Working with Resistance

Resistance is the invisible force that keeps us stuck. We know what would help us grow, yet we don't do it. We see our patterns clearly, yet they persist. We want to change, yet we remain the same. Understanding resistance is essential to real transformation.

What Is Resistance?

Resistance is the psyche's defense against change—even positive change. It manifests as the voice that says "not now," the body that won't move, the mind that forgets, the emotions that rebel.

Forms of Resistance

Resistance wears many disguises:

Mental Resistance:

• "I already know this"
• "This won't work for me"
• "It's too simple / too complicated"
• Endless analysis without action
• Distraction and forgetting

Emotional Resistance:

• Sudden overwhelm or numbness
• Unexplained anger or irritation
• Anxiety about the process
• Feeling like "something is wrong"

Physical Resistance:

• Fatigue when facing growth work
• Restlessness during meditation
• Sudden urgent needs to do something else
• Physical symptoms with no clear cause

Behavioral Resistance:

• Procrastination
• Self-sabotage
• Creating crises that demand attention
• Filling time with busyness

Why We Resist

Understanding why we resist helps us work with it more skillfully.

Protection of the Known

The ego's job is survival, and it equates the known with safety. Even if our current patterns cause suffering, they're familiar. Change means entering unknown territory.

Fear of What's Underneath

Many of our patterns developed to protect us from overwhelming feelings. Changing the pattern means potentially encountering what it was defending against.

Identity Threat

Our patterns become part of who we think we are. Changing them feels like dying—the old self must dissolve for the new to emerge.

Secondary Gains

Often our suffering comes with hidden benefits:

• Staying small keeps us safe from failure
• Being a victim gets us sympathy
• Self-sabotage confirms our negative self-image
• Problems give us something to focus on besides deeper issues

Fear of Success

Sometimes we fear our own power more than our limitations. Stepping into our full potential brings new responsibilities and challenges.

Signs You're in Resistance

Learning to recognize resistance is the first step in working with it:

• You feel you "should" do something but don't
• You keep forgetting your commitments to yourself
• You feel inexplicably tired or busy when growth work arises
• You react with unusual intensity to suggestions for change
• You argue against the very things you asked for help with
• You feel bored, skeptical, or "above" the work
• You create emergencies that prevent you from showing up

Working with Resistance

Don't Fight It

Fighting resistance creates more resistance. What we resist persists. The first principle is to stop opposing the resistance.

Instead of: "I should meditate but I don't want to" Try: "I'm experiencing resistance to meditation"

This small shift moves you from being in resistance to observing it.

Get Curious

Resistance contains information. Rather than trying to overcome it, get interested in it:

• Where do you feel the resistance in your body?
• What does the resistance want to protect you from?
• What does the resistant part believe will happen if you change?
• How old does this resistance feel?

Honor Its Wisdom

Resistance often has good reasons, even if they're outdated. It developed to protect you, probably at a time when that protection was needed.

Acknowledge: "Thank you for trying to keep me safe. I understand why you're here."

This paradoxically often softens resistance more than fighting ever could.

Take Small Steps

Resistance often arises because we're trying to do too much. Instead of meditating for an hour, commit to one minute. Instead of completely changing a pattern, notice it once.

Small steps don't trigger the same alarm bells. Over time, they add up to big change.

Use the Resistance as Practice

Whatever you're resisting becomes your teacher:

• Resistance to meditation? Make resistance the object of meditation
• Resistance to feeling? Feel the resistance itself
• Resistance to change? Study change-resistance as a pattern

Work with the Body

Resistance lives in the body as much as the mind. Physical approaches can help:

• Move the body (walk, shake, dance)
• Breathe deeply into areas of tension
• Apply warmth or cold
• Lie down and just be with the sensations

Don't Believe All Your Thoughts

The resistant mind generates convincing reasons not to change. Learn to hear these thoughts without believing them automatically:

• "I'm too tired" — maybe, or maybe that's resistance
• "It's not the right time" — when would be?
• "I need to understand more first" — do you?
• "This isn't working" — give it more time

Find Support

Resistance is stronger in isolation. Working with others—whether a group, teacher, or therapist—helps us see and move through what we can't tackle alone.

When Resistance Has a Message

Sometimes resistance is genuinely pointing to something important:

• The approach really isn't right for you
• You're moving too fast and need to integrate
• There's something you need to address first
• Your body needs rest, not pushing

Developing discernment about when to respect resistance and when to move through it is itself part of the path.

Questions for Discernment

• Does this resistance feel like protection or like wisdom?
• Have I felt this resistance before in similar situations?
• If I trusted my deepest knowing, what would I do?
• Am I genuinely not ready, or just uncomfortable?

Resistance and Transformation

Here's the paradox: working skillfully with resistance accelerates transformation more than overcoming it ever could.

When we:

• Stop fighting resistance
• Get curious about it
• Honor its protective intent
• Take small steps
• Work with the body
• Seek support

...resistance often dissolves on its own, revealing not an obstacle but a doorway.

"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek."

The very thing that seems to block our path IS the path, when met with awareness and compassion.

Continue with The Observer Within to develop the witnessing capacity that makes working with resistance possible.