BONUS: Overcoming Resistance
Overcoming Resistance
Resistance is a self-protection mechanism to change.
In terms of healing and spiritual growth, most resistance is about resistance to love and truth.
With regards to resistance, what you need to understand is that all resistance is an act of your own will, even though consciously you may say you want to forgive or heal, on an emotional soul level you do not. Hence to break through the resistance you must first accept it, acknowledging that it is your will to resist. It’s important not to judge the resistance or yourself through this process. You are resisting and that’s ok.
Below are some exercises for you to express your resistance, sometimes this is necessary to release some of the emotional charge before being able to fully accept and breakthrough the resistance.
The general idea is to accept this resistance without judgement and be ok with it. The second step in working with resistance is to then work out all your reasons and justifications of why you are resisting. Once you’re worked it out you’ll have to process these reasons and justifications emotionally – yes it’s an emotional process and not just an intellectual one. Meaning you’ll have to feel your way through every reason and justification of the resistance. This is how you can take emotional responsibility for your resistance. Once you do this you’ll naturally start to change your will and desire to feel the causal emotion, you’ll be more open then to accepting the deeper truth. This requires sincerity and humility to simply feel the emotion remembering that no amount of justification justifies not feeling an emotion.
Will vs Will Power
Will power comes from the wounded ego and it already implies force and resistance. This is you trying to resolve the issue through your mind through brute force rather than simply feel your resistance emotions. This is why using will power is never sustainable and you will eventually burn out because in essence you are trying to bypass your Soul’s will (desire) which is literally impossible.
Will on the other hand stems from the Soul. It is an emotional desire. You cannot force your will. When you exercise your Will it’s never forced, you will feel it as a gentle yet powerful emotional desire emanating from your heart. This is the heart prayers I talk about basically.
Just a side note, developing your will takes some time, so be patient with yourself. It’s like a new muscle you’ll learn to strengthen and develop more over time.
Recognizing Resistance Behaviour
- – Denial
- – Anger
- – Blame
- – Excuses
- – Belittling
- – Deflection
- – Making yourself busy
- – Justifications
- – Avoidance
- – Delaying
- – Ignoring
- – Simply not being willing
- – Procrastination
- – Self Sabotaging
- – Wasting time
- – Intellectualizing
- – Distraction
- – Not feeling ready
- – Not fully committing
- – Playing the victim
- – Addictions
- – Compartmentalizing
- – Rationalizing
- – Uniqueness thinking ie “my situation is different”
- – Global thinking ie “everyone does it”
- – Giving up before barely getting started
- – Throwing an emotional tantrum when things come up (victim cry)
Overcoming Resistance Exercises
- ● Connect with the feeling of resistance and journal about it, be as descriptive as you can about how you feel with regards to this resistance. Reflect on your justifications, reasons, excuses, why you can’t allow yourself to feel and anything that comes up for you. Journal until you feel complete with the expression of the resistance in writing.
- ● Do some rounds of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) around the resistance. Focus here on the justifications and reasons why you’re resisting. Go to the bonus module on EFT to learn more on the technique and follow the steps.
- ● Write a poem about this resistance, feel it and express it through poetry.
- ● Pray from your heart. Resistance is an act of your will so to overcome resistance other than feeling it is about changing your will, changing your heart’s desire. To take a moment to sit in silence, connect to your heart and pray to feel what it is you are resisting, emotionally desire to know the truth you are in denial of or avoiding, pray to develop humility, sincerity and a willingness to feel. Click here to read more.
- ● Connect with the resistance and dance is out, express the emotion through moving your body. Shake, roll around on the floor, stomp the floor, punch pillows, go round in circles, whatever the feeling express it through movement until you feel a release, an energy shift or until you feel you’ve expressed the feeling fully and completely through movement.
- ● Connect with the feeling of resistance and voice it through sound until you feel a release. This is not screaming, it is making sounds from the depth of your Soul as you connect with this resistance feeling. It can be “eeeeeeeaaaaaa, grrrrrrrrrr, aaaarrrhhhh, bluaaahhh, aarrrggg” whatever and however it comes out. This has to be continuous, no stopping to think. Give yourself the space and time to express these sounds without judging yourself. You may wish to incorporate some body movements that reflect the sound you are expressing. This works to the depth of your intent, don’t be shy, go full out! Take up space and go for it.
- ● A similar technique to the above would be to speak the resistance through “gibberish”. You are expressing how the resistance feels through gibberish, as if you are speaking but the sounds have no meaning. The point here is to connect with the feeling of resistance and express it through gibberish.
- ● Connect with the feeling of resistance and voice it through screaming! Scream until you feel you’ve let it all out. You can do this out in the desert or woods where no one is around, put some loud music on and scream into a pillow or even go for a swim in the sea and scream under water. The idea here is the same, you scream until you feel an energy shift.
- ● Go to a boxing class and once again connect with the feeling of resistance and punch it out! Make sure you are owning the feeling rather than projecting it.
- ● There are places where you can go and smash furniture, glass ornaments and objects called “smash rooms”. Try one out if you have one in your city.
- ● Do a breathwork session. I’ve had huge breakthroughs through breath work in particular holotropic beathing, although it took a couple of sessions to breakthrough. I’ve also tried a number of other types of breathwork and had some great results! I will say it was NOT easy – this type of work is NOT for the faint-hearted, it’s hard work!! Plus these other ones in particular took at least 3 months of weekly sessions for my body to open up and surrender.
- ● Paint, draw, colour or scribble the feeling of resistance. Express the feeling through some form of art. This is not meant to be a Picasso piece, it can be colouring a whole white piece of paper black if that’s the expression of how you feel or tiny scribbles of circles and squares – this is just an example. The important thing is for you to connect with your body, feel the feeling and go with your intuition with regards to the colours, patterns etc but don’t think too much, go with how you feel, free flow and don’t stop until you feel a release, energy shift or that it’s done. The less thinking and stopping the better.
- ● Use essential oils.
JOIN MY YOUNG LIVING FAMILY
WARNING: Please only use therapeutic grade essential oils for this as otherwise you won’t get any of the therapeutic benefits of the oil, cheap synthetic essential oils from the supermarket or pharmacy are filled with toxic chemicals and you will end up with a headache if you inhale these. Do your research on the company before you use the oils in this way.You only need 1 drop of essential oil on the palm of your hands, rub your hands together, cup your hands over your mouth and nose and start taking deep breaths. Imagine you are taking this scent into the resistance feelings and simply sit with the resistance. Be with it. Focus on taking deep breaths and that’s it. Watch your thoughts and how you feel in your body.
Essential oils work directly with the limbic system part of the brain, which is the part of the brain that processes emotions and life experiences. It can shift your mood and alter your perception to a more positive and empowering one. I personally only use Young Living because they are therapeutic grade essential oils, meaning it’s 100% pure. If you’d like to join my essential oil family click here to read more or email me so I can guide you.
I’ve had HUGE breakthrough processing deep trauma that I was resisting with several Young Living blends including Release, Trauma Life, Lavender, Inner Child and Acceptance to name a few.
- ● Get professional help! If you’re going through this program on your own and you feel you need support and my work resonates with you reach out.
Recommended Books:
- ● The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
- ● The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
