On Resistance

Whoever says, “Resistance is futile” absolutely has not been well enough acquainted with the subject matter. In fact, I’m not sure of the actual origin MAYBE HERE but i’ve only ever heard a bad guy say it in a movie, and it’s never true, not even a little.

Incapable of producing any useful result. Pointless. – is how my phone’s default Siri dictionary phrased it.

Anyone who tangles with it knows what a trip it can be!
Resistance in the context of a form of inner protective patterning that is due for a glowup from yours truly is really your ultimate guide and protector as a kid.
Individual and personalized before your conscious memory kicks in, resistance represents a sacred agreement your human system put in place to make sense out of your confusion, and to ensure your basic needs would be met by your caretakers.

Not only is resistance purposeful, but most of us at a certain age found it necessary. I know I must have, because I didn’t consciously decide and I only recently realized! Hallelujah.

Some experts call these inner part of us the ego, unconscious wounding, attachment style, stuck energy, behavior pattern and schemas, internalized beliefs, and an upset inner child. Regardless, it expends our system’s energy by being hyperaware of any possible proof supporting whatever limiting belief from the past. Our brains will send up that red flag if they sense danger, and our knee-jerk reaction will be to take action for safety.

This is not the same voice that moves through me when I mean to encourage and celebrate a friend, mind you. Consider why that might be –

And it produces a useful result MOST OF THE TIME, my dude.
Like so often, my goals are the ones feeling the hint of futility!
At a certain point in this journey, I had a huge AHA that what had once kept me safe and secure enough in my environments to learn, grow, form relationships, and move through my life until now has become an impediment.

Thus begins the dance, when I’ve believed for so long that someone or something else was created to lead, while I was created to support and follow. We will discuss that binary and more at another time. Who says a dancer even needs another fellow, in order to dance? Just weird that assumptions we make. “I can’t dance. I don’t know how!”

So, okay. Resistance exists. It’s powerful, useful (to a point), and comes from “inside the house,” so to speak. Resistance is the coalition of my parts continuing to uphold an agreement made a long time ago on a certain strategy to keep everything chill for me. Thank you, Resistance.

To what, you might ask?
Well, to feeling emotions that are uncomfy and to challenging the status quo.
Never under-estimate the distance you can and will travel to avoid discomfort. We resist by living thought by thought in our accepted fears of some sub-optimal future and in our sour lessons from past experiences. I do this in ways that are obvious to me and probably a thousand additional ways I don’t notice. Think about how effective you can be at killing a good vibe all by yourself. Killing YOUR good vibe, nonetheless?!

I will have a great idea, today, for how to use my time tomorrow. I will take inspired action on the idea, usually trying to making tomorrow’s task as easy as possible for future Jess. I want to feel that pride and confidence in myself at the END of that following day after I do the idea! I know it’s a step in the direction of who I want to be…And I’m talking about GOOD, simple and proven ideas like: waking up early to meditate, working out, eating something balanced when I have some extra time to savor…just normal, healthy things people do for themselves.

An example of resistance in action is me having taken those steps of: idea, excitement and commitment, inspired actions to help me get there, and then…binge-eating the night before after one of the kids says something ignorant and harsh about my face. I don’t sleep great, have to get up and use the restroom, then wake up sweaty and having snoozed my alarm. I hear both kids up already, and one of them says she doesn’t have any shorts clean to wear for school, but I know at least one pair is clean-grr. I don’t meditate. After drop-off, I’m feeling guilty and resolve to meditate when I get home. However, on the way home, I recall needing a couple things from the grocery store that I can quickly pick up. You likely know where this is going. I get home and I’m starving, so I open some impulse purchase from the store that has nil nutritional value and snack as I unpack what ends up being a good little load of stuff! I start drinking a glass of water, but leave it in another room, when I realize a bathroom that was left “trashed,” and I can’t even allow it be exist in that condition another second. You see? So scattered, overwhelmed, reactionary, just a domino effect of behavior, no follow through. Resistance. Hi, it’s me.

So my application of taking the lead in this dance of resistance et moi seems to hinge on how I leverage my awareness of and appreciation for this inner programming. Akin maybe to a sizeable OS upgrade, my intention now is to cultivate an emotionally safe and grounded internal environment (like functional body building) that tolerates, nay, welcomes all thoughts, feelings, and beliefs as old friends, but also questions and considers them in light of
the current way RN Jess understands things – the whys and hows of it all! RN me often chooses a slower lifestyle that allows me to more fully experience the present moment, and also to focus on some areas of healing and learning that are of highest priority to me.

This dancing used to feel like a recovery and a healing back to an unexplored wholeness of being. I remember the image of myself in fetal position in a puddle at the bottom of a deep earthen hole in the ground feeling accurate. Reminds me of the story in John 4 of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.

I know that feelings come and go, which is actually so great. We can really experience them and then let them go. They’ll be back! LOL
At this moment, the dance feels exhilarating and full of possibility, like a baby’s birth. Whether you call it “rewilding” or self sovereignty, a miracle or just neurons recalibrating as hormones seek stasis (science!) in the body, the change feels for me like an abiding clarity about my values, my goals and greater purpose, and the steps I take next. I’m no longer “looking at the world from the bottom of a well.” Things, as they say, have SHIFTED.

Now I’m that woman at the fully functional and biblically accurate well, and Jesus approaches. He offers me a drink that will become a well of water (inside me!) springing up unto eternal life. This drink isn’t what I thought it was – the promise of a pleasant afterlife. It’s a shift in the way I perceive myself and everything around me. It’s the glow up, and Yeshua makes clear that it has been here all along.

Resistance is a gift I humbly and fearfully receive as a friendly push from my own battle-hardened psyche to decide RIGHT NOW who I Am. She is ready for her makeover, her upgrade. She know’s it’s time. And I’m feeling thirsty!