Saturday, November 16, 2013

Navigating, sometimes clumsily, through resistance...

 It's a quiet and peaceful Saturday morning here in Tennessee.  I'm sipping tea outside as the sun slips up over the mountain and warms the air a bit.  It's a chilly 44 degrees as I sit here "pondering my thoughts," as my 14 year old son would say.  Being that the high for the last couple of days has been in the low 40's, and that it's supposed to be 66 degrees today, I'll take the morning chill.

It's been an interesting week full of navigation through resistance, sprinkled with a little avoidance and self-distraction and a dash of eating for protection.  I've been in the discomfort of just outside of my comfort zone and working through changing my pattern of hiding, which I wrote about here.  For me, resistance is pushing against something, a thought, an intention, a desire, and it comes in many forms.  I also believe that, even though sometimes subconscious in nature, choosing resistance is choosing suffering.  This is the land in which I have been stumbling through this week.

Last weekend I made the trip from Tennessee to North Carolina to visit my family, returning home on Sunday. I was feeling tired from all of the driving in three days and the car trouble on the way home but I was also inspired as I was crafting a post in my head about the symbolism of my journey and the drive there, as well as one on my most recent painting.  I'm in a place of "finding a way" no matter what but I had to listen to my body as I was tired from all the driving in three days and from the car trouble on the way home.

Sunday off was justifiable but I woke up Monday unable to feel the full desire of the posts I wanted to write and the art I wanted to get back to.  Resistance.  And as I mentioned already, that comes with avoidance, distraction, and a bit of eating for protection.  Luckily I catch myself avoiding my artwork and I forced myself to stand at my take and create.  "Forced" seems like a strong word because it wasn't like I was making myself do something I didn't want to do, I wanted to be creative, I needed to be creative.  Yet I was coming up against a wall, finding myself keeping myself from that which I love out of some old outdated pattern of fear and shrinking into the shadows.

So, what did I do?  I talked myself through it.  I reminded myself of where I am at and my intentions to continue to step forward and, "find a way."  I stood at my art table, I touched the supplies that I am currently creating with, allowing their energy to flow through me.  I did some work and then, I walked away.  Little bits of work mixed with avoidance and distraction.  That's what this week has been like.

It wasn't just the artwork that I avoided, it was the writing as well. Monday I wanted to write a blog post about my latest painting, "She knelt in the strength of surrender," to participate in "Sunday Swoon" which Effy Wild hosts on her blog at effywild.com.  It's a great community as well as a great way to share what you are excited about for the week and see what others are celebrating as well.  So the dulled desire was there to write and post and share but, instead, I busied myself with other things.  Tuesday brought more of the same with an added side of finding myself frustrated with the behavior of others.  I knew the reflective surface of my life was trying to show me something.  As I kept asking myself why I was frustrated with the insignificant behavior of others and what it really was pointing to I realized that their behavior was avoidance in nature and it was showing me my own avoidance, which was the real reason I was frustrated.  The frustration was also due to the fact that I wasn't just avoiding, I was resisting what it was I really wanted to do, resisting what I knew was in the interest of my Highest Good.  \

When I am in resistance to, instead of alignment with, and flowing with the call of my Soul and my Highest Good, the result is almost always frustration.  Talking myself through it helped somewhat but what really helped was, as Steven Pressfield says, "putting my ass where my heart wanted to be."  I sat down at my computer Wednesday and typed up the post.  Honestly, it felt forced and it didn't flow well in my opinion.  I thought about starting over.  I thought about forgetting it all together.  "Find a way Tia," I heard in my head.  I couldn't not post it.  I'm not sure where the quote originated from but I am sure of the truth it holds, "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten."  I had to do something different and break another piece of the pattern off, even if it was uncomfortable and part of me was trying to find a way out.  So, without any editing I just clicked the "publish" button.  Just in time too because the internet went down after that and I couldn't get online for the rest of the day.  And while it is one of my favorite paintings, it is not one of my favorite posts.  But that's okay because I did it and, in this place of discomfort outside of my comfort zone, that is what counts.

The energy of that choice helped the avoidance of my creativity break last night.  Like I said, I did little bits of work here and there but nothing significant.  But last night I worked away on a project and suddenly it was 10:30 at night and I wondered where the time had gone.  I love when that happens.  I love getting lost in the creative process, the excitement and joy over what I am creating, it's an amazing place to be.  I stayed with the energy of it and posted a couple of pictures of what I've been working on over the past week and a half, which you can see to the left.  Again, I managed to stumble and step through the resistance.

Resistance can show up in the form of eating for protection as well.  Even eating to stuff emotions.  Oftentimes when I am uncomfortable I, most of the time subconsciously, reach for something familiar and, in my mind, a.k.a. comfortable.  No matter what the familiarity is, even if it doesn't serve us, even if it is not healthy, there is this false sense of comfort, a pseudo comfort if you will, that comes with that which is familiar to us.  Things are changing, steps are being taken, resistance is being broken off in little pieces, I'm reminding myself to blaze my own trail and find a way no matter what.  With all of this going on there is a part of me that, because of the discomfort, feels unsafe and unsure about things right now.  Enter food as comfort and protection.  Not a lot of food, just slightly more than I am comfortable with.

It's funny because I wrote this in my journal first but as I just typed the last line a new thought popped into my head.  The stomach deals with digestion and mirrors our ability to digest ideas and situations in our life.  Perhaps my eating just a little more than I'm comfortable with mirrors that somewhere deep inside I believe I am overloading myself with change.  Some small part of me, a part that lacks faith and that feels I am taking on too much change at once, is subconsciously taking in too much food to mirror my discomfort by making myself uncomfortable and "taking in too much at once."  That makes a lot of sense.

There's also the issue of safety.  We find ways to pad ourselves with protection and oftentimes that is in the form of food.  While food can't truly make me feel safe it mirrors an outdated belief that I am not safe and that I need to protect myself from this discomfort, from any emotions of fear or unworthiness that are lingering as an energy pattern within my depths.  I attempt to talk myself through this one but I have found that the deeper the pattern runs, the more effort, the more mindfulness, the more awareness it takes to navigate through it.  Still, it can be changed.  Food cannot protect me from anything, however, allowing the belief that, "I am safe," and, "Everything is working out for my Highest Good," to travel from my head to my heart and take root there, will help to change the feeling of insecurity to one of safety and security.  Bringing mindfulness to the behavior, over and over and over again until that mindfulness turns into action, as well as digging deep once more to see what is at the root of the pattern, are keys to helping it heal.

It flowed better today.  It felt better today.  Sometimes stumbling, sometimes baby steps, sometimes two steps forward and one step back BUT steps nonetheless.  Piece by sometimes tiny piece the resistance is breaking apart and I am making my way through it.  I'm doing things I haven't done before so it's bound to be uncomfortable and I know that one day it will be my new go to behavior and it won't feel so uncomfortable anymore.

May you be blessed with love and light,
Tia    





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