Healing States: Resistance (Healthy Living DIY)

During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I came home one evening and turned on a cable news show to catch up on the events of the day. There, in full living color, was Dr. Phil. Live from the Houston Astrodome. He'd flown in to see if he could be of some help to the people stranded there.

As Dr. Phil spoke with the news reporter, he answered the question I'd been wondering about myself for several days. He said he'd spoken with a number of people, and had asked many of them the question, "When you heard a category 5 hurricane was headed toward your home, why didn't you leave?"

He received two main answers. For some of the people, the main issue was money. These were the people who lived check to check. The hurricane hit at the end of the month, and they simply couldn't rustle up the extra cash to take their family on the road for an indefinite period of time and pay for it.

We expected that first answer from some. But the other one? Well, you tell me.

Dr. Phil described the other response as (and as best I can remember, I'm quoting accurately) "a natural human resistance to being told what to do."

He reported having conversations with people where they told him, "It was my house, and I wasn't going to have some official telling me I had to leave it. Period."

This is a case of resistance acting as the opposite of a healing state. Automatic resistance that hijacked the person's common sense and survival instinct.

I'm sure we all remember the picture of the rescue worker carrying an emaciated man out of his home through the floodwaters. His wife, interviewed after his death, said that she had gone to their son's home to safety, but that her husband had refused to leave his home. His resistance ultimately led to an early, difficult, and unnecessary death.

Some of our wellness coaching participants have noticed something really interesting about resistance recently. You set a goal for yourself. You plan out the steps you'll need to take to achieve the goal. You get really excited about the result you're about to produce in your life.

And then you resist the plan you made up. Even though you made it up yourself ("the man" had nothing to do with it). Even though you know quite logically that if you follow the steps you set out you'll create something you really, really want. Even then.

What gives???

Could there possibly be a way to turn that resistance around? And turn it around enough that you'd actually want to resist, knowing that resistance is the exact state you need to achieve your goal?

There is.

It's so darned simple you'll wonder why you didn't come up with this yourself a long time ago. Here it is:

Resist your resistance.

You do not have to allow your "natural human resistance to being told what to do" (even when it's you telling yourself) to hijack your best intentions.

Resistance can become your friend.

Simply teach yourself to resist that "natural human resistance" to rebel against acting to secure the future you dream of. Instead, take on a state of conscious resistance. Use it to buck up against the emotional response that threatens to shake you off course.

And then simply do what you need to do. Once you get started, you might even enjoy it!

Resistance as a healing state. Who wants to try it?

Elizabeth Eckert can help you explore how simple everyday choices create health — or undermine even the best of intentions. With a background that ranges from energy medicine to structural bodywork to developmental psychology, this "Stick-To-It Coach" has the experience to support you in creating the healthiest possible expression of — you!

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