I have been thinking about resistance a lot lately. About a month ago I began the process of writing a book. My friend flew down from Seattle a few weeks ago to help me develop the theme of the book—something I asked her to do. When she was discussing different publishers and speaking engagements it felt like a lot of pressure. My mind told me, “why is she trying to take this over?!” I was rejecting everything she said. When she challenged me on it I found that underneath that resistance was a lot of fear. Fear of exposure: What if this project is beyond my capabilities? What if it sucks and then people will see that I suck? Having this information in my head is one thing, but the audacity to put it in print or stand in front of people and claim that I have something to say about it is a whole other thing.
In the moment, my body felt like armor. My chest felt like it grew as broad as my upper arms and turned into metal. Nothing could get passed it. My head was hot and my forehead tight. I felt an instant aggressive outward energy toward my friend as if she was the cause of it.
It’s important to know what resistance feels like in the body, because did you notice what my mind did with it? It told me a story about my friend. It was an untrue story—a story that, if it were to have been believed, could have caused a big hullabaloo between my friend and me.
Now that I know what resistance feels like in my body I am able to recognize it for what it is and retreat for a moment; go inside and inquire why am I resisting right now? What is my resistance protecting? When I did that I was able to find the answer pretty quickly. I didn’t like what I found. It felt vulnerable. When I was able to admit it to my friend, she sat down and talked it out with me. It allowed us to go forward into the conversation addressing those fears as they came up, so that I wasn’t overcome by them.
I say all of this to say the body is so very smart! We have spent most of our lives investing in our relationship to thought (ego) and detaching from our bodies, but it’s our bodies that tell us the truth!
There is a lot of rich information lying below the surface of resistance. It indicates something very important is close by. If this book wasn’t important to me and didn’t threaten my “safe and comfortable life in hiding”, resistance wouldn’t have been there.
How does resistance show up in your body?
Notice resistance.
Find out what it is protecting.
Work through it.
Get to the gold.
