What people say
I can honestly say that, for the first time in 50 years, I’m learning how to just be. How to relish the present moment, which, magically and mysteriously, unlocks the door to the treasure house that is the rest of my life.
- Jennifer Green, Salem, Oregon
From the moment Jon and I connected, I had this deep experience of loving presence and complete trust. Something bypassed my mind and my ability to figure things out, and communicated directly to my heart and soul that I was safe and in the right place. There was a creation of power in our relationship that he honored and witnessed as being mine. It was my power. I had the experience of being wonderfully, beautifully powerful, in the most loving, energized way.
- Laura Lind-Blum, The Idea Midwife, Waterbury Center, Vermont
Jon can help you recognize where you are, and become more clear. My work with him has not been about plotting out my future, it has been about helping me come into deeper relationship with myself so that next steps unfold easily and effortlessly.
He creates a safe, spacious container for you to go as deep or wide or high as you’re capable of in any given moment. It’s a matter of him being able to see the facets and help me make them real in me.
- Sandra Leader, Carmel, CA
My feelings changed from, “Quick, fix me, I can’t stand how I feel, make it better, hurry,” to, it’s not about hurry, and it’s not about fixing, it’s about staying where you are and getting more and more and deeper and deeper sensations that this is okay. You’re fine, this is okay.
It helps me reframe experience. I don’t see anything that’s happening quite the same as I’ve ever seen it before, because my viewpoint has been enlarged. There’s more, there’s peace, there’s joy, there’s love, there’s health, there’s everything.
- Layne Young, artist, Salem, Oregon
There’s Wisdom in Resistance
June 1, 2010
Resistance.
Just the word brings up feelings of frustration, struggle, and exhaustion.
Resistance isn’t an enjoyable experience. And it’s easy to judge your feelings of resistance, calling it procrastination, laziness, and other harsh names.
Many people try to overcome resistance through willpower or other tricks and practices (such as accountability partners and reward/punishment structures). But as I wrote in a recent article, willpower doesn’t work. Nor do those other techniques. They may appear to work now and then, but in the long term, resistance recurs — and coping mechanisms become less and less effective.
Resistance doesn’t just arise whimsically out of nowhere. Resistance is trying to tell you something, trying to bring something forward that wants to be seen and met within you.
When you allow it, resistance can be a window into deeper understanding and an opportunity to meet hidden parts of yourself with awareness and compassion.
Here are some ways to explore the wisdom hidden within your feelings of resistance.
Acknowledge its presence
For many, the first reaction to resistance is ... more resistance. Thoughts such as, “I don’t have time for this!” as well as judgments about procrastination and laziness, often arise.
What would happen if instead you simply acknowledged the presence of resistance? Without judgment — and without trying to get rid of it — notice your resistance and meet it within you.
Feel its voice
One client experiences resistance in her shoulders and neck, and another feels a tightening in her gut.
For some, resistance comes with a clear voice, a dense “NO” thought in the mind.
What does resistance feel like for you? Where does it live in your body — and what thoughts and associated emotions arise with it?
Experience its message
Obviously, the message resistance is trying to convey depends on your situation and your habits of thought, feeling, and behavior.
One client has been sitting with a huge sense of resistance to her wish to be in a relationship with a man. In acknowledging the resistance — which felt as if it were possessing her whole body with its tension — she discovered her fear of being taken advantage of.
Given her history in relationships, this fear appeared to be reasonable. But she was also able to feel her awareness of what’s true for her — her understanding about who she really is and what she really wants. And in experiencing that realization, she knows that she won’t ever slide back into those old behavior patterns.
In meeting her resistance and experiencing its messages of fear and unwillingness to be in another unrewarding, out-of-alignment relationship, she has freed herself.
She wrote, “Something in me seems ready to be wholly honest within all relationships, and to seek that honesty in a real partnership with a man. No expectations, no boundaries, just showing up to see what happens. And to have faith that whatever happens, I can’t go back — the past experiences cannot repeat themselves, because I’m simply not in that place any more.”
Allow its unwinding
As my client experienced, meeting resistance and acknowledging it instead of struggling to get rid of it often reveals a deeper truth. And in that realization, the resistance unwinds by itself.
However, this happens only when you allow yourself to meet whatever is there, openly and with curiosity. Attempting to change how you feel or struggling with what you find just creates more stickiness. If, for instance, my client had judged herself for her fear or for her past experiences, she would have remained stuck instead of experiencing the unwinding.
Meet it gently
Meeting your resistance in order to experience its message is counter-intuitive. It goes directly against most people’s instinct to turn away and struggle with what they’re feeling.
So be gentle. Begin by simply noticing what it’s like to feel resistance. The tension, thoughts, and feelings that come up are often so habitual that you may not be consciously aware of their presence.
Allow yourself to be curious about what’s present in your resistance. Meet whatever arises — whether it’s fear or some other emotion or thought pattern — with compassion.
As my client discovered, resistance is often the result of past experience — and past experience doesn’t have to dictate your current or future experience. So in experiencing the thoughts and feelings that underlie your resistance, ask yourself how true they are. What’s the cost of believing these thoughts? Who would you be if you didn’t believe them?
A doorway to freedom
Resistance isn’t a comfortable experience — and it’s also not as bad as most people believe.
As one client said to me, “In meeting my resistance and exploring it, I’ve come to see that it’s no more uncomfortable than a demanding physical workout. And just as I learned to relish the burn of my legs when I run and the pull of tendons and muscles when I stretch — so I have come to welcome the internal experience of resistance. Because there’s always something new to learn, something inside waiting to be released — and a new and lasting freedom to be realized.”
“What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.” Jidda Krishnamurti, 1895-1986, Indian spiritual writer, speaker, philosopher.
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