So many things in life get better when we just do a little “work” on them…
…like the yard, the car, our taxes, the kitchen counter, the cluttered closet, etc.
So how come with resistance, its the reverse?
I got an email the other day from someone in The Heart’s Voice community telling me how their resistance seems to have gotten “worse” ever since they started trying to “work” on it.
Here’s the deal:
Most of your resistance is trying to protect you from something.
This isn’t true of ALL your resistance.
(My current research is showing me that some resistance is just your brain’s way of saying “I don’t have a neural pathway for that yet.”)
But MOST of your resistance is coming from your wise and noble defence system and it’s VERY protective of you.
And like any good defender, when something or someone tries to get past it, what does it do?
It defends harder!
In fact, this “push back” mechanism is a great way to tell if your resistance is the protective kind or not.
If your resistance gets stronger when you try to get past it, you’re up against your defence system – and likely an imprinted fear or experience.
If it doesn’t work harder or push back, you’re probably working on something new that just needs more practice or more neural pathways built for it.
So what to do about the push back?
I tell all my clients that the first step is to stop pushing.
But I’m not saying to give up or let go of your intention for change.
The only way to break this impasse – and avoid totally exhausting yourself with all the pushing – is with new insight and understanding.
Know that the push back is for a good REASON!
Even if you can’t possibly imagine there being any good reason for it.
Choose to trust that your own deeper wisdom is expressing itself through your resistance. And then seek it out, instead of fighting to control and subdue it.
Get curious, ask it questions, journal with it, dance it, go for a walk with it, talk to it (always with kindness!).
Make space for it as a valued member of your “inner team” – but at the same time, hold your intention and don’t let your defence system run the show.
You know I’ll never tell you to “just” get to the bottom of it – because I hate that kind of advice and there’s WAY more to uncovering these reasons that I could possibly share in a blog post.
But a simple shift from pushing to welcoming, from frustration to curiosity or from control to willingness can have surprising consequences.
Give us your thoughts and questions on why resistance pushes back and how you deal with it. Leave a comment below!
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One of the things I’m learning is that all the parts of us hold some of our power. And the more resistance there is when we meet those parts of us, the more power is being held and thus the more power which can be used to resist us and our intention.
On a subconscious level, that’s why so many people do advocate to just get to the bottom of it. Only resistance is never really eliminated is it? Subdued yes. And something subdued becomes even more vigilant in it’s return, even if that return has to show up somewhere else.
Thank you so much for these reflections LaShae! I’ve never actually thought directly about the relationship between the strength of the resistance from a part of us and the power it’s holding, but yes, I would agree that they certainly are related – mainly when the resistance is coming from a buried “shadow” part or quality in ourselves that believes it must stay buried for our best interests.
When you ask about whether resistance can be eliminated, my answer is both yes and no.
Yes, we can fully embrace and reintegrate buried parts of us and that will eliminate their particular resistance. I believe too, that when it comes to these shadow parts, subduing only works for so long and then they have to find an outlet somewhere, and can come back to the surface even stronger or more determined, as you say.
However, the biological mechanism of resistance itself, being our safety brain and it’s adrenaline signal, is something that we never eliminate and we would never want to be without that protective mechanism in our life. That kind of resistance keeps us from stepping out into traffic and gives us the energy we need to navigate new or challenging situations.
However, I’m becoming more convinced every day that humanity is at a turning point where many of us can learn to observe our safety brain’s fear and resistance signals and we can CHOOSE how to respond to them, instead of reacting unconsciously. It’s a pretty exciting prospect!