Interim Step Two: Facing Down Resistance
I want to talk about a sensitive topic today. A nasty little beast called Resistance. What it is, how to recognize it, and how to battle it effectively.
Resistance comes in numerous forms. They are all valid and difficult to manage, but they are all beatable. The trick is to recognize resistance, which isn’t easy because it has many personalities. And they are all designed with one goal in mind: derailing your creative spirit.
But have faith. Resistance can be temporary. Transient. It’s all in how you allow it to affect you. As I interpret the Buddhist theology toward emotions: You are not your emotion; it is simply something you’re experiencing at a particular moment. If you can learn to look at resistance in this way, you will be able to conquer it.
First, what is resistance, really? Real resistance is elemental. It’s driven by the creative soul. At its most simple, exposed self, it is Fear, capital F. Fear is a familiar, corrosive beast. You will recognize it easily as the critical voice that sneaks in to derail you just when things start going well. It is rude and wrong, and if you can be honest with yourself and acknowledge it when it shows up, you defang it entirely. But how?
You’re probably already familiar with your own particular internal resistance. It is more commonly referred to as the critical voice. We often give it power by identifying it—wrongly—as the mythic writer’s block. I would argue that block is very different than resistance. Block is your story saying, “Hey, things aren’t going the way they need to. Come have a sit and let’s talk about it.” Internal resistance, on the other hand, is the fear that the story is worthless, that it can’t be finished, and that no one will want it anyway, so why bother? A block is not crippling, at least on its face. A block is circumventable. Resistance, though, needs training to subvert, sometimes professionally in the form of cognitive behavioral therapy, sometimes by sheer freaking will.
Photo by Elisa Ventur on Unsplash
