A Compassionate Way to Transform Your Resistance

Garrison Keillor, author of The Prairie Home Companion and host of the radio show of the same name,  said the most brilliant thing about writer’s block, and it sheds a lot of light on the “I don’t feel like it” bug.

He said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that there’s no such thing as writer’s block and that we never, ever hear about surgeon’s block or bricklayer’s block, etc, etc.

Can you imaging a surgeon showing up for work and saying that they can’t operate today, that they just don’t “feel right”?! Never!

Garrison says that writer’s block comes from writers putting pressure on themselves to create at a level beyond their current abilities.

So whatever we’re working on, it’s as though we’re always looking for that “perfect state” that will cause our work to turn out like a master’s, even though our skill level can’t take us there yet. It’s kind of a fantasy, really.

And we have to remember that the masters became masters by showing up to their craft every day no matter how they felt.

I believe that “I don’t feel like it” is often a code phrase that means “I’m afraid this won’t be good enough”.

And then, in order to avoid facing our sense of not feeling like we’re good enough, we buy the reasoning that it’s all because of our current state and if we wait until later we’ll magically be good enough then! (Even though by not doing it now, we’re throwing away any possible chance of improving our skills for “later”.)

That’s some kind of crazy reasoning!

So what to do?

I’ve found 2 things helpful:

1) Get good at being able to sit with the feelings that are sitting just under the surface of “I don’t feel like it.”

Make sitting with the feelings part of your action step on whatever you’re moving towards. Give yourself a time limit at first – no more than 30 seconds, if that’s all you can take. Work your way up to 5  minutes and those feelings will permanently stop holding so much power over you.

2) Slow WAY down and do each step or action as though it’s simply for it’s own sake.

When you get extremely present with what you’re doing at this moment, and you start to notice the subtle sensations and nuances of the task itself, there’s no room to be making moment to moment calculations of whether it’s any good.

And remember, this is supposed to be the thing you love, the thing you want…right?

Lastly, take a good solid look, like Garrison says, at your exact skill level right now and be honest about how good you can expect anything to be at this moment in time. And then let that be completely OK!

And now ask yourself – do I still want to get better at it? And if you do, make a choice to practice or take an action just for the joy of getting better at it.

How has this pressure to be better played out in your life? Share your thoughts, questions and comments below.

And if you missed it, you can still catch the free e-course, called Ignite Your Desires to take full advantage of the energy boost we’re getting this week when the planet Mars goes direct starting late Tuesday.

As some of you know, I LOVE astrology. It’s been the best antidote in my life for taking my own shifting energies too personally. And I get really fascinated with the global astrological “weather”; the shifts that move all of us collectively, and we’re definitely in one of those now.

My favourite astrologer is Eric Francis of Planet Waves. He’s a former journalist and he has a gift for telling the larger stories in the current sky and for presenting the shifts as doorways and opportunities that we can take great advantage of in our lives.

And we’ve got a doozy of a doorway getting ready to open next week!

[Read more →]

I’ve been watching a particularly subtle but aggressive form of resistance in myself over the last week or so.

It’s the dreaded “I don’t feel like it” fog. Do you ever get that?

I’ve been studying it for a while now and I’ve come to the conclusion that it  starts at the crossroads of deep caring and emotional need.

Today we’re going to talk about the caring in Part I, and I’ll show you what I mean about the need in Part II.

So why would caring about something lead to not wanting to do it? [Read more →]

Seth Godin just released his new book called Linchpin – Are You Indispensible? and from what I’m hearing it’s  another great offering. And lucky for us, he spends a significant number of pages on the concept of resistance and the lizard brain – what we here at The Heart’s Voice call the “safety brain”, the source of our resistance and defenses.

And suddenly everyone is talking about it! Up until now doing a Google search on the term “resistance” would mostly generate pages only a licensed electrician would understand.

