Resistance Revisited
Back in January of 2005, The Grasshopper offered me this nip of nectar:
“The degree to which you suffer is proportionate to your resistance.”
Where does that resistance reside? In your mind, of course.
You may have heard the Carl Jung bon mot: “What you resist persists” but the locale of that persistence is never identified. It’s in our mind. We will suffer as long as it stays there. We will play out our scripted resistance with the same persistence and get the same result.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get the resistance to stop and have the associated pain go away? It’s a noble goal and not likely for most people. It would be great to be able to go with the flow and accept whatever comes our way and enjoy the freedom from stress that it would bring. But that ain’t happening for most.
Most of us will resist until our dying day unless . . .
Let me come back to that in just a moment. First let me tell you a story . . .
It’s the tale of a man with “shifty eyes.” About 23 years ago, I brought Harvey Diamond, co-author of the book FIT FOR LIFE, in for a seminar. Harvey’s seminar was wonderful. His book was at the top of the best seller list, he had been on all the major TV shows, including Oprah. Early in his climb to international fame, I happened to interview him on the radio and we had an instant rapport and a common goal – helping people Lose Weight and Keep it Off. Then he agreed, as a favor to me, to come to town for a one night seminar. I had to put it together quickly because he only had one date in the very near future to do it. I purchased ads on the radio station I worked at and did live commercials for about a week prior to this event. On the air, I mentioned how excited I was to bring Harvey to town to share his message and how I had arranged the seminar. I also told the people due to the short time window we would only be able to accept cash at the door. There was no time to set up a credit card account or joint checking with signed signature cards and I disclosed all of that.
There is an FCC rule that you must have a disclosure phrase, usually at the end of the commercial that says something like this: “Announcers are compensated for their testimonials and appearances.” It’s a formal statement. It wasn’t in the commercials I did. I said all the requisite things but they were done conversationally within the commercial and never in one formal statement – an unwitting error on my part.
Fast forward to the night of the seminar . . . hundreds of people show up and so do the TV stations. I was very excited that things turned out so well. One of the TV reporters came up to me and asked for an interview. I readily accepted. Little did I know they had an agenda. They thought there was something underhanded about the evening because we would only accept cash. I explained why we did that. Then she wanted to know why I didn’t disclose that I was being compensated for the event. I was confused. I said that I said that on the air many times but she harped on the fact that it wasn’t officially disclosed and did I have something to hide. I felt like a criminal.
Later that night I watched a tape of the TV interview and did I look bad. My eyes were shifting side to side as I was searching for answers to her questions that were now turning in to barbs. I was searching for answers inside my head. A little NLP primer may be helpful. When your eyes go up, you are accessing pictures, when they go lateral, you are into sounds and when they go down and right, you are into your feelings – your body. Never did my eyes move off of lateral which is a prime indicator of someone who mainly processes their world through sound.
I never checked in with my body for an answer and consequently gave a pretty incongruent interview. As a viewer, I wouldn’t have believed me if I didn’t know the facts. I stewed in my head for quite awhile.
The good news is I got over it.
So now let’s go back to my point. How do you get resistance to go away?
You get it out of your head and into your body. Your head only has one solution for resistance – persistence which keeps it in place. Your body has more room to process the resistance and neutralize it. How do you get the resistance from your head into your body? First, notice that there are feelings attached to this resistance. They exist in your body. You won’t know they are there unless you access them. One quick way is to take your eyes down and to the right and notice the feelings. More importantly, let them be. Do not chase them away. That’s more resistance. Your body has the capacity and the innate knowledge to know how to make them flow through.
If you would like to learn more about how to have your body tend to your feelings, get yourself to one of Jerry Stocking‘s courses. He is an absolute wizard in helping people discover their bodies and the magic they perform.
Here’s a homework assignment for the weekend. Find something you are resisting in your head and find out what it feels like in your body. Then let your body handle the feeling without any interference from your logical self. It’s a magic way for resistance to melt and fade away.
All the best,
John
http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan
http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301
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