The moment I placed my mind and heart to an intention, I found resistance.
The relationship with my own internal struggle stalked me like a dark shadow, causing a relentless spirit to show up again and again leading to striving and eventually, massive burnout.
25 years of depression and compulsive behaviors coupled with perilous fear nearly drove me mad, until I changed my relationship with a natural force called resistance.
Why does it show up?
How do we move past it? That universal testing force that seems to show up every time we set our mind or heart on a task or course of action.
Watch this three minute video about a frustrating topic we all contend with in our families, businesses and personal ambitions.
Here are five helpful ways we can learn how to use resistance as the motivating fuel to purge the art from the inner soul and birth into existence a life of our making.
Recognize it.
Literally, as if you're a parent dealing with a two-year-old child in the middle of a tantrum of all meltdowns. Sit with it face-to-face and ask the questions what resistance is here to teach you.
Bend a knee.
The sages and puritans of spirituality have taught the power of humility found in posturing your body into a state of reverence where your mind slows down allowing a connection with the earth's powerful and restorative attributes. The physical action of bending a knee slows your rhythms so you can think more clearly.
Back Away.
Bad energy draws nothing more than bad energy. Resistance is a not-so-subtle reminder to stop doing what you're doing and go work on your own energy (personality) and you need an attitude adjustment.
Ask yourself, “Am I Hungry, Angry, Tired or Lonely?” That spells a powerful acronym called “H.A.L.T.” commonly used in 12 Step organizations to remind us to regularly check in with our own internal needs.
And the number one way:
Surrender.
Dang, we use that work a lot these days and it's becoming annoying! (sigh, okay taking a breath) Surrender, the mental and spiritual release of what is nothing more than an attachment to an outcome or means of progression. When we surrender OUR ideas of the way things should be/go, then new resources are freed up allowing the creative forces to get us back into flow.
Allowing your relationship with the inevitability of resistance to become more of a life partnership will create a valuable resilience in your endeavors.
It CAN be a powerful compass to measure yourself if you let it. You'll see a revitalized sense of creativity infused into pursuits and a grace will flow over things where judgment once occupied.
Embrace your resistance.
~Robin
