On resistance, softness, and the space that allows things to move.
The Resistance to Resistance
Today my physical practice flowed, but the writing part, not so much. I’m sitting here listening to all my thoughts narrating what to write or not to write.
This is part of a process that my mind cycles through periodically. Resistance. But what’s more powerful even than the resistance, is the resistance to the resistance that forms instantly the moment the initial resistance is detected.
There’s the first no, the contraction, the part that doesn’t want to go there. And then almost immediately comes another layer that wants to know why.
Why am I resisting? How do I get through this? How do I make myself move? Suddenly the original resistance has company.
The Barbed Wire Fence
Resistance to our inner resistance is a double barrier of unconscious protection. It feels spiky like a barbed wire fence, dangerous. But wire cutters won’t take down this fence, only softness does. Getting malleable enough to let it run through, run its course.
And like any powerful emotion does, it will eventually pass.
The instinct can be to reach immediately for the wire cutters. To solve, push, analyze, get to the other side. But perhaps the fence isn’t actually asking to be taken down. Perhaps the invitation is to soften enough around it that we no longer need to fight our way through.
To let resistance be resistance without building another resistance around it.
Greater Clarity
We know that while deep in a heated argument, it’s not the best and most productive time to try to figure it all out.
When we feel resistance of some kind, it’s not always the best time to “fix” it or figure it out. Sometimes the most productive thing we can do is nothing. Back off, chill out, give it some space and let the storm move through while waiting for the clearer skies. Space guarantees greater clarity.
Which is difficult when doing nothing feels suspiciously like doing something wrong. We’ve become so accustomed to action as the evidence of progress that simply allowing something to move through us can feel almost irresponsible.
Dressed Up Productivity
What I’m noticing more and more is how much energy gets spent fighting the fight itself. I could sit here and try to “figure out” why I don’t want to write. Analyze it, therapize it, build a whole narrative about blocks and inner critics.
But that’s just the resistance to the resistance again, dressed up as productivity. Still gripping, still trying to force the fence down instead of letting it be wire for a minute.
Softness might actually be the harder skill. Anyone can push. Pushing is easy, and pushing feels like progress even when it’s not. But going slack on purpose while your whole system is asking you to grip tighter takes something else entirely. Something closer to trust than effort.
Maybe the practice is learning to recognize the difference. To know when effort is asking us to move toward something, and when effort itself has become another layer of resistance.
Letting It Cycle
So today I’m doing the unglamorous thing. Not forcing the words, not abandoning them either, just letting this page hold some half-formed sentences while I go do something else for twenty minutes.
Make tea, stare at the dogs being dogs, admire my cacao plants, go out into the jungle and let the mind do its cycling in the background like a washing machine nobody’s watching- trusting it’ll finish its spin without me standing guard over it.
Not-Knowing
Maybe the practice is not to never meet another barbed wire fence, but to notice when one appears and not immediately build another fence around it.
To get soft. Malleable.
To put the wire cutters down for a moment and feel what happens when the fence is allowed to just be a fence. When nothing needs to be figured out or transformed or made into something more beautiful than what it is.
And maybe that means letting this writing be exactly where it is too, without needing to force it somewhere it doesn’t naturally want to go.
I don’t know how this post ends yet, and that’s fine. Maybe the not-knowing is the whole point today – proof that I let something run its course instead of muscling it into a tidy shape before it was ready.
I love you,
Meghan xx