SHORT VERSION

To what extent or granularity can/should releasing resistance be done?

Releasing resistance: as fast as possible or something more elaborate?

The main difficulty I have with letting go of resistant thoughts is that sometimes releasing them seems too 'coarse' in that I feel I am letting go of something legitimate along with the resistance; as if I am cracking a nut with sledgehammer; as if in a panic I perform a 'thought-amputation' at the fear of the negative vibration sending me tumbling down. Whereas a more 'efficient' (or if you like, elegant) way seems to be to work around the thoughts by finding a better perspective on the subject, thus 'keeping' the subject instead of throwing it away. Should I address the resistance surrounding the subject or drop the whole thing because it is resistant period, no if's and no but's? Or is there another way to look at this? Am I asking the wrong question, and have set myself a false dilemma?

I used to believe that when dealing with resistant thoughts, no matter what subject, no matter how important it seems, whatever is quicker that will cause any relief however small right now irrespective of any potentially greater relief I can achieve later (for instance: by thinking about it for a little longer and working with my thoughts), that's what I should do, i.e. take the fastest route; and treat the vibration of the present moment as the most important factor? I reason that if I think purely in terms of emotion/vibration, then it doesn't matter what the thought is about at all, I am literally either moving towards what I want or towards what I do not want. This simplification allows me to operate on a sort of abstract linear level by treating everything in terms of how it affects the way I feel, in an absolute sense, no matter what thought, no matter within what dialog I am engaged in, no matter what the mind makes me believe in. There's just an absolute orientation in terms of my direction either towards or away from what I want. So the idea is to think about what to do (what to think, what not to think) as little as possible when it comes to resistant thoughts; seems like the right way about it. Am I over-simplifying it?

LONG VERSION - READ ONLY IF YOU HAVE TIME ON YOUR HANDS :)

I apologise for repeating myself throughout; I have cobbled up this answer from many attempts of writing this sort of question and my own notes and thoughts.

Life's purpose is to feel good. 'Feeling good' in practice means releasing resistance, but how precise is this process? If it is as I believe it is, then our vibration does indeed go up naturally, and as Abraham say, we are but to release resistance.

Getting into The Vortex as a rule has also been mentioned in several answers here, but the process of getting into The Vortex and what you do when you're in The Vortex or when you're just wanting to feel better but not quite aim for The Vortex is the same: releasing resistance. Am I correct?

Many things can help us raise our vibration (release resistance), exercise, meditation, diet, water, air, sleep...even alcohol and drugs (albeit temporarily) for they relax our mind which is the main culprit in putting up resistance.

I want to ask specifically about releasing resistance in terms of what we think - should we not attempt to release resistance by working with our thoughts as we encounter resistance and instead release resistance using other means without involving the thinking mind (like exercise, meditation etc)? The reason I ask is that the thinking part is unclear and perhaps it's because it's unclear it's indicating that I am going about completely the wrong way (by thinking too hard within my low vibration?) Also I consider that thought originates (or at least matches) our vibration, so the frequency of our thoughts is limited and therefore our ability to find better-feeling thoughts is limited? I.e. if the source of our thoughts is not our mind, irrespective of whether we can deliberately think or spontaneously, irrespective of that, the thoughts themselves (and their quality) cannot be relied upon or worked with for they are part of (or originate from) everything that's afflicted (that is poor vibration).

Abraham's Floating Cork: If we just release resistance, then we would be inspired to act/think (what will make us feel good) naturally, and there is no need to think deliberately good-feeling thoughts; right?

Or does releasing resistance actually involve deliberately choosing better-feeling thoughts because: releasing a thought means switching to another thought? Is the act of releasing resistant thoughts always involve replacing it with any less-resistant thought? Can the act be transparent - what I mean is that if I tell myself that I am not going to think a certain bad-feeling thought, have I transparently replaced the negative thought with something else not necessarily knowing what it is exactly? I think the thought that I replaced it with is 'I am not going to think that resistant thought' - it's the conscious recognition of the negative thought that in itself is a better-feeling thought. Right? Is it more effective that I make an effort to think ANY random good-feeling thought instead of (possibly fighting to) releasing it 'just like that' in any way I can?

