The Power of Will

Michael Singer talks about neutrality—this idea that we can sit in the center of our experience, simply observing, letting life unfold without grabbing onto it, no clinging. He makes it sound simple: watch, allow, let it pass. But if you’ve ever tried it, you know how much discipline it actually takes.

It takes a strong fucking will to stand in the face of life and just remain. A strong will to withstand the discomfort of things not going the way we want. The death of a child, a lover's betrayal. Humiliation. Abandonment. A strong will to not flinch, not react, not tighten up when life presses in on us. Bottom line, sometimes life brings us dark, vicious hard times and we have this human tendency to take that moment and blow up everything around us, making the circumstances ten times worse and repeating that cycle over and over.

I truly believe that life is coming at us—fast. The people, the places, the conversations, the heartbreaks, moments where the ego gets fucking fired up—it all comes rushing in at what sometimes feels like an alarming rate. And as much as we desire to stay in neutrality, as much as we say we’re going to just let things pass and not get caught, truth is, it’s hard. It’s so hard to not react. Life can be violent. Our hearts are exploding with emotions. And in the moment, when it’s coming at us at 100 mph, it takes a strong will to stay steady.

Having a research focus on psychological truama responses, specializing in narcissistic trauma bonds, and the result of these abuses on the nervous system, I have come to notice, as I spend time understanding spirituality, that it really doesn’t care about all that. It doesn’t care about your fight-or-flight. It doesn’t care about your attachment wounds. It doesn’t care about your nervous system shutting down when something triggers an old, deep debilitating response.

What Spirituality does, is it reduces everything down to the power of will—the ability to sit still despite what your body is doing, despite what your mind is screaming, despite what every fiber of your being wants to do to escape the horror story playing out in your mind and therefore activiating your whole body. It's Christ being silient when He is taken captive. Knowing what He knew and at the same time. Holding. Steady.

Meanwhile, psychotherapy does the perceived opposite. It dives in. It dissects trauma. It validates responses. It says, let’s talk about your fight-or-flight. Let’s talk about why your body shuts down. Let’s talk about how your trauma bonds are shaping your relationships right now.

Both perspectives claim to bring healing. But here’s the real question:

Can healing come from understanding why we react the way we do?

Why do we ask why?

Or does it simply come from disciplining the will to not react at all?

It’s the same distinction I see between Christianity and Buddhism.

Christianity carries this whisper: If you do the right thing, if you keep your eyes on Christ, you will not suffer. There’s this idea that being tethered to Christ is what keeps you safe. Stay close, and you won’t be lost.

Buddhism, on the other hand, makes no such promises. It says suffering will come to you. No matter how good you are, no matter how much you pray, no matter how much you try to keep life in order, suffering is built into the fabric of existence. Life will be chaotic and unpredictable and it will even crack apart right in front of you. And that you are not exempt from any of that.

But maybe Christianity and Buddhism are saying the same thing in different ways. Maybe the tether Christianity offers—Christ within us—and the tether Buddhism offers—our higher self—are not so different. Maybe the question isn’t whether we look at the cross on the hill or at the soul’s embedded consciousness within us, maybe both of those ideas are enough to help us hold on.

Truth be told, none of that actually matters. At the end of the day, it’s not a theological debate. It’s not about how much we believe or how much we understand. It’s mostly just a game of discipline.

I tell clients all the time, I never taught discipline. I taught trauma. I never taught skills. I taught the validation of the pain. I never taught empowerment. I offered love. And there was a time and place for that. But then, out of nowhere, from the inner gates of heaven itself, fell this realization that

discipline could be...

the ultimate form of healing.

This is where we find our will.

Is your will strong enough to withstand your fight-or-flight? Is your will strong enough when your trauma response kicks in and suddenly you feel like you’re back there again, back in the abuse, back in that house, back in that moment of fragile, fucking, pain—

Can you hold your ground when your body is telling you to run, to hide, to collapse?

Can you recognize the smoke and mirrors, the counterfeit reaction of your nervous system replaying an old story that no longer belongs to you? Spirituality doesn’t speak to an unconscious trauma response. And psychotherapy doesn’t speak to the spiritual bypass of watching, letting, unfolding, allowing. Pick your poison, dear ones.

Play with it and maybe see what works specifically for you. Your healing is yours, if you want it. Your story is yours. Your way through it is yours.

And maybe, at the end of the day, it all comes down to this: how long can you hold your breath?