Overcoming Resistance to Achieve Your Dreams

Life is all about attraction and resistance. We experience what we attract through our vibration, and we repel that which we resist.
The only thing that stands between where we are now and where we desire to be is resistance.

That’s what Bob Doyle says in his book Wealth Beyond Reason . Once you really understand that, you understand how important it is to recognize your own resistance and move through it. That’s why I think learning about resistance and overcoming resistance is one very important Next Action step on the path to your dreams.

There are five components of resistance that I want to focus on right now.

1. What is Resistance?
2. The Causes of Resistance
3. How Resistance Shows up
4. The Consequences of allowing resistance to win
5. How to move through resistance into action or acceptance

What is Resistance?

For now I will define resistance as anything you do with your thoughts, words, feelings, actions or vibration that holds you away from what it is that you want. More important than the definition of resistance is knowing how to identify it when it shows up. You can tell you are experiencing resistance by how you feel. According to Abraham :

Negative emotion is your indicator of resistance, while positive emotion is your indicator of allowance.

Causes of Resistance

1. Limiting Beliefs
2. Fear
3. Old Habits and Patterns
4. Ignorance
5. Relationships

a. Other people’s expectation
b. Desire for relationships to remain unchanged
c. Fear of losing relationships

How Resistance Shows Up in Your Life

1. Procrastination
2. Inertia
3. Self-Sabotage
4. Not Following through
5. Boredom

Resistance is a part of life. So don’t beat yourself up when you feel it. It is something that everyone goes through. Steven Pressfield says in the War of Art that resistance is universal:

We’re wrong if we think we’re the only ones struggling with Resistance. Everyone who has a body experiences resistance.

So don’t beat yourself up and don’t fall into the common traps that Barbara Sher refers to in her book “Live the Life you Love”. She describes several disguise, which I prefer to think of as traps that we fall into when we don’t immediately and automatically act in the direction of our dreams. Too we think either we’re just lazy or we don’t want it badly enough. Here’s what Sher has to say on those two topics:

Disguise 2 – You’re probably just lazy

Most of us have been taught to think that when we avoid doing what we should it’s because we’re lazy. Of course, there is no such thing as laziness. It does not exist. If you were in the mood for a hot fudge sundae on a rainy night, you’d probably find all the energy you needed. A truly lazy person would be lazy all the time, so you’re only feeling selectively, don’t pass the lazy test. It’s got to be something else.

Disguise 3 : Maybe you don’t really want it badly enough

…If you really wanted to do something badly enough you’d be doing, it, right?

Wrong.

Sometimes, the very fact that you want to achieve your goal so much is what’s making you not pursuit it. Your most important desires can be so loaded with hidden undercurrents that the whole survival side of you simply refuses to let you go near them. Getting high marks in school, becoming the best athlete, going wholeheartedly after anything you know would make you happy might dredge up buried emotions and inner conflicts that your survival mechanism want no part of. Resistance knows that even when you don’t.

The Consequences of not overcoming resistance and allowing it to win

The most obvious outcome of not overcoming resistance is that we don’t get to live the life of our dreams. We don’t accomplish what we know we can. We don’t live with passion and excellence. Our interest in life wanes and we find our selves falling prey to mindless television, video games. We may drink or overeat. All of this can have a devastating effect on our self-esteem.

Not overcoming resistance affects more than just ourselves, though. If we don’t contribute our own unique excellence to life on this planet, who will? What is the world missing out on, because you are holding yourself back?

We’re also letting down the people around us by not being the model of excellence that we can be. That may mean that you’re showing the children in your life that it’s ok to live a mediocre life. Or that they have don’t have the right to live the life of their dreams. But it also means something to everyone around us. As Marianne Williamson says in the famous quote from her book Return to Love:

We were born to make and manifest the glory of god that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

How to Overcome Resistance and Move into Acceptance and/or Action

We are so blessed today to live in the information age. Most of the answers we seek are readily available to us thanks to the internet. Many people have delved into the issue of resistance and found solutions. One of those solutions may work for you.

Resistance is actually blocks within our energy field and our subconscious mind. They manifest in our physical world through pains or illness in our bodies or the appearance of lack in our physical environments. Therefore we can begin to clear those blockages from either point of entry.

We can begin to work with our energy field with techniques like EFT which is short for Emotional Freedom Technique . The creator of EFT – Gary Craig, offers a free workbook so that you can begin the process of emotional clearing on your own today.

We can also work on resistance by working with the Subconscious Mind. One great technique for working with the subconscious mind is the ZPoint Process for personal happiness. The creator Grant Connolly also provides free resources to begin using the process now.

Your Next Action

I invite you to look at where resistance is holding you away from your dreams. Then explore one of the free resources above to address it that resistance and over come it.

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