Surrender · “Let Go to Receive”
Nonresistance & Loosing
Stop fighting an unwanted condition and stop holding resentment — practice the ‘law of nonresistance’ (‘nothing on earth can resist an absolutely nonresistant person’) and active forgiveness (‘loose’ the person you resent and bless them) — so that the energy you were spending on opposition is freed and the blocked good can flow.
Stop fighting the condition. Drop the dread and the struggle — “nothing on earth can resist an absolutely nonresistant person.” Where useful, baptize the setback as success instead of battling it. Then loose the people you resent: find the grievance blocking your good, release the person from your judgment, and genuinely bless them — “I forgive ___; I loose [him/her] and let [him/her] go.” Settle into good-will — “love is the fulfilling of the law” — and let the freed energy flow. (Inner non-opposition only — never tolerate harm.)
What it is
Two of Florence Scovel Shinn’s rules work as one release practice: the law of nonresistance and forgiveness (“loosing”).
On nonresistance she teaches, after Jesus’ “Resist not evil,” that “nothing on earth can resist an absolutely nonresistant person.” Fighting a condition — arguing with it, dreading it, straining against it — for Shinn energizes it and binds you to it; her image is water, “powerless” yet wearing away rock by yielding.
The move is to stop opposing: drop the fight, refuse the fear, even “baptize” a seeming setback as success rather than battling it. The forgiveness half is the same gesture aimed at people. Resentment, in her model, hardens the consciousness and blocks the channel through which one’s good would flow; so before a “demonstration” can come, the grievance must be loosed.
Shinn’s case stories are blunt about it — a woman cannot prosper while she hates a rival, and only when she genuinely blesses the person (not as pretence but as real good-will) does her own good arrive: “love is the fulfilling of the law.” “Loosing” means releasing the other from your judgment and resentment — letting them go free — which frees you.
Together: stop fighting conditions, stop holding people, and the stuck energy is returned to you.
The Method
Nonresistance (toward conditions):
- Catch the fight. Notice where you are opposing, dreading, or straining against a situation. The struggle itself is the problem to drop.
- Yield, don’t battle. Deliberately stop resisting — release the fear, quit arguing with the fact. Be “absolutely nonresistant”: let it be, without endorsing it.
- Re-name it good (“baptize it success”). Rather than fighting an apparent failure, declare it can only work for good — neutralising the resistance and the fear that, for Shinn, kept the obstacle in place. Loosing / forgiveness (toward people):
- Find the resentment behind the block. When good is stuck, look for whom you are holding — the grievance hardening the “channel.”
- Loose them and bless them. Release the person from your judgment and actively wish them good. Shinn means a real shift to good-will, not gritted-teeth pretence. (Her recurring help: speak forgiveness, e.g. “I fully and freely forgive ___; I loose [him/her] and let [him/her] go.”)
- Settle into love as the law. Stay with the released, good-willed state — “love is the fulfilling of the law” — and let the freed energy flow into your own good. (Sourcing note: “nothing on earth can resist an absolutely nonresistant person,” “Resist not evil,” “baptize” events, and “love is the fulfilling of the law” are Shinn’s, from “The Law of Nonresistance” and “Love” in The Game of Life; the “loose and let go” forgiveness wording is Shinn’s idiom; numbered structure is an attributed paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925), chapters “The Law of Nonresistance” and “Love” (her treatment of forgiveness / the law of love); the themes recur in The Secret Door to Success (1940).
Roots: Jesus’ “Resist not evil” (Matthew 5) and “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13), read through New Thought psychology. → Distinct from neighbours: it shares the result (release) with and, but Shinn’s route is non-opposition + active blessing of the specific person, framed as law, not a felt-sense releasing protocol.
It overlaps with forgiveness practices — (ACIM: the grievance “isn’t real”) and (four-phrase cleaning) — but Shinn’s “loosing” is plainer and prosperity-linked: forgive because resentment blocks your good, then bless and let go. Her “baptize it success” reframe of conditions has no exact twin here.
Common refinements
Pretend-forgiveness. Saying “I forgive you” while seething changes little; Shinn means a real turn to good-will. If you can’t yet, start by being willing to be willing.
- Confusing nonresistance with doormat passivity. Inner non-opposition is not inaction or tolerating harm. Stay calm and unafraid and take protective, practical steps.
- Suppressing instead of releasing. “Don’t resist” can become bottling up. Acknowledge the feeling, then loose it — don’t deny it.
- Spiritual bypassing. Using “love is the law / baptize it success” to skip past genuine grief, injustice, or danger. Feel it honestly first.