WHERE WE TALK ABOUT OUR RESISTANCE TO WAKING UP, PART ONE
Are you there?
Yes, we are here.
Today, I’d like to talk about what has always seemed to me to be the most challenging part of the transformational process, and that is resistance. Resistance to the process of awakening. Of course, we’ve talked about resistance and how it manifests in our lives on many, many occasions in the past. In fact, there are probably very few conversations that we’ve had over the course of the last two years that did not touch in one way or another on the idea of resistance. The reason I want to have this conversation today is that I’ve been experiencing a lot of resistance lately, more than I’ve felt in a long time. Resistance to the transformational work that I’ve been doing, work that has been very big part of my life for the last forty years. I feel it most strongly during my meditation practice and in my writing with all of you, the two activities where I feel most connected to Source energy. It’s possible that I’ve experienced more resistance in the past and that now it only feels like there’s more resistance because I’m more aware of what’s going on inside of me. Whatever the case, it feels lately like I’ve been putting up a lot of resistance to almost everything having to do with my spiritual journey. I’ve been trying to deal with it the best I can, but so far, I haven’t been able to find my way through. Maybe there’s no easy way when it comes to dealing with resistance to the awakening process. I don’t know. Our resistance can take so many different forms, and our egos are so adept at creating fear-based thoughts and actions that remain hidden from us, that it sometimes feels as if we’re stumbling around in the dark trying to identify and release whatever it is that might be standing in the way of our progress forward.
Allow us, then, to shed some light on this issue of resistance. Let us start with this question: What does resistance mean to you? How would you characterize it in simple terms?
Resistance arises out of fear, correct? Pushing back against or placing obstacles of one form or another directly in the path that leads to something, an experience, that we desire. That would include our main purpose in life, which is to remember our connection to the energy of Source.
Indeed. Resistance, at its core, is a manifestation of the fear state. As you say, it is resistance that remains for virtually all human persons the most challenging aspect of your remembering who you really are and why you have come. And that is because the awakening process, by its very nature, triggers your fear and consequently, your resistance. This resistance, at its core, stems from a fear of opening yourself up, for one reason or another, to enjoying a full and open connection with the Source energy which created you, the Source energy that represents your place of origin, your true nature, the wellspring of your personal power. Opening yourself up to Source energy also means the possibility of feeling happier, more peaceful and contented, more loving, more prosperous, more compassionate, more at ease with yourself and the world around you, so by resisting your connection to Source energy, you are also denying yourselves access to these types of elevated emotions. It makes itself known through many forms, this resistance. Mental resistance like negative thinking – “I don’t know how to meditate. What is the point? It’s too hard. I should just give up.” Emotional resistance that is triggered by such thoughts, emotions like anger, frustration, defeatism, depression. Resistance in the form of actions like idleness or procrastination that help you avoid doing the work necessary to widen your connection with Source. These forms of resistance are not forced upon you by fate nor do they happen by accident. Hard as it might be for you to accept, all of these forms of resistance are generated by the ego mind to serve as obstacles to the strengthening of your connection to Source. They are chosen by you out of fear. Unconsciously, much of the time. But chosen by you nonetheless.
Yes, I can see that. It’s not easy for us to take responsibility for our own resistance. It’s always much easier to blame someone or something, an outside force of one sort of another, for the obstacles we create for ourselves. “I would focus on my spiritual wellness more if only I wasn’t so busy at work…if only there weren’t so many distractions…if only the Universe hadn’t made this process so difficult.” “And yet, who else could it be that’s causing the resistance? It’s like asking yourself, “Why can’t I find myself a decent partner, one that loves and respects me?” After a while, if you examine your situation clearly and closely enough, the truth becomes almost impossible to deny. “It’s got to be me because who else?” So, yes, I understand that the resistance is coming from me.
And because the resistance is coming from you and is fear-based, when you feel it, it is a signal that you are pinching off your own connection to Source energy. That is why resistance does not feel good, emotionally or physically. And that is how you can know whether or not you are putting up resistance. You can feel it in your body.
