Relinquishing Resistance

Resistance is something we all come face to face with - whether it be in relationships, in creative pursuits, or in business endeavors. Resistance is that voice in your head that says ‘I’ll just do that later’ or ‘you know, I’m obviously not meant to do that at this moment… I don’t want to force it’. And while yes, there is great power and healing in listening to those cues from your body, it’s a fine line between respecting your own boundaries in an attempt to allow your work, your pursuits, and your creativity to manifest in the most authentic way possible and being the only person standing in your own damn way. 

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had one of these thoughts: ‘this is way too hard for ME to do’, ‘[so and so] is just much smarter than I am… that’s why they can do it and I can’t’, ‘I’m not creative / talented / ambitious / [fill in blank] enough to do that’. For most of us, as these thoughts take hold, a wave of resistance, of doubt, of indifference demolishes the momentum, possibility, and motivation that felt euphoric perhaps only days prior. The difference is that this feeling - this overwhelming feeling of resistance seeping in our beings feels much stronger and much more real than its counterparts.

For the most part, we have been conditioned to be productive - to produce more and more even when every part of us is screaming for a break. For the most part, the fear of what people will think of us or what we will think of ourselves - the judgment - if we’re not productive is louder, more forceful, than the potential of restoration. These pleas from ourselves for a break can take form in exhaustion, other times, irritability, and other times, apathy; no embodiment is worse than the other, less affective than the others, or less all consuming than the others. Not only becoming attuned to these cues from ourselves, but listening and honoring them is one of the most healing practices we can develop.

However, the journey is getting to the place where you are able to discern whether the resistance you are feeling is truly there FOR you or if the resistance you are feeling is a means to protect the yourself from the potential of the unknown; to the self that needs protecting - the self that has endured hardship, abandonment, rejection, and trauma - the unknown is the watering hole for failure, rejection, judgement, etc. 

So how do we navigate this sort of discernment? For just a moment, let’s invite all these feelings in - fully in. In fact, let’s pretend we are hosting a dinner party for all of these manifestations of resistance. What if we invited these feelings to dinner but instead of handing them the microphone to make a toast, we took everything that they said with a grain of salt. Instead of believing these thoughts at face value, as truth, we questioned them. Instead of surrendering to the spiral that most likely ensues once these feelings and thoughts of resistance take hold - clouding our visions, exposing our flaws, and shrinking our perception of the amount of space we are capable, deserving, and worthy of occupying in this lifetime - we get curious. What if, just for a moment we brought awareness to the illegitimacy of these thoughts. To the utter falsehood that they are. To the fabricated perceptions that are legitimately make believe. 

Normally, most of us see this feeling of resistance and shove it down. We either smother it with more work (here I define “work” as the tasks we do that feel safe - the work we know doesn’t make us step outside our comfort zone) or some sort of numbing agent - that can be netflix, instagram, dating apps, food, exercise - really anything that gives us permission to avert our attention to something that is either more “pressing” or we can justify under the guise of “self care”. That’s what I mean when I say its a fine line … self care is priority number 1, but what do we do when self care becomes an ally with self sabotage? 

So, when this happens, as it inevitably will because like me, you are human, a simple tool to check in and curtail the pattern of these thoughts is to pause. I know - it sounds too simple. What will pausing do? Well, pausing will let you feel where this feeling manifests in your body. Is it in summersaults in your stomach? Is it pounding in your head? Is it sweating and cold pricks on your skin? What is happening in your body? Pause. Bring your whole hearted attention to this feeling and breathe. As you breathe in through your nose and then longer out through your nose, what happens to these feelings? Do they start to dissipate? Do they move altogether? Do they morph and travel to a different part of your body?

Once you have felt how and where these feelings manifest in your body, extend compassion to yourself. What does that mean? I know - easier said than done. But that means saying to yourself ‘thank you for trying to protect me, thank you for trying to keep me safe, thank you for trying to shield me from the possibility of failure…BUT, I’ve got it from here’. That means embracing all your emotions, embracing all your thoughts, seeing them as protection mechanisms your subconscious has put in place in an attempt to keep you safe, and then CHOOSING to operate from a place of empowerment and truth - choosing the thoughts and feelings that are most aligned with your highest self.

Of course this shift won’t happen over night, but one day you’ll realize just how impactful and just how significant the progress you have made is. What once kept you paralyzed for weeks or months, now only has a hold on you for 30 minutes. What once controlled all your decisions now is just a voice in the background that you hear, compassionately smile at, and say thank you, but I choose something else today.