What we resist, persists

The title of this blog is a quote from Sonia Johnson. I haven't been able to find the context for this quote so I'd be interested to hear from anyone who knows but for now I am interested in exploring what I, and you, make it mean.

I'm going to leave what you make it mean up to you - though, of course, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

What do I make it mean? To me, it works at two levels -consciously and unconsciously (or subconsciously, I'm never quite sure of the difference).

At a conscious level we know that there are things that we avoid, procrastinate about or simply aren't comfortable with and so ignore, or resist, in the hope that they will go away. Do they? Probably not is I think the answer. No matter how good most of us are at developing strategies that often convince even ourselves that they have, or they don't matter, aren't important.

At an unconscious level much more is going on. There are things that we are so uncomfortable with, so afraid of that we work really really hard to make sure they don't even make it as far as the conscious. Does this matter? Well, possibly not. Or possibly yes. We are working really really hard to do this. That means we are spending a lot of our energy, albeit not consciously, to keep the world looking a certain way. Why do we do this? Probably some deep rooted survival mechanism that is trying to protect us, to keep us safe. Unfortunately, I believe that however well intentioned this might be it is misguided. Like so much of life, it is the thought of things that is usually so much worse than the reality.

And don't forget the key word - persists. Whatever it is it doesn't go away. And I'm not about to tell you that I can wave my magic wand (as beautiful as it is) and make it go away. It might. Or it might not. What we can do (with or without the wand) is stop resisting it. It takes much less effort and energy to be with it and you might be surprise by what happens. Perhaps it isn't as scary as you imagined. Perhaps it's just as scary and you are ok with that. Just a little less tired from using all that energy resisting it.

So, what does it mean to you? I'd like to invite you to take a quiet moment today, have a look around inside yourself and see where you are working hard and using your energy to keep something away. And then I'd like to invite you to be with it for a while and notice if anything changes.

And I'd love to hear from you.
Lesley x