The Path of Least Resistance

Taking the path of least resistance, in human terms, is often looked down upon as lazy. My question is why not take the easy way? Why would we choose to take the path of most resistance? And yet we do. We do it all the time. We choose a way that is the most difficult or at least more difficult than it needs to be. Why? To prove what?

This is the actual definition from Dictionary.com, the path of least resistance: “the easiest way; "In marrying him she simply took the path of least resistance.” This is how we view the path of least resistance, settling for something, taking the easy way out.

Yet, it’s natural to take the path of least resistance. In scientific terms it is the path that is the least resistant to the forward motion of an object or entity - the least resistant to forward motion. If we want to move forward with ease we simply need to move naturally along the path of least resistance. It is already there waiting in the natural progression of motion, a path along which we can move with ease. A path paved with Grace.

I don’t mean to say that this path will magically have no challenges along the way. I learn many lessons through the challenges in my life. Yet if I choose to walk the path laid out before me by Spirit that leads to my highest expression then those challenges are more easily met and more quickly moved through. Yes, I do believe that Spirit has a path laid out for us to live our highest expression here on Earth, a path of least resistance.

Repeatedly on this journey over the past few years I have used the power of my words to call in my learning gently. Before a few years ago I didn’t even know I had that option. I thought, as I had been conditioned to think, that life lessons had to be painful and difficult to truly learn. I was wrong. I could learn the same lessons in a much more gentle way. I could resist less and learn more quickly. I found that if I am gritting my teeth and preparing for the pain then I am actually resisting it and so how can I possibly see more clearly or learn the lesson gracefully.

It was the same principle with the delivery of my first child. I had no idea what to expect or how to cope with the pain or the challenge, after all I had never given birth before. But I took the classes! So surely I now knew what to do during the process to deal with it easily. So when the pain began I gritted my teeth and tried really hard to resist fighting the pain. I laugh at myself now when I look at those words – tried really hard to resist fighting the pain. At the time I thought I was working with the process when in reality I was not. Eventually I got an epidural (I loved that anesthesiologist when he arrived more than anyone in the world!) and almost immediately went to sleep. They woke me up a couple hours later to tell me that it was time to have the baby. I was fully dilated and it was time to push. I told them I wanted to go back to sleep! They were insistent however, and 45 minutes later my daughter was born. I had spent all day in labor without any forward motion towards birth and when I went to sleep and stopped resisting, the process was completed with ease.

Trust me; I’m not advocating medication as a way to deliver a baby easily or as a way to move through life easily! The problem I faced in that delivery was my own resistance to the pain and so in that resistance I simply prolonged and intensified the pain. Once I took the path of least resistance (there was still pushing after all!) I moved through the process more easily and more quickly.

The medication I’m talking about along the path of life is really trust, trusting that there is a path laid out before you and it is paved with Grace. There is a path of least resistance that we can take, that in truth is a gift to us, which leads to our soul’s highest expression. It is not lazy, it is not an escape, it is a gift. With joy I accept the gift of the path of least resistance and move forward with ease and gentleness and Grace.