Resistance....

Calling a very old friend who hasn't called you in years, looking for something to eat when you are not hungry, answering emails, putting the washing on(when you are alone), feeling irritable, dithering, going out with a group which includes the one you had a bad face-off,  being compelled to visit utility shop while your favourite show is ON - what do all these things have in common?

They're all forms of resistance, and resisting is what I have just been doing. Yes, resisting writing this article! But I became inspired to sit down and write when I realised I was practicing the very thing I wanted to write about! And that acknowledgment of what was really going on, allowed the resistance to transform into action.

This is one of the tricks about resisting. So long as you are stuck in the pattern of thought, feeling or action that is demonstrating itself as resistant, then that's where you'll be - stuck.

I'm sure you'll recognise this example above, but here's a few more ways that resistance shows up in your behaviour. Tick the ones that apply to you.

-Feeling overwhelmed

-Thinking you have to do it all, and therefore rarely if ever delegating

-Regularly working late, to the detriment of home life

-Answering the phone during mealtimes/breaks

-Lack of regular book-keeping

-Never completing anything

-Not asking for help/feedback

-Charging ahead with action before stopping to engage with your inner self first

By doing this exercise you are doing the most valuable thing you can do in regards to resisting - admitting that it is happening in the first place. Ideally, you would be doing the opposite of resistant behaviour.

To get rid of this habit we need to start accepting, but don't need to go immediately from resisting to accepting. Sometimes, it is easier to take it step by step. But why would I want to accept the very thing I don't want. Paradoxically, this is the way that the resistance begins to drop away.