Hmmm Carl Jung knew a thing or two about many things including resistance.
Do you know resistance? Maybe it comes up for you as it does for me, especially when I go to do anything that is remotely labelled “self -care.”
Really do you’ve time to be doing this?
I’ll tackle this ironing/ these emails/ this phone call/ anything else to delay me……
Maybe you could add in a few more here!
The thing is we all experience resistance in some form or another, and when it appears we generally listen to it or it takes supreme effort to get out for that walk, put the biscuit down or sit down to meditate.
Mindfulness invites us to try a different approach. Instead of fighting against the resistance (which according to a slightly famous film, is futile) we acknowledge it’s presence and then adapt our behaviour.
How? Well the next time you notice that you are resistant to doing something that’s essentially good for you instead of trying to force yourself to push through it, try this approach:
1) Acknowledge / accept it’s there. Rather than trying to cajole, bargain or convince your mind that you should do whatever you’re meant to do, put your hand on your hear and say to yourself “a part of me is resistant to this” It’s only a pary and not all of you so don’t make it bigger than it is.
2) Then ask yourself, “whats feels comfortable for me to do right now”. It might be to put on your coat instead of walking around the block or it might be to meditate for 1 minute instead of 20, and then you never know once you have the coat on you might open the door and take a step outside and sure once you’ve done a minute meditation you might as well go for another, and so on.
This is working with your resistance instead of against it and it interupts the negative cycle of knowing that you “should” go to the gym, then feeling guilty and awful about yourself when you don’t!
