundation of Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)—approaches that teach us that freedom comes not from control, but from willingness. By turning toward discomfort instead of away from it, we discover that the body and mind naturally move toward healing when given space to do so.
The Eastern Roots of Allowing
Long before neuroscience mapped the nervous system, Buddhist teachings described the same principle through the lens of mindfulness. In the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha taught the importance of “knowing the body as the body, feeling as feeling, mind as mind.” In other words: be with what’s here. Don’t cling. Don’t push away.
This radical acceptance—seeing clearly without judgment—is the heart of liberation. Suffering, the Buddha said, arises from tanha, or craving: the insistence that life/this present moment should be different than it is. Allowing dissolves that craving. It opens us to the simple truth that peace is found not in controlling reality, but in aligning with it.
When we stop arguing with our experience, we free up tremendous inner energy. That energy, once trapped in resistance, becomes available for healing, creativity, and joy.
Allowing Is Active, Not Passive
To many, “allowing” sounds like giving up. But in practice, it takes tremendous courage.
Imagine floating on your back in water. If you thrash or tense, you sink. But if you soften and spread your arms, the water holds you. You’re still engaged—you’re simply cooperating with what supports you.
Allowing is the same. It’s not resignation—it’s trust. It’s saying, “I’m willing to feel this, to be with this, to stop fighting myself.” It’s acknowledging that the way through pain is not force, but presence.
The Body as a Messenger
The body becomes a profound teacher when we stop treating it as the enemy. Every symptom, rather than a sign of failure, carries a message.
Pain might be asking: “Can you soften where you’ve been bracing?”
Fatigue might whisper: “Can you rest without guilt?”
Anxiety might say: “There’s energy here that wants to move and be felt.”
Through allowing, you learn to listen. You might close your eyes, breathe into a painful area, and silently say, “You’re safe to be here.” Instead of tightening around discomfort, you offer it compassion. Often, the intensity softens—not because you forced it to, but because you stopped fueling it with fear.
This is neuroplastic healing in motion. Each time you meet discomfort with kindness, you send your brain new data: I’m safe now. Over time, this rewires the nervous system toward calm, ease, and trust.
The Heart of Allowing: Compassion
Compassion is the essence of allowing. It’s what transforms this practice from stoic endurance into true healing.
As Dr. Kristin Neff explains, self-compassion means treating yourself with the same tenderness you’d offer a dear friend. Instead of judging your pain, you hold it gently. Instead of asking, “Why can’t I get over this?” you ask, “What part of me needs care right now?”
Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön calls this “leaning into the sharp points.” It’s the willingness to stay open to life even when it hurts. That openness is not weakness—it’s wisdom. It allows what’s been frozen in fear to finally thaw.
Practicing Allowing
You can begin right now, wherever you are.
Pause and notice. When something uncomfortable arises—pain, anxiety, fatigue—pause before reacting. Name what’s here: tightness, worry, sadness, pressure.
Soften and breathe. Drop your shoulders, unclench your jaw. Let your breath remind the body that it’s safe. No need to change the sensation—just accompany it.
Say yes inside. Silently whisper, “I’m able and willing to be with this.” Even a small inner “yes” begins to shift the nervous system from resistance to safety.
Drop the storyline. Don’t analyze or fix. Feel the raw energy beneath the thoughts. Sensation is just sensation—it’s the mind’s story that makes it unbearable.
Offer warmth. Place a hand over your heart or the area of discomfort. Imagine sending yourself kindness. Let the body register this care.
At first, this may feel uncomfortable. That’s normal—your brain is used to fighting. But each time you allow, even for a breath, you weaken the old pattern of resistance and strengthen the circuitry of peace.
I have a few different guided meditations that can help you practice allowing:
The Science of Safety
According to Polyvagal Theory, developed by neuroscientist Stephen Porges, safety is the foundation of healing. When the nervous system feels safe, the body naturally shifts out of “fight or flight” and into “rest and repair.” Heart rate slows. Muscles release. Digestion, sleep, and immune function improve.
Allowing communicates safety. It’s your way of telling the brain, “We don’t have to fight anymore.” This is not abstract spirituality—it’s physiology working in your favor.
Coming Home to What Is
When you stop fighting, something profound happens: life begins to flow again. Energy that was trapped in struggle becomes available for living. The body often softens, not because you forced it to relax, but because it no longer feels under attack.
This is what both modern psychology and Eastern philosophy point toward: freedom not from the ups and downs of life, but within them. In Buddhist terms, this is anicca—impermanence. Everything that arises, including pain and fear, will also pass when met with awareness.
Recovery, then, isn’t about erasing symptoms—it’s about changing your relationship with them. Pain, fatigue, or anxiety may visit, but they no longer define you. You discover that peace is not the absence of discomfort—it’s the presence of acceptance.
A Closing Reflection
If you are tired of struggling—if your body feels heavy with years of trying and your heart aches for rest—consider this: maybe you don’t need to fix yourself. Maybe you just need to stop fighting.
Allowing is how you come home to yourself. It’s not a technique to master, but a way of being—a softening, a breath, a gentle turning toward what’s here with love instead of fear.
And in that quiet, something sacred unfolds:
You realize that you were never broken.
You were simply waiting to be allowed.
“The moment you accept what troubles you’ve been given, the door will open”
Wishing you peace and freedom, as always. Thanks for reading.
xo, Mel
Certified Health Coach, Reiki Master/Teacher, and Pain Reprocessing Therapy Practitioner
Come connect with me on Instagram, Insight Timer, and YouTube