Moving Through Resistance

This month we are looking at the energy of simplicity. How to lead a simple life, with less stress and less shoulds. As we remove the busyness and replace it with activities that feed our soul, we flourish. We become more of who we are meant to be.

But it’s not easy to leave the old ways.  Saying no to the shoulds of life is difficult; it’s so easy to slip back into old habits. Therefore, I would like to offer some suggestions on how to make new behaviors stick.

Anytime we move from where-we-are to where-we-want-to-be, we feel resistance. It is almost as if the status quo has a magnetic force of its own. If this force is stronger than our desire to make a change, we fall back into alignment with where-we-were-before—and all our hard work, all our new ways, are forgotten. We return to the womb of comfort and security and rationalize away our attempted growth.

We don’t want that to happen. Anytime you get that nagging feeling that a new behavior (especially learning to say no) is too much, too difficult, too unsettling, ask yourself whose voice is in your head. It could be your mother’s voice, or your partner’s voice. Once you have named that voice, use your tools to remove that energy from your space. Tap on the story, or put the voice in a rose and blow up the rose.

Say to that voice, “Oh, I know you. You are the voice trying to keep me small. I think I’ve outgrown the need for your protection now, so please leave me alone.” If you feel resistance in your space, sit with that resistance in meditation. Ask it to tell you its name and why it is in your life. You might be surprised by what you hear.

In the next exercise, I suggest a way to visualize your feelings as colors and how to retain the colors that represent your best self while allowing colors that don’t support you to drain away.

Exercise: Colorful Soap Bubbles

Think of one of the changes that you are having a hard time making stick. Maybe you said no to attending your son’s out-of-town soccer game yesterday, but today you are about to pick up the phone and change your “no” to a “yes.” Or maybe you thought you were committed to simplifying your life, but now you’ve hit an obstacle and your enthusiasm is waning. Whatever situation you find yourself in, it’s possible to use your intuition to remove any energy blocks preventing you from living your life your way. Let’s remove that resistance so that you can stay on the path you’ve chosen.

1. Sit in silence, with your eyes closed. Be in the center of your head, grounded to the earth. If you need to review how to set up your meditation space, [here’s the post]. Allow yourself a moment to settle. Become relaxed and comfortable, and take a couple of deep breaths. On each inhale, feel more of your own energy coming into the center of your head. On each exhale, feel the stresses of the day, the foreign energy, leave your body and travel back down to the earth. Sink a little deeper in your chair as you come into alignment with the in-and-out motion of centering and grounding.
2. Now think of the change you would like to make and the resistance you feel to making that change permanent. Maybe you’ve said no to something and now you want to change your no back to a yes. For example, let’s assume that you have decided to not attend your son’s away soccer game this weekend. You’ve said no, but you’re just about to change your no back to a yes. 
3. As you sit in meditation, imagine the bubble representing your situation in front of you. See it filled with color. If you cannot see it clearly, don’t worry; just imagine what it would be like if you could see it. Relax and allow your imagination to flow. You might have a sense of just knowing or imagining colors. Relax and go with it.
4. Let’s say that as you bring the bubble representing your decision to not attend the soccer game into focus, you notice that it is filled with a mixture of dark blue and chaotic-looking gray. You can’t see anything else because these two colors are so dominate. You might ask yourself what all of this means; thoughts might float through your mind. Don’t discount those thoughts. They are real. Maybe the dark blue represents “should” energy to you, and the chaotic gray symbolizes being overwhelmed by guilt.
5. As you come to understand the energy surrounding your situation, decide if you’d like to change its vibration. Wasn’t this saying no instead of yes supposed to lead to simplifying life?
   
6. In order to change the dynamics of the energies, put a grounding cord on your bubble. Imagine a large, hollow tube with one end attached to the bubble and other end attached to the center of the earth. Allow this grounding cord to drain out all the dark, not-you colors from your bubble. Watch as seriousness, effort, and guilt flow down the grounding cord and leave your bubble.
7. Once it’s drained of all those dark, hard-to-see-through colors, fill your “saying no and meaning it” bubble with more light and playful colors. Lighten up! Give yourself room to feel good about doing something for yourself – fill in with joy and self-acceptance. Watch your bubble fill in with your chosen colors, and feel the calmness spread into your body and mind.
8. Remove the grounding cord and allow the bubble to float off into the ether.
9. When you are ready, come out of meditation.

You’ve changed the dynamics of your situation by changing its energetic vibration. Check in with your thoughts and feelings and ask yourself if you feel any differently towards the situation.

Anytime you find yourself fighting with the energy of resistance, step into meditation and examine that energy.

This is using your intuition to remove any resistance to moving into new states of being. Congratulate yourself. You’ve just learned a really cool way to remove the blocks to living life the way you want to: simplified, yet full of events that satisfy your own priorities, not someone else’s.

Please share the love! Thanks for reading, and if this post resonated with you, please share it on your favorite social networks. Every share, like or tweet helps me reach more women who crave support in being as kind to themselves as they are to others. So glad you’re here!