The main confusion/question is really this: If what I am thinking about doesn't feel good, do I let it go no matter what? What does it actually refer to? What exactly to let go? Any resistant thought I can identify? I can think of a subject and have resistant thoughts about it, I might not be able to tell what those resistant thoughts are exactly (some doubts that just whizzed through my mind without me noticing), but I can definitely say that thinking about this subject is upsetting to me. Should I aim to find the thoughts that are upsetting and 'deal with them' or should I let the subject go? Or if I am able to obviously see what the upsetting thoughts are (rather than sit there trying to figure what they are), should I work around those (or let them go) or should I still just let go of the whole subject (which seems coarse)? Or is it the case of letting go whatever resistant thing I can identify, or in other words, whatever resistance comes first that I can lay my mind on? Then no matter what that thought is, something specific about the subject, or any thought about the subject (in which case, no more thinking about that subject completely, until better days)?

Is it even possible to let go of a resistant thought and with it a desire; or can it only technically be one or the other? Because how can a thought be about desire if it feels unpleasant? Meaning that no matter what if a thought is resistant it's no good, of no good at this moment in time. Tomorrow for instance it might feel fine, or rather, thinking about a certain subject will feel fine because there will be no associations with resistant thoughts. It is the extent of releasing, actual nitty-gritty of it I am unsure about. I guess I am confused about what it is I am stopping myself thinking about: the resistant thought itself or anything more, like the subject of my interest... I guess if it's resistant, it doesn't matter what it is, it can't be what you want, in an absolute sense; the thoughts are wrong about the subject or they're just bogging down the vibration; so it's easier to drop the whole thing until you feel relief...

For a while, I have been catching myself thinking resistant thoughts and releasing them, saying to myself: If it doesn't feel good, it's not what you want. No matter what it is, I am not allowed to feel bad about it; it can't be good for me. Conversely, this thought would 'If you feel good, it's what you want' would allow me to do whatever I want knowing that no bad can come to me as long as I feel good. Is this kind of thinking flawed?

The main issue I have is the level of applicability of 'releasing resistance'. It's the nitty-gritty I am interested in.

Can anything good come via a resistant-thought-path or should you attempt to find the relief as quick as possible? Alternatively put, do you work within whatever is causing resistance to try and improve or do you drop the whole thing no matter what and focus completely away from the vicinity of all the resistance? It seems to me that trying to resolve a resistant thought is not worth it because it seems that it doesn't matter what actually raises my vibration, so it might be easier to drop one thing and pick up something that's positive and raise my vibration that way (as Abraham say, 'go pet your cat')? I mean I can drop the whole subject that's resistant to me, and yes it might be unpleasant to let go of something that I might potentially want to have as well, but I will feel better in this very moment not having to deal with it; but what is the deciding factor? Overall positive relief? Abraham also say "...releasing desire is the hard way to go about bringing yourself into alignment" which has always been making me think how exactly do you release resistance that's mixed with desire (or hell, do I even know if it is desire, or it's just resistance).

Is it ideal that I would drop only the resistant thoughts around the subject...? Does one get better finesse at this sort of thing or should I aim to achieve any relief possible as a rule?

I have some serious resistance around particular subjects, I just don't know how I am going to resolve them. I would happily stop thinking about those subjects altogether and focus on something generally nicer, if I have the understanding that it's the right thing to do (it seems easier, and maybe it's my answer right here).

I know I am asking the same question in different ways; this is an old issue of mine that I am desperate to make clear!

Is it simply not worth the effort thinking within resistant thoughts? Will working with resistant thoughts to try improve them cause you to potentially invite even more resistance? I mean you're working with resistant thoughts, then you try to improve them. That's having a contact with (and attention on) negative-feeling thoughts...the whole thing is low frequency, even if it's for the purposes of trying to improve those thoughts; bad idea perhaps? I.e. I know I will feel bad if I think about certain things, it's easier to ignore it; is it the right thing to do though? Contrast is a necessary thing I understand, but what if I know in advance that wherever I am going to put my attention is going to feel unpleasant, that's deliberately experiencing contrast in the negative sense; is it still necessary to resolve resistance?

