What You Resist, Persists

Thanks to my wonderful friend Lizzy, I listened to a podcast that has really affected my life for the better. I’ve decided to dedicate a number of posts to this podcast, so do yourself a favor and check it out here:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/being-boss-mindset-habits-tactics-lifestyle-for-creative/id956310359?mt=2&i=358111777

The guest speaker was Jay Pryor and one of the topics that resonated with me the most was this:

What you resist, persists.

Really, go listen to the podcast and don’t be turned off by the tagline for creative entrepreneurs, or the fact that you “don't do self-help.” (because really...what’s wrong with a little self-help?!) You may find a few nuggets that could help you.

For the longest time I had a number of limiting and negative beliefs running through my head, including: “I don’t know what my passion is; I don’t have a career, I don’t know what I want to do with my life.” And if you listen to Jay, that is a form of resistance. I was putting up numerous mental roadblocks and preventing any new ideas or passions from entering my life. Mind you, none of this I figured out until after that fact.

So, a little over a year ago I started this blog and titled the first post “Letting go” (how poetic, right?) and decided that I was going to stop resisting, stop questioning, stop putting pressure on myself, stop searching. And lo and behold, my life imploded. At the time it was terrible, wonderful, scary, exciting, new, shameful, and every other countering emotion possible. If I could relate it to something tangible, it was like a jack-in-the-box that has been wound up for about 4 years and never sprang open. The contents were scary and relieving at the same time.

It’s easy to see what was persisting: unhappiness, discontent, mundane thinking, lack of direction, lack of drive. All of the things I was scared of simply remained in my life. Yet it took some time to realize what it was that I was resisting. There were a number of things: not being my true self, stepping into a marriage I wasn’t ready for and wasn’t aligned with, the idea of going back to school and starting over, stepping away from things that others expected me to stay in, realizing I made some (big) mistakes. Looking back I felt that things happened to me, and perhaps I was resisting the urge to take control and be the strongest force within my own life, instead of letting other forces take me over. Does this make sense? I was resisting the urge to take back my life. So what was the result? Unhappiness, feeling lost, and wasting money on career counselors and really not getting much out of them.

This is so, so obnoxiously easy to say now that I have “figured it out”. Because no one could have told me two years ago, “Yaaaasss girl just be yourself and listen to your gut!” I would have smacked you. But maybe now I can just offer the small hint to someone else who is struggling to find what is next. Perhaps your resistance looks different than mine; I think resistance can exist in limiting beliefs, terrible inner dialogue about ourselves and what we are capable of, speaking in absolutes (I rocked at this), and being close-minded. If any of this rings a bell, perhaps ask yourself what it is that you could be resisting. Maybe with a slight shift in our thoughts, we can unblock that which is stopping us and move forward.

 


WTF are you resisting?

 

People from this post who rock:

Being Boss

Lizzy Russinko