"The ego believes that in your resistance lies your strength, whereas in truth resistance cuts you off from Being, the only place of true power. Resistance is weakness and fear masquerading as strength. What the ego sees as weakness is your Being in its purity, innocence, and power. What it sees as strength is weakness. So the ego exists in a continuous resistance-mode and plays counterfeit roles to cover up your 'weakness,' which in truth is your power.
Until there is surrender, unconscious role-playing constitutes a large part of human interaction. In surrender, you no longer need ego defenses and false masks. You become very simple, very real. 'That's dangerous,' says the ego. 'You'll get hurt. You'll become vulnerable.' What the ego doesn't know, of course, is that only through the letting go of resistance, through becoming 'vulnerable,' can you discover your true and essential invulnerability."


-- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now