Resistance.
Did I overcome resistance today? is a sentence that I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. After I read about it in The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, it’s on my mind. It’s a concept I’ve cozied up to and made my companion. I just can’t shake it. It’s a lot like that popular saying that if you tell someone to not look at the elephant in the room, that’s all they will be able to see after that. I didn’t realize just how much Resistance had taken over my life. And so, following another popular saying, I’m keeping my friends close and this particular enemy closer.
I didn’t understand Resistance for a long time. I thought it was simply fear. But it’s not. Where fear is bold and jazz-hands in your face, Resistance is dark and slinks around in the background. And I believed I had conquered fear. I remember a moment in time when I transformed my attitude about fear. I had a conversation with myself and said, “if that’s what you’re afraid of, then that’s what you need to do.” And it wasn’t about bungee jumping or anything like that. It was related to going beyond what I know, what others could do to me and trusting all would be ok. I started applying that way of thinking whenever I was faced with a challenge and I would slowly overcome it. I was proud of myself. I was evolving. Good for me. I didn’t hestitate to open bills that came in the mail or have a conversation that needed to happen—I knew that I was in control and I wasn’t going to let anyone hold any power over me. “I will figure it out,” I said. “I can do it!”
Imagine my surprise when this same confident attitude (“I face FEAR! HA!”) didn’t transform my creative process and make me a successful writer and artist. I didn’t fear writing. I loved writing. And yet, I couldn’t get myself to sit down and actually do it. I daydreamed the next great American novel. I read writing books. I did my morning pages as prescribed by The Artist Way. When I was told that I might have a fear of success, I added winning accolades to my daydreams just so I could get used to the feeling and not fear it. And I still couldn’t write a story. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that I still couldn’t make the decision to sit down, put pen to paper or fingertips to computer keyboard, and start writing a story.
I would do anything else but sit down with the intention to write: clean, cook, go for walks, and binge watch everything and anything I could stream. Always in the back of my mind, I could feel a pressure there. An entity just sitting there with all the weight of the elephant in the room preventing me from being present in whatever I was doing instead of writing. This entity would insinuate itself into everything I was doing and take away from my enjoyment. It would whisper horrible little things to make me feel bad about myself. Attempts to ignore it just fed it and made it grow. Resistance became like a tumor that depleted my energy and threatened my creative life and had to be cut out.
I wrote the words Pressfield gave me on a notecard and tacked it to my bulletin board. I felt bad about myself for days afterwards because I would go to bed and know that Resistance overcame me instead. It was torture to be home after work just trying to enjoy my evening because I could feel Resistance watching me and mocking me. I always felt like a failure. Some days I would come home from work and force myself to sit down immediately at my desk before doing anything else, “just write for 10 minutes and then you’ll be free of Resistance’s weight for a little while,” I would bargain with myself. There were times I questioned my dream of being a writer. “If I want it so much why the heck don’t I want to actually do it?” It made no sense to me and yet the deep down gut-knowing of “I am a writer” wouldn’t go away. A knowing that was validated every time I finished a writing session with a bouyant sense of accomplishment. There is nothing like that feeling of “I did it” when it’s aligned with your higher self’s purpose.
4-1/2 months passed in this turbulent to and fro’ing way. The lows of fighting against the riptide of Resistance balanced against the highs of riding the waves of creative inspiration. Little revelations came to me along the way. I realized that I thwart myself when I think too far down the line. If I went through the entire thought process of I need to sit down, I need to figure out what to write, then I need to see how it will fit with what goes next, and so on, I would stymie my creative process before it even began and Resistance would gladly take the reins. I also began to recognize more quickly when I was giving Resistance all the power. I would see more readily how I was rationalizing why it was ok to not be writing right now and then just nip it in the bud and make myself sit down and write. And then there were the times I got one step ahead of Resistance and said to myself, you know you’ll just feel better writing first because then you’ll actually be able to enjoy what you’re doing afterwards without it’s weight on you. But perhaps the most amazing change that started happening—I started to actually be excited to sit down and write. That was surprising! I really started to believe I could write a book because I was showing myself in real time that I could do it, a few pages at a time.
Resistance with a capital R still lives inside my mind though it’s not as powerful as it was before—finishing a first draft was incredibly healing. I know I will tango with this living, breathing beast again and again and that doesn’t scare me. I’m thrilled to finally have accepted the invitation to be at the dance and am ready to strutt my stuff.
