How often are you in resistance?

In working through my mindful self-compassion workbook by Kristin Neff and Chris Germer, I’ve just been reading about resistance.

Resistance is the struggle that occurs when we believe our moment-to-moment experience should be other than it is.

“I should be at a different career level than I am.” 

“I should know how to do this already.” 

“I should feel more confident than I do.”

“Should” is a giveaway word that often indicates that someone will likely be experiencing stress or pressure. If you want to read more about how “should” can show up as a sign of negative self-talk, have a look at this post from my Self-Talk series.

I’ve experienced this recently, in work I do when I lead groups. Despite my 20+ years of leading and facilitating learning workshops, I still mostly always feel some nerves ahead of doing it.

Usually, I try lots of things to not feel the way I’m feeling. I tell myself, 

“It’s going to be ok.” 

“You’ve done this before - you know what you’re doing.”

“What is there really to worry about? Even if you screw up, it will be fine.”

I know these messages are coming from a good place. A part of me is cheerleading another part to believe that I’m capable and will handle it.

But it just doesn’t work. I still feel the worry, and now I’m telling myself not to feel it.

The last time this happened on the day of an event, I woke up early - not that I wanted to, but it happened. I had a few moments of wrestling with reality. “Oh no, I could have had another 45 minutes of sleep before my alarm will go off. How annoying. Now I’m going to be even more tired.”

Resistance. I wanted to be asleep, and I was awake. My anxious thoughts were already spinning.

This time,  I tried something different. I lay in bed and said this in my mind, “I love you. I trust you.” Over and over. I decided if I had to spend 45 minutes awake, I would be loving to myself rather than in a battle with reality, where my fearful mind would kick in and start to get me hypervigilant to what I had ahead of me in the day.

I kept saying it, until remarkably I fell back asleep and got a few more minutes of sleep.

This is what I find so interesting about mindful self-compassion practice. 

The goal was not to make myself feel better. 

The goal was to love and support myself because I was struggling. 

I was telling a client about this, and their response was, “Wow, that sounds like it took a lot of time.” 

I considered that for a moment, but then I said, “The thing is, we’re spending a lot of time in our thoughts anyway, so in this case I just took the intention and turned it into care and concern, rather than criticism and attack.” 

Looking back on it now, I got out of resistance.

It took the same amount of time but the result was profoundly different. 

Do you know when you’re in resistance? 

If you find yourself wanting things to be different than they are, see if you can come back to the present moment. 

Feel your body in contact with a surface (floor, chair, etc). Notice what you can see, hear, smell, or taste. 

It will bring you back to the present moment, even if for a few moments.

When we can feel, we can heal.