Move Toward Your Resistance

Move Toward Your Resistance
Learning to stay with the discomfort that pushes you away from what you want to do will open you to true growth. (Mathias Jensen/Unsplash)
8/24/2020
Updated:
8/24/2020
Our minds have the tendency to turn away and move away from what we most fear and resist. We naturally don’t like pain, frustration, and difficulty, so avoiding them is an act of self-protection, in a sense.

And yet, this keeps us in our comfort zone. The path of growth is in those uncomfortable areas we’re avoiding.

Each day, find the thing you’re resisting the most and move toward it.

I don’t mean that you should do something unsafe. Jumping off a cliff to your death isn’t an example of moving toward your resistance.

I’m inviting you to find the thing in your business or personal life that you know would be powerful for you, but that you resist doing. Move toward that.

Turn toward it and look it in the face.

Move closer to the fear or discomfort, and let yourself feel it completely. Open your heart to it.

Let your love melt the resistance a little. Stay in it even if it doesn’t evaporate. Be courageous and fearless with it.

Do the thing you’re resisting the most. Do it bolder and louder than you are comfortable with. Do it with love, from a place of love. Do it long enough that you are no longer held back by it, and your relationship to it is transformed.

Find the joy and beauty in the middle of the resistance. Find gratitude in the midst of your fear. Find play in the midst of your burden.

You only need to focus on one small moment of it at a time, instead of the whole huge burden of it. You only need to open your heart for a moment. And then another, and another, but you don’t need to worry about all those anothers right now.

Just this one moment.

Move closer to your resistance, open your heart to it, do it repeatedly, and see what happens. That’s my invitation to you.

Leo Babauta is the author of six books, the writer of Zen Habits, a blog with more than 2 million subscribers, and the creator of several online programs to help you master your habits. Visit ZenHabits.net
Leo Babauta is the author of six books and the writer of Zen Habits, a blog with over 2 million subscribers. Visit ZenHabits.net
Related Topics