Ha! I’m feeling resistance to writing this post. What I’m experiencing as resistance is a desire to do anything but the thing I’ve set down to do right now. Sometimes it shows up as a feeling of tightness in my chest or throat. When I resist the resistance I’m feeling, it graduates to anxiety. Oh what fun! Resistance can feel like the urge to run away from a situation or to shut down and space out. I know I’ve been avoiding it when I’d rather scroll or watch TV than sort out whatever I’m feeling. All that and still no definition of resistance. My definition goes something like this: pushing against [anything] with varying intensity relevant to perceived threat. In a spiritual sense, how open or closed you are to new things. I have had the pleasure of learning through trial and error that releasing resistance is always doable and always for my benefit. That doesn’t automatically mean that resistance showing up in your experience is a negative thing! It’s more likely the time and space you need to process through new data. How it is experienced varies among people and is unique to individual beliefs on a given subject. Think of any taboo subject and observe your own inner response and imagine or recall the responses of others to the same subject. We are all unique, our life experiences inform our thought patterns, which form our beliefs, which drive our emotional responses. Since every being has their own points of consciousness, we all experience the same experiences differently. Therefore, we all have differing levels of resistance to the same thing/experience. Your resistance to that concept could shape how well you accept differences in yourself and others.
Most of my life I perceived myself as an outsider, and that was not a happy conclusion. I perceived happiness as the ability to fit in or relate to others. When I observed myself struggle to relate to others, I felt resistance to my own essence. I was ashamed of the way I thought, the things I enjoyed, how I be. So, tale as old as time, I tried to be different, better. While I managed to contort myself periodically, I never really got the hang of it, or the approval I wanted. I was pushing against my very nature. I believed wholly that I was supposed to deny my natural essence and conform. It never felt right. In this instance the use of the word never is appropriate. I couldn’t get comfortable in my own skin. I couldn’t connect the way my heart so deeply desired. I certainly could not like or appreciate my uniqueness. I was crowd-sourcing my sense of self, and the consensus was unlovely. I was too much and not enough. I was too loud, too bold, too masculine for a girl. The list goes on… The thing is none of that was true. I believed it because of my learned resistance to being myself, to being different.
Once I realized I was an abject failure at conforming I thought the key was to explain, or rather over explain myself. Try as I might, that did not work either. Once in a while over explaining helped me connect with others who, like me, felt a deep disconnect within and wanted others to soothe them. As you can probably imagine, that lead to a vicious cycle of nurturing others while draining myself. I wasn’t pouring into me, and neither were they. In fact, I was only of value when I could perform for them. Every step I took towards the desire to be appreciated forced me to betray myself. It was exhausting and never yielded the results I was seeking.
Eventually I started to clue in to the fact that no one else was going to love or nurture me the way I wanted. It took me a very long time to understand why. I initially thought that it was because I had less value than everyone else around me. Then I began to realize I also could not love and nurture another to their specifications because it wasn’t my job. Loving and appreciating myself is an inside job. It requires me to stop resisting who I am. It also requires me to stop resisting that it is my job alone.
Those are big concepts to grasp. I felt resistance to them for so long. I still do at times. Now when I notice the old familiar story come up that someone else needs to make things easier for me, I can feel my spirit tugging at me: remember you own your own well-being! I know too much now to allow resistance to go unchecked for long. I know I am capable of soothing the resistance and growing as a result. It’s helpful to me to ask myself: what is the story behind this feeling? A recent example of me releasing resistance was around my best friend meeting a new guy who lives 12 hours away. I immediately felt a strong skepticism flare up and bristled each time she mentioned him. I knew I was not being supportive of my friend, and I really wasn’t being true to myself. As I investigated the strong resistance I felt, I discovered that an abandonment story was dominating my experience, again. Once I understood and acknowledged the story, I immediately felt some relief. The relief expanded as I soothed the story with empowering truths and intentions. This old abandonment story is like a familiar record playing in the background. I could let it carry on unchecked or I can acknowledge it, bring it into the foreground and address it.
Ultimately, I’m grateful for the resistance. It helps me become aware of old momentum flaring up in a current experience. Now I don’t fear resistance, I recognize it as an opportunity to investigate old beliefs, clean them up, and love myself a little deeper. As an added bonus, I become a better friend in the process.