Resistance as information
Resistance is a powerful piece of information. It can come in the form of avoiding something we think we want to do or avoiding taking action that will further a goal we’re committed to. It can come in the form of feeling discontented or uneasy but without quite knowing why. It may appear as the feeling deep in your gut that something is off. Sometimes it looks like staring at your computer screen, willing yourself to get to work and unable to get started. When these moments happen, it is easy to beat ourselves up and declare that we are lazy, unmotivated, not good enough, and destined to fail. For me, it’s the moment when I wallow and say it’s all hopeless and never going to work. We’ve all been there. And every once in a while I really do need a good wallow (cue a Nora Ephron movie, my couch, and chocolate). But once the wallowing is over, I remind myself that recognizing my own resistance is an opportunity to gain more insight into where I want to go and what feels right for me.
As a coach I have come to believe that resistance signals things that are easy to overlook if we’re not paying attention. In some cases our resistance is a direct result of our fears. We are approaching the edge of our comfort zone and our fears know it. They want to keep us safe. When we sit down to take the action needed to move forward, the voices in our head start to run wild. “Don’t do it!” They say. You may hear some reframe of: People will judge you, what if it doesn’t work out, what if you ruin your life? As a coach, I say that these moments are opportunities to get to know our fears, to examine them in the coaching container and see what they are getting in the way of. Often, the act of voicing those fears openly and having the coach mirror them back is the starting point of cutting our fears down to size. We may still feel the fear but we get practiced in the ability to choose from a place driven by possibility. We are afraid and we go forth anyway.
Sometimes, however, resistance is a sign that we have not yet hit on exactly the right thing. It’s the voice deep within us telling us to keep experimenting and iterating. The voice says, “the current form is not the most aligned thing…yet.” It can be a scary thing to confront. That right thing may be different than we imagined, it may take us down a different path, it will likely require mustering more courage to continue down the path of the unknown! I love the author Glennon Doyle’s words in her memoir, “Untamed.” She says,
“Discontent is evidence that your imagination has not given up on you. It is still pressing, swelling, trying to get your attention by whispering: “Not this.”
If you currently find yourself in a state of resistance, I invite you to examine your resistance for clues. Is there something you are afraid of that’s holding you back? Is that fear true? Where do you want to approach the decision, change, project, etc from? Is this the right thing or is there a change you need to make? Is there something else entirely that you want? What are the truest, most honest answers you can give yourself about what you want? I find that the answer to these questions doesn't always hit us like a lightning bolt where the answer is obvious in one single moment of clarity. It takes time and finding the quietness within to be honest about what we’re feeling and brave enough to voice the things that we really do want. It requires courage to keep iterating until we land on a place that propels us forward and we find momentum where resistance once lived.
I’ll leave you here: Resistance is information. Get curious. What’s yours telling you?
