Grow with Soul: Episode 112 - Dealing With Resistance and Listening To The Message
Hello and welcome to episode 112 of Grow With Soul. When I did the last Q&A episode somebody sent me a DM with a question that I forgot to include in the show, but felt that we could probably devote an episode to it in itself. The question was about resistance: “How do you deal with resistance? When you know exactly what you need to do, but somehow you just can’t do it. All the fears kick in and you freeze. Does it happen to you?
What I talk about:
Recognising the symptoms of resistance
Opening up to your resistance and understanding the message
Trusting yourself and leaping into limbo
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Read the episode transcript:
Hello and welcome to episode 112 of Grow With Soul. When I did the last Q&A episode somebody sent me a DM with a question that I forgot to include in the show, but felt that we could probably devote an episode to it in itself. The question was about resistance: “How do you deal with resistance? When you know exactly what you need to do, but somehow you just can’t do it. All the fears kick in and you freeze. Does it happen to you?”
Of course I experience resistance too. Most recently it’s been around creating a new opt in or lead magnet. It’s been on my month plan for the last two months; I had an idea, I even had an outline. But I kept putting off actually starting, whether that was by finding something “more important” or pressing to do, giving myself some time off to rest instead, or simply just looking at the blank page or fiddling with the outline a little bit before giving up because it clearly wasn’t happening.
These, I know, are the tell tale signs of resistance for me. I avoid doing the thing for all very logical reasons, I need more time before making a decision, I need to be more ready. When I was deciding to end my relationship I had all these same symptoms of resistance, just as I have them around pivoting my business.
This is very sneaky of my brain because for a long time it doesn’t look like resistance at all, it looks sensible and logical and like I’m being prudent saving the money and waiting for the right time to roll around. It still takes weeks or months before it dawns on me that “hang on, these are excuses, not reasons; I’m avoiding something here”. Perhaps you find that resistance shows up for you as avoidance, perhaps it’s slightly different - either way, knowing and remembering what resistance looks like for you, in a non-judgemental way, is the first part.
When we talk about resistance it’s often in terms like this question - “dealing” with it, getting over it, pushing through. Capitalism and hustle culture has us seeing anything that compromises productivity as a Bad Thing that must be dealt with. This means that we are conditioned not to listen to, not to trust, the messages from our bodies and intuitions and our own wisdom trying to speak to us. Rather than get straight on with “overcoming” resistance, first we should listen to what it’s trying to tell us.
I now increasingly try to see a feeling as neutral, a message trying to get to me in the most impactful way it can - and often it’s negativity that has the biggest impact. Resistance isn’t necessarily trying to hold you back or make you feel bad - it’s trying to get you to take notice. We get so fixated on following through on our plans and hitting our timelines and doing all the right things that we see resistance as a problem to be fixed, rather than a message that maybe this isn’t what’s right for us.
Take my opt in. Once I cottoned onto the fact I was avoiding it, rather than go straight to a Pomodoro technique or beat myself into making it happen, I asked “what is this trying to tell me?”. When you actually open up to your resistance, it’s happy to tell you what’s going on - it is, after all, a message; all it wants is to communicate with you. Mine replied to me “you’re doing this out of order, you’re not even clear on your pivot yet and you’re trying to create this thing off the back of a one sentence idea you once had. It’s not the right idea, and you need to start at the beginning”. At that was it, what I’d really known all along. So in that instance I gave in to my resistance but it was the right thing for me to do.
It’s important to note as well that the question needs to be asked of your resistance non-judgementally. I had, previously, asked “what’s wrong with me that I can’t do this?” - I know for a fact that you talk to your resistance in the same way. You’re not going to get clear messages when you’ve loaded it with insecurity and doubt; this needs to be approached with curiosity “how interesting I’m resisting this, what could it be trying to show me?”.
When your resistance tells you that something’s not right and not to do it, that’s when you butt up against the productivity conditioning. Maybe you think you’re a failure for not following through on a plan, maybe you think you’re not cut out for this if you just change your mind about what you’re going to do. But to that I say, this is what being your own boss is. It’s about changing your mind, trusting yourself, making a decision to do something that’s better. Stoically and miserably forcing yourself to do something that isn’t right isn’t what “doing it” looks like - it’s pretty much the opposite. Your plan is not the boss of you. You are the boss of you.
Of course, we also have resistance around things that are right for us. Like my break up and my pivot - both were right, but I held a lot of resistance for months about both. The only way I can describe it is that when you realise your reasons are excuses and you ask “what’s going on here?” is that it just feels different. It feels like certainty, it feels like “I’ve got to do this but it’s hard and scary”. When something is wrong for you the resistance comes from the knowledge you’re trying to ignore; when something’s right it comes from the fear.
Fear is just fear. It’s not a real thing, it doesn’t exist, it can’t hurt you. Fear is a feeling, and feelings are messages - and the message of fear is “this is important and you stand to lose something”. There could be anything you stand to lose: a reputation, money, your life as you know it, a belief about yourself that enables you to stay small. But fear is saying, what you stand to gain is more important. Rather than focus on the fear and what might be lost, concentrate your energies on what you want to gain. Let it motivate you.
Ultimately, as with everything, it comes down to trusting yourself. Trusting that the messages your feelings are bringing up from your depths are what’s true, rather than your conscious conditioned worries. Trusting that you know best. Trusting that you are capable, you have what you need. An analogy I’m using on myself at the moment is swinging between the trees in a jungle - you have to let go of one branch before you can get to the next, there is a moment when you’re in the air and you’re not holding on and you’re completely in limbo. The only way you can keep going is to leap into the limbo and trust that you will find the next branch.