Why do we resist change? The simple answer is that it upsets the status quo, takes us out of our comfort zone, we don’t know what’s going to happen when we do change, and we’re scared. I think if we acknowledge the simple truth that we are scared of change because just don’t know if we can deal with it or what is going to happen to us, we would stop trying to pretend to be brave about it and look at change as a step by step process instead of a chaotic mess that we can avoid by being resistant to change. You know the expression ‘what we resist persists’ and that is not necessarily true. What we resist doesn’t happen but that doesn’t mean that the spark of a new awakened potential doesn’t still beckon us to consider it as an option. We can have that light of an awakened potential blinding us with its brilliance but if we are scared we are going to close our eyes and ignore it as long as we can.
What does it mean to resist? The word resist means to ‘remain standing’ or to oppose an action. So when we resist we are in opposition and that is a good position to be in when we feel we do not have enough information to say yes to change and no to the status quo. We rather like the status quo, it’s what we know, where we can anticipate the future, and it is where we can feel that we are in control.
Sometimes we resist out of a desire to affirm our control even if that is not the best option.
Sometimes we resist because we don’t trust ourselves to handle the change.
We can resist because we are more afraid of success and of what it will do to our lives than we are of staying where we are or experiencing failure.
And we resist for a myriad of personal reasons, many of which have to do with being afraid. A few weeks ago my weekly article and podcast was on the subject of truth and consequences and I said that we allow ourselves to acknowledge a truth to the extent that we are willing to accept its consequences.
If the consequences are too scary, big, life changing, or control impacting, we will resist that truth, even if we know it is true.
Take the example of one of my clients, I’ll call her Maria, who had come to me about a relationship that she was desperately trying to keep together. I told her the man was cheating on her, lying to her, and would eventually leave her for someone else. She told me I was wrong, I didn’t understand him, they were in love, etc.
The truth was that Maria was afraid of being alone, had abandonment issues, and thought that she could change this man into a loving, committed partner. I heard from her occasionally over a 2 year period and my answer was always the same while she was still trying to keep the relationship together in spite of being treated with great disrespect and a huge lack of consideration.
Eventually the man did leave and Maria was devastated. When she called me again she acknowledged that she had worked so hard, much too hard, to keep the relationship together and had resisted my advice, as well as that of everyone she knew, to let him go. But she resisted out of fear and a desire to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, as the saying goes.
This man could have been anyone and the situation was the same. Her fear of facing her life alone was the reason she held on to the relationship for so long and resisted letting it go even though she had many reasons to. In fact, she was willing to overlook all of his bad behavior because she was so resistant to change.
We resist for so many reasons, all of them are valid and they all reflect our desire to have a particular outcome happen, no matter what we have to do to make it happen. Often that outcome has nothing to do with the other person or the situation, it is our personal fear, belief system, or something we do not want to face that is the underlying cause of our resistance.
Even if we know that it won’t happen, we will try anyway because of another fear – that we get one opportunity and if we do not make the best of it and make it work, we will never get another one.
Have you ever been in that situation? Where you are very uncomfortable and maybe even miserable in a situation but you resist any change because you do not think you’ll have another opportunity? That’s scarcity thinking and isn’t it interesting that while we agree that we live in an infinitely abundant universe, that doesn’t extend to us and having an infinitely abundant number of opportunities in our life.
I recently heard someone say that our resistance means that we really want something.
Ummm, no. Resistance means that we do not want it right now, we are not going to allow it to happen if we can help it, and we are so opposed to it that we are willing to put up with all kinds of misery to avoid change. What we resist represents a transformation that we do not believe we are ready for, can control, and want to happen.
Be careful who you follow and what they say. There are a lot of charlatans out there and people who say things just to sound smart, knowledgeable, and cool.
But there are more reasons for resistance and two of them are very important.
The first has to do with our safety and security needs, which are what makes us feel like we are in control of our reality and our environment and are not going to be surprised by any catastrophes.
The second has to do with congruence, how the energy in our life fits and flows together. We will create a congruent reality with anything we need to feel safe and secure and that either means we are able to express our highest potential and evolve into higher frequencies in an effortless, graceful way. Or it means that we are so afraid of dis-integration and chaos that we will do whatever it takes to hold our vision of our reality and our comfort zone together, no matter how much effort we have to exert and whatever resistance we have to use to avoid the manifestation of our deepest fears.
We create true congruence or false congruence based on how strong our resistance to change is. You can find out about true congruence and false congruence in my book, the 5 Priorities of Soul Energy Mastery. You can learn more about it at this link. Resistance is useful and at times very beneficial, like when we are resisting global control, medical tyranny, the erosion of our civil liberties and natural rights, and the loss of our freedoms. When we know what we are resisting and why we can use our resistance to identify fears and to move through them. But if we resist just because we can or because it is the only alternative we think is feasible or viable, then we are not doing ourselves any favors and we are using resistance as an excuse to avoid any kind of change or transformation.
What we resist does not persist, it moves to the background until it comes up for us again when we open that window of opportunity to see if we’re ready to risk the change. Or maybe not, if we are so resistant to change that we never allow ourselves to face that option again.
Have you ever said ‘I will never do that again’? How about telling yourself you will never love again, or allow yourself to be vulnerable, or trust people, or be shamed, humiliated, or manipulated? Or, remembering your most recent failure, that you will never try something new or take a risk or do something that might embarrass you or put you in a position where you’re the center of attention.
That happened to me when I was 15 years old and if I had been tempted by my resistance to refuse an opportunity I would not have had one of the most profoundly proud and satisfying experiences of my life. Let me share that story…
What we do in those situations where resistance is the deciding factor is we just don’t get involved or distracted by the possibility of new potentials rather than making more empowered, self aware choices.
We limit our exposure to potential safety and security risks by resisting change and limiting our access to life experiences, rather than limiting our exposure to our fears and their consequences by exploring them and then making more empowered and empowering choices and refusing to be limited by our resistance.
But our resistance is a useful tool if we use it to explore our true fears and the consequences that fuel them, where we feel we are not enough or are not willing to allow transformation. Resistance to anything means there is a consequence we cannot face at that time and that means our resistance is shining a light on limiting beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, and any other factor that is cautioning us to avoid moving forward and go back to what we know, the false congruence of our comfort zone with its known safety and security parameters rather than expanding our energy to meet our soul’s call to rise and shine.