Stop Fighting Your Feelings of Resistance: A Counterintuitive Path to?Growth

“The only way out is through.” ~ Robert Frost

What if you stopped fighting yourself when you felt resistance come up?

Hear me out. I know, through bitter experience, how awful resistance and discomfort can feel in my body. My natural instinct is to fight my way out, to push harder and keep moving forward. But what if I told you that sometimes, the key to progress lies in doing the opposite: surrendering to the resistance?

The Conditioning of Perpetual Motion

We’re conditioned to believe in constant forward motion, a relentless pursuit of goals. “Never give up!” This pressure creates a sense of guilt and frustration when we encounter resistance. So, when resistance shows up, it feels like a personal failing. We struggle against it, convinced that the only way out is through sheer force.

But what if the struggle itself is the problem?

In my own life, I’ve recently been facing a period of intense discomfort and resistance. It’s been tempting to push through it, to white-knuckle my way to the other side. But lately, I’ve been allowing myself to take a different approach: slowing down, leaning into the resistance, and allowing myself to feel it.

Let me be clear that this is anything but easy at times. There are moments when I just want the discomfort to vanish, for life to be light and breezy again. But here’s the thing: sometimes, growth requires us to face the “autumns” of our cycles, those messy in-between phases where we confront what’s working and what isn’t. Discomfort can be a signal to pause, to reflect, and to learn.

Don’t Make It?Worse

Being with feelings of resistance strikes me a lot like what to do if you’re stuck in quicksand. The more you struggle, the deeper you sink. The key to escaping quicksand is to stay calm and spread your weight, allowing the sand to support you as you slowly move out.

Similarly, fighting your feelings of resistance can be counterproductive. It seems to me that more I fight them, the worse it feels. All I seem to do is add more resistance in the mix, tying myself in knots trying to get out.

Trusting the Wisdom Within Discomfort

Surrendering to resistance doesn’t mean giving up. It’s about acknowledging the discomfort and trusting that it holds valuable information. It’s about listening to your inner voice and understanding why you’re feeling stuck.

This approach might not be easy, and that’s okay. It’s a new way of being, and it takes practice.

The next time you feel resistance, consider this: what if you stopped trying to fight it? Rather than analysing it, fighting it, or trying to figure out why it’s happening, what if you simply allowed it to be there? What if you gave yourself permission to feel the discomfort, to soften into it, and see what wisdom it might offer?

This doesn’t mean giving up on your goals or becoming passive. It simply means acknowledging that resistance can be a teacher, a guidepost pointing you in a new direction. Perhaps the action you need to take right now isn’t pushing forward, but taking a step back, reassessing, and allowing yourself some space to breathe.

The point is to get curious about this resistance. Treat it as an opportunity to learn something new about yourself. You can always go back to your old strategies of pushing through. But maybe, just maybe, there’s a different path, a way of being with resistance that allows for more ease and flow.

Are You Ready to Explore a Different Path?

Remember, this isn’t about making things easy?—?I mean, who would want that?! It’s about developing a new way of relating to the inevitable challenges that life throws our way. If you’re interested in exploring this concept further and learning practical tools for working with resistance, get in touch or check out my coaching approach.

Let’s face it, those feelings of resistance aren’t going anywhere. But by shifting your response to it, you can transform it from a foe into a friend.

Originally published at https://vixanderton.com on July 10, 2024.