That’s true. I can feel it in my body when it starts to rise up. I know the symptoms, if you can call them that, the manifestations of that resistance, that fear. It’s different for everyone. As you said, for some individuals it can take the form of anger or frustration, leading them to lash out, scream in frustration, create conflicts with others, all from their inability to let go of their resistance to feelings of happiness or joy or love or peace or abundance that come with an open connection to Source energy. In my case, resistance to the process of awakening saps my energy and brings on a kind of depression. When I think I’m not getting anywhere or the results of my work are not visible enough for me, I find myself giving up, avoiding my meditations, avoiding my workouts, avoiding my time spent with all of you in conversation. I can feel myself banging myself up against the unseen wall of my own reluctance, my own sense of futility. I begin to feel fatigued and start spending more and more time on my couch, watching televisions shows I’ve seen before, spending more and more time on my laptop watching mindless YouTube videos or reading online news that only upsets me. I sleep a lot. I even lose my appetite sometimes. I don’t want to do anything or go anywhere or see anyone. These are extreme examples, of course, but they’ve arisen often enough over the course of my life that I cannot deny that this is how my particular brand of resistance manifests itself. My question is this: Why is there so much resistance? Why are we so afraid of the idea of opening our connection to Source when that connection will help us to remember who we really are and, at the same time, make us feel good?
Let us take a moment to review the details of your journey here on the physical plane. As a being of light consciousness abiding in the peace and stillness of the non-physical realm, you formed a desire, an intention, to incarnate into a physical form and undertake a journey of growth and expansion upon the Earth plane, a desire and intention shared and supported by all that exists in the Universe. This desire, this intention to incarnate, is one that arose out of the field of your own free will. No other being persuaded or forced you to undertake such a journey. With full knowledge as to what you might experience once this journey began, and aware of the complete range of challenges you might face, you jumped in, so to speak, with the intention of enjoying each and every moment of life on the physical plane. You understood that upon incarnating into a physical form, you would forget who you really are and why you have come, all with the purpose of setting a course of remembrance throughout the lifetimes you have chosen for yourself. Each of these lifetimes is designed by you and by Source to manifest exactly those experiences that will serve you best, that will bring you to a place of remembrance, and in the process, bring about the greatest growth and expansion possible for you and the entire Universe. Having forgotten who you really are – that you are actually a conscious creator of your own experience – the human side of your beingness began to identify, almost immediately from the time of your birth, with your body, with the personality self that you created, with the world around you, all so that you may move easily and efficiently through the sphere of external forms. However, as you grew and matured into adulthood, you became more and more aligned, more and more entrenched in your identification with this personality self that you created, more enmeshed with that which exists outside of yourself. This is not unique to yourself or unusual in any way, as all human persons adapt to the circumstances of their physical journey in much the same way. Identifying with the personality self, with what some might call the ego self, identifying with all of those thoughts, emotions and belief systems that you have created, experienced and collected along the way, this is how the journey unfolds for most human persons at this particular evolutionary point in time. But because this identification with the personality self, and with all of the elements of the external world, is so ingrained, so habitual by the time you reach adulthood, any attempt to modify or shift that identification away from what you know, what is familiar to you, is met by strong resistance from the ego itself.
In other words, we get so accustomed to being who we THINK we are that we’ll do anything we can to keep from giving that up, as if connecting to Source means the end of who we believe ourselves to be. It’s our history, our programming, what we feel most comfortable with, that we’re so afraid of losing. At the same time, it’s very scary to think that we might be something other than who we think we are.
Indeed.
I realize that we’ve only scratched the surface, but I think we should end our discussion here before we go on too long. I thought we’d finish this conversation in one post, but clearly, there’s more for us to explore.
The issue of resistance is indeed a far-reaching one. Let us continue our conversation next time.
Thank you all.
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