Resilience

The only thing making me write this blog right now is stubbornness. You see, I made a commitment at the beginning of 2020 to a year of Radical Resilience. Not just to be committed to doing the things I say I want to do, or to enduring whatever comes, but to do both of those things with a vengeance. Now, resilience is a grand and lofty word. It actually pretties up what is really going on. I liked the sound of it as my New Year’s resolution. But what I actually need is stubbornness. Gritty, dug in, mean and ornery, in it ‘til the wheels fall off. On January 1st, I said I would publish a weekly blog every Tuesday, and stubbornness is the only thing that has got me sitting at the laptop right now. Resilience feels quite exalted, but stubbornness is the only real weapon I have in the face of a relentless enemy - resistance. Each Wednesday I feel the tide of resistance slowly rising within. It takes many forms. Resistance says I have nothing original to say. And whatever I do have to say won’t be any good. Resistance stokes fear that I’ll say the wrong thing and make a mistake. Resistance comes disguised as procrastination or timidity. Sometimes it is dressed wearing the Sunday hat of perfectionism. Resistance is the lifeblood of my nemesis CeCe – my alter ego who is constantly Criticizing, Complaining and Condemning. Resistance is invisible, but it can definitely be felt. According to author Steven Pressfield, in his powerful book, Do the Work, resistance is not just out to stop me. Make no mistake, it is out to kill me, to destroy my spirit and ground my vision to ash. So here it is Monday, and although numerous topics have floated across my consciousness all week, by today they all felt wrong. Fraudulent. Empty. But as a spiritual being inherently connected to the bottomless well spring of creative Source Energy, I know that is not true. So I took a long hot bath, then crawled into bed and asked the muses to visit. And what they said was, “Talk about this and speak from the heart.” Resistance is real, people, and it will attack any endeavor aiming for growth and integrity. It is not your imagination, nor are you unworthy of success. Whether we are writing a book, launching a project, running a business, making client calls, leading a group, maintaining an fitness program, overcoming an addiction - doing anything that is part of raising our emotional, mental, physical or spiritual consciousness from a lower to a higher plane - resistance is waiting to snatch it all away and claim the victory. But not today. Every week I want this blog to impart something I have learned and experienced as true. I want to communicate something I know, not just think or believe. Something that will uplift, reassure, enhance, inform, maybe even confront and provide rescue from all of the forces assailed against our higher nature. While we are sheltering in place from a pandemic out to sicken as many of us as it can, and while we are trying to keep our livelihoods going by working from home in ways many of us have not done before, resistance has a new stomping ground, new ways to frighten and paralyze us that seem perfectly justified. But we have many tools at our disposal to practice resilience, to keep moving forward. We can start by acknowledging that resistance is real and relentless, because identifying a problem is more than half the battle. Suggested reading by Steven Pressfield:

• The War of Art

• Do the Work

• The Warrior Ethos