What is the role of resistance?
Why do I resist doing some things that I say I want to do?
Yesterday, while listening to my writer friend’s WhatsApp message about her resistance as of late to meditating and journaling, she said that she wasn’t sure why she was resisting it so much. That perhaps, it had to do with something she needed to chip away at. Listening to her personal struggles with resistance of something she once loved made me think of my own.
What does resistance mean? What does it mean to resist? There is that saying that actually came up yesterday in the HeartMath AddHeart call: “What you resist, persists.”
Resistance as a noun brings to mind a group fighting against an evil force and injustice. The Resistance in the movie Star Wars, for instance. They were rebels in orange cloth jumpsuits fighting Darth Vader and the Emperor and their faceless armies dressed in hard white plastic armor. The hashtag #Resist calls to mind everyone that is progressive and liberal fighting against the forces of -isms right now in our country in the Age of Trump.
But the resistance I’m talking about, that my writer friend is talking about, is internal. A resistance of the inner kind. It’s something like a knot that forms and rises from within, becoming more and more stubborn in its desire not to be unraveled. It forms a hard knot that grows larger with each day.
For me, the resistance from taking action makes me rot inside. Whether it’s a work thing, a writing thing, or getting back to people, I get into a rut. It’s difficult to remember how to unravel this rock-hard knot, and I begin to resent myself and others. I rant or I run. I ruminate. I can easily become ruthless and reckless and then filled with regret. Until I repent like the Prodigal Son, retrench, remember, recommit and begin to rise again. A lot of it, I’ve realized, has to do with the fear of rejection. To be resilient, we must face rejection. To remember that every day, every minute, you can reset. You can remember your why and your role in life. Then you can truly relax.
So today, I remember. I reset. I recommit. I’ll face this resistance inside me and rise.
I’ll face rejection in the face to become more and more resilient with each day.
