Until recently, one of my favorite ideas from Maya Angelou was “When you know better, you do better.” It had always felt like a gentle reminder that I had done the best I could in the past and that my best would be even better in the future.
Recently, however, I realized that even though I knew better, I was nowhere near doing better. Why? Why was I continuing to do what I had always done when I knew that I needed to do something differently?
There are a lot of possible answers to that question, but this time around, I knew immediately what was keeping me from acting on my better knowing. I simply didn’t want to. I was actively resisting change.
I wish I could say this was the first time I’d resisted making a change when I knew the change was good for me, that up until now I had always welcomed change with open arms and complete surrender to my own good.
But this is real life, and I am a real person. And even though the Borg have warned that “Resistance is futile,” I do it anyway.
Fortunately, because living a spiritual life naturally leads to change and personal evolution, I’ve gotten to know resistance pretty well. I’ve also learned how to manage it so that I can do what is mine to do to live as joyful and amazing a life as we are all meant to live.
When I feel resistance, the first thing I do is spend some time discerning exactly what I’m resisting.
Sometimes, it is the actual change I need to make that I’m resisting, in which case my 3-year-old is usually to blame.
No, I don’t have a 3-year-old. There is a 3-year-old in me that wants what she wants when she wants it and thinks she will die if she doesn’t get it.
Yes, she is adorable, but she is not very wise. She doesn’t understand consequences or long-term goals. She can’t reason or discern and choose wisely.
When she is the root of my resistance, I parent her as well as I can.
I let her know I understand where she’s coming from, that she is heard, that I appreciate her input, and that I’m the one in charge and will make the decisions that are good for all of us, even her. And she’s usually okay with that.
Other times when I sit with the resistance I’m feeling, I discover that it isn’t even resistance. It’s self-doubt.
When I’ve tried to do better in the past, I have failed. I haven’t been able to sustain the outer changes I knew were good for me, and sometimes the resistance is actually me feeling scared to try—and fail—again.
If this is what’s holding me back, I remind myself that I will have only truly failed if I quit trying.
Then I take a look back at my past efforts to see why they didn’t work.
Did I take on too much at once? Did I set unrealistic goals and then get discouraged when I couldn’t reach them? Did I have support in making the changes, or did I try to do it all on my own? Did I have a strong enough “why” for making the change, one that would keep me motivated?
I also ask how I’m different now than I was before. The me that “failed” before isn’t the me that’s going to try again.
From that perspective, I usually see that my “failures” were actually more like trial runs and that they helped me get ready for doing the better I know I can now do.
Perhaps most often, though, I discover that what I’m actually resisting isn’t change but the feelings that come with it.
Change, even change for the better, always has some kind of loss associated with it, and the natural response to loss is grief, which is painful.
If I discover that what I’m really resisting is the feelings associated with loss, then I set aside some time to feel what I need to feel.
If I feel sad, I cry. If I feel angry, I yell. If I feel tired, I rest. I do what I need to do to honor, give thanks, and say goodbye to what was so that I can make room for what can be.
(I know. Easier said than done, which is why I recommend the book, The Grief Recovery Handbook, by John W. James and Russell Friedman. It taught me how to grieve in a healthy and life-affirming way.)
No matter the cause of resistance, it seems to be a natural part of change that when addressed dissipates and clears the way for not only knowing ourselves better but also doing better for ourselves.
How do you deal with resistance? Could setting aside some time this week to get to know resistance be beneficial for you? If so, let me know how it goes!
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