In a recent guest post on Leo Babauta’s  Zen Habits Blog, Seth says this at the very end:

The resistance is powerful, so powerful that all the shortcuts, time savers and focusing tools are powerless in its path. Now you know its name. Now you know how it sneaks in under the radar and sounds quite sensible as it undermines your work and compromises your vision. When the resistance appears, you must call it out. Call it by name. Recognize it for what it is and then defeat it. You will defeat it not by rationalization or even a calm discussion. You will defeat it with single-minded effort, effort so deep and dedicated that it might exhaust you.

So what is it about dealing with resistance that’s so exhausting? And does it have to be this way? [Read more →]

I read something tonight on the Simple Marriage blog that I just had to share with you because it speaks to the fine line that so many of us are walking between deep acceptance and striving for more.

The post is by Kathleen Quiring and it’s called “In Defense of Pretty OK“.

What Kathleen sums up so well is the sheer [Read more →]

Is this what your obstacle looks like?

I read a very interesting post on Steven Pressfield’s blog yesterday where he compares battling his resistance to wrestling an  alligator.

(I’ve referred to Steven’s ground breaking book on resistance in a previous post called Resistance is Your Soul’s Compass.)

He says:

Sometimes the beast is a cute little cayman. I can clamp his jaws shut with my left hand, grab him by the tail with my right. It’s no problem to wrap him up and get him into the trunk of the car.

But sometimes that gator gets a little bigger. Right now, in the project I’m working on, he outweighs me by eighty pounds and he’s kicking my ass.

We can see clearly here how his metaphor for his resistance to writing changes over time and according to what he’s working on. He goes on to describe the recent gator as a huge, prehistoric, invulnerable beast that sees him as nothing but lunch meat.

And this really got me thinking and asking… [Read more →]

Or “What I learned about success while shoveling my walkway.”

Thank goodness this is NOT my sidewalk....

An insight like this might sound silly but, when I got it – in the hush of a rural Nova Scotia night with the snow still falling softly – it was actually kinda profound.

First of all, shoveling is far from my favorite thing to do. And here in Atlantic Canada freshly fallen snow turns quickly into a wet, heavy cement-like substance that [Read more →]

Looks a lot like our driveway....

I’ve been curled up in the house all this week  watching it alternately rain, blow and snow and I keep coming up with more things to share with you. So I’ve decided to offer you a goodie bag of New Year’s treats.

But first let me say that I hope 2010 is transformative and grace-filled, for each and every one of you! And I want to thank you so sincerely for subscribing or just stopping by to read or comment once in a while. It makes an enormous difference as I’m growing in finding my own voice and learning how to truly be of support to you. I hope to hear from you in the coming year about what you need and desire and how I can help.

To our deepening journey together! I hope you enjoy these: [Read more →]

Calendar from Linda & Harriet

Happy New Year!

And with the New Year comes the inevitable  reviews and stats on how well we generally do at following through on our New Year’s resolutions!

Generally, the stats say we don’t do so well and, in my experience, there’s one big reason for that…  we haven’t dug deep enough to find out WHY we really chose our New Year’s resolutions in the first place.

Some resolutions seem so obvious.

We KNOW that we’re 25 pounds over our healthier weight, or we KNOW that the smoking or junk food is bad for us – so OF COURSE we should resolve to [Read more →]

There’s been a major discussion happening this past week, all centering around a post on the Quest For Balance blog about passion, and especially about making our passion make a profit.

Lisis, the author, says:

The Passion Paradox is this: the pursuit of our passion, for profit, is making us miserable.

She herself has walked away from corporate security to follow a passion and while she says it’s been worthwhile, she doesn’t recommend it to others due to the stress she and her family have faced.

She also highlights the huge industry that exists on the internet right now that’s all about selling hundreds of systems, tools, products, classes, books, audios, etc all focused on giving us the next perfect way to stop doing what we hate and start doing what we love…our dreams and passions.

And, while I agree with Gary Vaynerchuck that there’s never been a better time to make our passion a viable way to earn a living, for me the profit is entirely beside the point.

I believe that our passions are there for a purpose and that following them transforms everything….our selves, our lives, our world, whether we ever make a cent doing them or not. [Read more →]