Resistance - Dealing with Stress and Anxiety

Written by HealthyPlace.com Staff Writer

Let's try another example that we have all experienced. What happens when someone sits TOO close to us. We all have our own personal space around us. If someone gets inside that personal boundary, we feel very uncomfortable. The personal space varies according to how comfortable we are with the person. Say someone stands right in our face. We recoil from the situation. We have this impulse to step back or move away to a distance that feels comfortable. This is resistance also - but healthy to maintain. The example shows resistance clearly though. It feels uncomfortable, and we don't wish to remain in the situation, so we try with all our might to remove ourselves from the unpleasant experience. So resistance occurs on the physical level also.

The resistance that occurs from the first initial trigger is like throwing a pebble in a still pond. It sets up a ripple effect. We resist the situation that sets up resistance in our mind which creates a reaction within us. The reaction sets up the emotion and we resist that emotional reaction. The emotional reaction sets up a reaction within our body and we resist this physical experience. The cognition monitors the bodily reaction and resists, on the cognition level, the experience in the body. That sets up a reaction that creates another emotional reaction that we resist that creates a reaction in the body. The ripples go out-and-out until finally the cycle loses energy or another cycle is set up with resistance to another situation.

The other path we can take is to accept what we are feeling right now, allow the reactive emotional energy to flow out of the body naturally, and to investigate what it was that we were reacting against. What was the catalyst? What was the "I don't like .." "I'm afraid of .." "It should be like this ..." "It shouldn't be like this ..." etc. Having allowed this to arise, see what the action is to finalise the drama. So we say something to someone, we don't say something to someone, we let go of an outdated belief or rule, we vow to be more aware next time, we find a way to meet our own needs and fulfil them (because we are not getting what we need externally). And when we have done this - we let go of the whole ordeal - the whole lot. From this very moment, it is finished. We go onto the next moment.

It takes a great deal of honesty with ourselves to take this path. It means pulling right back from the external catalyst and only looking at what is occurring within and why. After awhile, with practice, we need not go through this on a conscious level. It is then the new habit. It occurs spontaneously - we have dealt with the issues / beliefs - they no longer return. We accept whatever comes our way with the feeling of adventure and learning. Every new moment is a moment full of infinite possibilities and challenges. And we can deal with them - with all confidence. For your information, there are various emotional reactions to look for. Things we don't particularly want and resist against:

• boredom: of varying degrees - from plain disinterest to the intense boredom that permeates every part of our life, even bored with being bored. Every activity that we once enjoyed no longer is enjoyed
• fear : may be felt as an unknown source or as projected onto an external situation
• anger: as discussed before
• depression: although we become the depression feeling, we fight being depressed by bodily and emotional resistance. By trying to snap ourselves out of depression also.
• sadness: many people do not feel comfortable sitting with sadness or grief and will do anything to avoid expressing and feeling this emotion within themselves or in others. Have you heard the following statement "Don't be sad ...." The same is for that generic feeling of "unhappiness". We are not happy or joyful but not sad either. "Be happy.." rings in our ears.
• pain: Physical, emotional and psychological pain are resisted by us all. Notice what we do when we feel pain in part our body - do we tense our muscles against the pain to try and stop the pain. We try to avoid it at all costs. Emotional and psychological pain are harder to define but in these cases the pain may be more acute than physical pain.
• guilt: as mentioned before
• shame: as mentioned before
• envy / jealousy : another of the "bad" emotions we feel we should stomp on as soon as it raises it's head.

So we see resistance in this area very clearly. It is something we can work with and let go of. But here we go onto the next layer of resistance. That is the resistance to change / action / growth.

DOUBT

We make the commitment to growth and investigation and yet - it is not all roses and sunshine. Once again, there seems to be a force that is trying to prevent us from moving in a new direction. The resistance to change manifests itself in many different guises.

One is self-doubt. We may have seen that there are certain ways that we operate in the world that need changing. We may have also seen how those ways are creating a negative effect in our life. We are filled with the first glimpses of awareness and resolve to change those ways. We set out full of motivation and set exercises for ourselves to achieve our goal.

Gradually, we start to become lapse in our practice. We see that there is actually more work than we anticipated. Face it, we all want to have that change instantaneously. Unfortunately, the initial stages of change are hard work. The mind will play it's games with us to actually prevent us from making that change. Remember, it wants us to stay in these behaviours and ways. These are known for it.

To change the way we operate in the world can be a very unknown thing for the mind. It's control over us has been supreme and now we want to take control of the reins? The mind says "I don't think so!" Say we are trying to increase our awareness and letting go skills by practising meditation. The mind will not like this overt attack on it's ruler ship of the dominion. We may have some great meditation sessions. The mind will sneak in though and then judge every meditation session. It compares our current meditation with the great meditations of the past. "Not meditating well today.." it starts out. "This is definitely not working". So, from then on, if we don't see the game the mind is playing, we are trapped into replicating the past "good" meditations. Anything else is classified as "this meditation is not working".

The same with all our efforts to change. We may make headway and have some great successes - but it needs us to keep at the practice until this is "the new way of being". In-between, there is the mind. Most people hit a hard spot where nothing seems to be happening. The change is very slow. Everything we do seems to be thrown back into our faces by the mind. Enter stage left the incredibly effective resistance that the mind uses .... Doubt. The mind says to us (usually after a lapse or setback) - this is not working.