Perhaps you have heard the phrase:
What you resist, persists.
When we resist life’s challenges, avoid confrontation and take shortcuts, the underlying problem isn’t resolved. Rather, it persists and eventually returns, perhaps disguised a bit differently. Resisting or avoiding keeps us from living into this message: The only way out is through.
During my training as a life coach, we explored resistance since this keeps people from growing into and expressing the life they want to live. This very helpful visual came with the discussion.Imagine every external point of resistance in life:
- not feeling that emotion because it’s too upsetting
- not facing our part of the problem and being unwilling to change
- refusing to learn that difficult skill
becoming a blob of gunk in our physical body. Each time we resist, another piece of garbage is added to the dump inside. Eventually, there is no room for the life inside us to move around. Our organs are compressed, blood vessels pinched, the life-giving breath — impossible.
In a very real way, our energetic bodies ARE blocked by the resistance we experience in our lives. Each time we refuse growth, we manifest energetic blockage within making it much more difficult to flow with life on life’s terms.
What have you resisted?
Where are you blocked?
With your awareness focused on just one blockage:
Imagine what the blockage looks and feels like. How big is it? What color is it? How dense is it? Now, breathe into the blockage. Imagine the breath moving through it, the blockage dissipating. Continue breathing, ever deeper as the blockage no longer prevents the flow.
Breathing is a very helpful practice when we are tempted to resist something in real time. Next time resistance strikes and before it takes hold and becomes lodged in your energetic body, stop. Take a slow, deep breath. Ah…