Combatting What Steven Pressfield Calls Resistance
Resistance is a force that presents itself as multiple obstacles on a given path.
One of the most poignant books I’ve read (listened to) is Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. In it, the author goes through the pitfalls of the creative process – and the ongoing battle to produce your work. I relisten to this book at least once a year, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
The main issue is what he calls “Resistance”. Resistance is a force that stands against your work to be your best self. It frequently manifests as procrastination, excuses, indecision, and anything and everything that keeps you from doing your work.
Pressfield talks about this in the face of artistic creativity, entrepreneurship, or any other effort to pursue what Paulo Coelho calls your “personal legend.” It’s that certain something you feel in your bones, in the depths of your soul, that is your calling.
But can you/will you pursue it?
To quote Pressfield directly,
“Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. … If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.”
Having just finished listening to the book once more, I took away something that should have been obvious to me before – but wasn’t.
Resistance is why I don’t always get my 1500 words of fiction written every day.
More than that, Resistance is where my self-sabotage comes from.
I feel like this is where I’m face-palming and going, “D’oh! Why didn’t I see it before?”
This has altered my perspective in a generative way.
Make ready for combat
I’ve been practicing medieval fencing for over 30 years. Thus, combat – one-on-one and group/melee – is a familiar concept for me.
Personifying my procrastination, self-sabotage, and obstacles as Resistance creates an opponent I can face. It’s no longer the nameless, faceless whatthefuck I’ve been looking at all these years. Resistance is a force to be reckoned with.
Combat with Resistance is not one battle only. It’s a war, as Pressfield says, and requires you to take both a strategic and tactical mindset to combat it in the many forms it will present.
Once more, to quote Pressfield,
“We can never eliminate Resistance. It will never go away. But we can outsmart it, and we can enlist allies that are as powerful as it is.”
Like other struggles with mental health – and this is one, to be sure – it’s a constant, ongoing process. The enemy – Resistance – will present different forces at different times. But if you’re ready for combat – you’re more prepared for the fight to come.
Personifying my battles as Resistance has empowered me. Why? Because instead of a thing with no name that gets in my way – I can identify it. If I can identify it – now I can see it more clearly and fight it appropriately.
By making ready for combat, I’m taking a new stance. It’s a lot harder to be a victim of circumstance when you recognize what’s happening and open yourself to facing it.
Resistance named disempowers it
While it makes me very sad that JK Rowling has proven to be a TERF, her Harry Potter books are amazing on many levels. And from them, I have an example to share.
Dumbledore always names Voldemort. Why? Because naming him disempowers him. “He who should not be named” is a very empowering, fear-evoking statement. But name him, and the implied fear can’t be. Dumbledore even goes one step further to disempower the villain – using his given name over his chosen name.
I’ve been seeking something that’s been in my way, interfering with elements of who, what, where, how, and why I desire to be – for a while. In the process of trying to name it, I found the impression of an unnamed emotion manifested as unworthiness, shame, resentment, and discontent.
I hoped to find maybe a German word to cover this. But I didn’t. Yet, on closer examination, I can name it.
It’s Resistance.
The first step in beating Resistance is to disempower it. That requires taking action against Resistance.
To quote The War of Art,
“Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.”
It’s easy to procrastinate, allow fear of success and failure, and other manifestations of Resistance to keep me from writing my fiction. When it’s an unnamed, unknown enemy I’m facing – it’s been empowered to get in my way.
But calling it Resistance shapes and solidifies it before me. Tricky bugger, hiding in the shadows of my mind. There you are.
Let’s dance, shall we?
Be who you know you are
Resistance is a product of the ego. The ego, as I envision it, is a construct between your subconscious and conscious self that you project to the world at large – but also reflect back to yourself.
The ego was created during a time when you were consciously aware and tapped into your subconscious self. From that connection, you formed the construct of the self you perceive based on the values and beliefs that you held whenever that connection was bridged.
Often, the ego gets formed around beliefs and values that change and cease to be who, what, where, how, and why you are, now. During mindfulness practices – and active conscious awareness – you can see this for what it is.
Thus, you can see if you are being who you truly are.
Again, from The War of Art,
“Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”
Resistance, based on your egoic construct, likes you just the way you are. But if you’re not being who you are, then that’s what you’re facing to change.
To be who you are requires fighting Resistance. You’ve done it before – even if you didn’t call it this. As such – you can do it again.
Punch Resistance in the face
One of the most recognizable elements of Resistance is fear.
Again, from The War of Art,
“Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance.”
The most important thing to remember here, however, is that fear never truly goes away. You can keep it at bay, you can lessen it, you can even send it away for a time. But it will always be there.
Why? Because fear is hard-wired into humanity. However, what once protected you and me from danger like predators in the wild has evolved – but not in a way that helps us. Instead, fear has evolved from mostly tangibles to intangibles.
Rather than protecting you by causing you to escape certain death from a beast intent on preying on you, fear tends to protect you from potential suffering – that might not ever occur.
Because it’s hardwired into the human genome, we will always have fear. And it’s not always obvious the cause or precise why of the fear you experience. But when you personify it as Resistance – you can more easily prepare for combat and take it on.
One last quote from The War of Art,
“Fear doesn’t go away. The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.”
When you see fear, procrastination, and other intangibles as Resistance – you see your opponent clearly. Now, you become empowered to combat this opponent – and take your life in all directions you desire it to go.
Remember – you’re worthy and deserving of being who you know you can/should be/are. Resistance might win the occasional fight – but the war can be won by you.
Do you recognize Resistance and how combatting it empowers you?
PS – Thank you, Steven Pressfield, for your amazing work.
This is the five hundred and ninety-ninth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
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