Sometimes, out of the blue an unpleasant thought strikes me and I don't know if it's just resistance by itself, whether it is mixed with desire, is it just a certain habit of thought triggered by something in my environment? I don't know what to do with such thoughts; I want to sustain my vibration, so to me, it's easier to toss that bad-feeling thought away; which makes sense because if I don't sustain my vibration, I will quickly feel bad (And I can't comment whether getting sput out of the Vortex is a gradual thing; and whether Vortex is just a word for being in the higher frequencies, but soon enough if I dwell on a bad-feeling thought, I find myself quite down). Maybe it's to do with my poor ability to resolve negative thoughts? Back to one of my sticky points, when resistance strikes, I don't know if I should bother with it; if there is anything in that line of thought worth salvaging/fighting for/resolving (if I let go, am I throwing my desires away)? Is it just resistance or is there desire within it and I am focused on the opposite of it? And the main question is if it's worth slowing down to resolve it or it's better to look ahead, keep walking, and staying in the high flying vibration. Something tells me to let it go because in the past, it felt better, when I could do it.

Surely, I can't be throwing my desire away if I let go of anything resistant, even if it's 'coarse' and has within embedded a desire; if the idea is that when you feel good, all that you want flows to you, so it will come to me by any means rather than exclusively the particular thought if I resolve it; right? It doesn't matter how we align, it's like @Stingray mentioned in some of his answers: I can put something I want on a piece of paper and in a box, forget about it and just do whatever feels good to align/receive it; or I can focus on whatever I want and align that way - but the focusing itself needs to feel good because it's equivalent to the aligning process of the first method, i.e. the feeling good. The feeling good is doing the alignment, not focusing on any thought on any particular subject (even though that's implied if our intention is just to feel good, as far as I understand it); the aligning is all the same - and that's just feeling good. So based on that logic, is any resistance worth dealing with at all?

Will resistance go away though, if I keep my attention of it, or will it need to be eventually resolved?

I often struggle to improve the way I feel from the same vibratational frequency that I am in... it seems whatever I have access to is on the level of the resistant thoughts I am trying to resolve (perhaps it's not even possible). As I am writing this, I can see this being more effort than necessary (again, if this is even possible, as opposed to vibration rising and you are then seeing the solution and better-feeling thoughts).

Is it a case of dealing with resistance better when you're already high-flying, but when you're embroiled in resistance our method/approach should be different, because when we're in quite a resistant state overall, it's not clear what those better-feeling thoughts are (which are not available to you in your low-vibration perspective)? Is there a different mode of operation, as opposed to how I initially outlined in the beginning of the question about releasing-resistant being a consistent idea whenever/whatever.

Can you apply 'Nothing Is More Important Than That You Feel Good' to your best ability no matter what, and let that sort everything out on a moment-to-moment basis? Has anyone tried it?

I try to simplify it like this for myself:

All we have to work with is vibration. And the condition of our vibration is indicated to us constantly, moment-by-moment, by the way we feel. The way we feel, our emotions, intuition, are just words pointing to anything that we can sense in the moment. Our ability to feel changes though, and when we rise vibrationally, it takes a whole different meaning, but any of those words point inside, to the way you feel, in any way you can (in any way you can understand what it means when you're being told to use your feelings...something will be understood, something will trigger, something on some level will be felt). Whether it comes from the heart or the solar plexus or anywhere else, there's just a feeling, I think anyway. I find that intuition is a more subtle indicator and works with the most subtle changes of vibration in response to the most subtle of thoughts or even subconscious thoughts. I also liken emotions on a conceptual level to your wiser and real Self, your Inner Being. To me, the word 'emotions' just points me towards all of those things, and I believe it is all of those things.

So back to my question, if all we really have is our vibration/feelings, it is up to us to refine our ability to navigate through contrast. We have it all to ourselves to play and improve upon, and if we release resistance in a coarse way to start with (and along with it some desires as well) but achieve relief, then that's all that matters, and later if we are able to be more refined about it and work within our thoughts a bit more to find a more positive resonance and achieve relief in more pin-pointed areas without releasing desires in the process, we are able to sustain our vibration better and are able to improve it more steadily; then even better! Ultimately, we're in control of our own vibration, and we can disallow ourselves certain thoughts if we really try; we decide how good we want our vibration to be, we manage it.