RESISTING RESISTANCE!

Oh my poor head!  It’s been a whole week – 8 days in fact – since I got the flu and I’m still not well.  Tomorrow, I return to my day job, as opposed to my entrepreneurial venture (neither of which I’ve been able to tend to), and still don’t really feel up to the challenge of meeting and greeting lots of First Year students embarking on their new career.  I also missed last weekends Tai Chi workshop, the first of my second year on the teacher training course, which is so good for me and which I was looking forward to.

 

Tai Chi, of course, is about energy management, or mastery – packing our bodies full of energy for physical protection and nourishment, and raising our energy levels for emotional peace and spiritual attainment.  This is so beneficial, clearing trauma from our bodies and psyches, and removing the blocks which hamper the expression of our unique creativity and purpose.

 

The week before I ‘came down with flu’ I felt so good practising Tai Chi and Chi Kung with friends.  We spoke of how great the energy was and how we were feeling.  I remarked that we needed to remember these moments of peace, wellness and fulfillment in those other moments, the ones that don’t feel so good, when we feel down and flattened and self doubt goes on the attack.  I had good reason to remember those moments in the past week, when I felt too unwell to do anything and the familiar ‘baddies’ whispered “shoulds” to me, and, “you always”,”you never”, “you’ll never”, “this is typical of you” etc., When clarity left and confusion tried to take over once more.  While I did a fair amount of beating myself up, I also reminded myself of my achievements, and that this low level condition would pass, my energy would rise again and soon I’d re-enter the opposite state of feeling good, capable, and would optimistically move forward once more. 

 

Everyone experiences change, both externally and internally.  Cycles are a natural phenomena (just look at our global economic boom and bust pattern if you need to see proof), the main thing is to keep focused on what we want and keep chipping away on moving towards what is best for us, knowing we will encounter setbacks along the way.  When, during an energy slump during the week, the voice of my internal saboteur asked accusingly “What have you done with the past decade of your life? Huh!” I found myself, after a moment of succumbing to the negative aspects of the accusation, compiling a healthy list of rich experiences, obstacles overcome and a determined campaign towards creating the life I want to live.

 

ü Helping my husband through cancer.

ü Getting out of bed and going to work everyday after my husband, my best friend, and another very close friend died within months of one another.

ü Discovering that death is merely another transition and deepening my awareness of the Divine.

ü Learning for sure, that we are all supported at all times.

ü Raising two children single handedly.

ü Making a success of the Full Time Photographic Studies course I founded.

ü Helping to transform the lives of others both through the course and my life coaching work.

ü Studying Shamanism, energy healing, EFT, Chi Kung and Tai Chi

ü Achieving First Class honours on a post graduate course in Integrative Psychotherapy studies at UCC followed by a Diploma in Life Coaching.

ü Buying our family home, selling it and buying a better one near a town where I didn’t know anyone.

ü Making several trips abroad alone with the children, including two weeks in Jordan.

ü Attending numerous workshops on various topics, all with a view to running transformational workshops in Ireland and abroad.  My dream is to run a transformational centre in Europe, possibly in France, where people seeking the skills to change their lives will pay to mix holidays with learning and self exploration.  This in turn will fund people with cancer and their families, or the surviving members of a family affected with cancer to come along for a free, or subsidised holiday, to mix with others in a supportive and fun environment, in order to recover from their trauma and realise that good things can also happen to them.

ü Meeting great people who are bravely committed to discovering and expressing the most authentic aspects of themselves.

 

Looked at in this light, I’ve achieved a lot over the past decade.  My children have another three years at school and I’m now paving the way for the next phase of the plan – the transformational centre abroad.  This doesn’t mean I’m immune to those voices which beset us all – I have learned though, to hear them and counter their attack, reminding myself that they don’t speak the truth – that I am the one who decides what is true and possible, and that I have the support of Divine Intelligence and Love on my side.  The more I accept that, the more I allow it to help me overcome the dreaded voices of Resistance – in the immortal words of Steven Pressfield:

“RESISTANCE ONLY OPPOSES IN ONE DIRECTION

Resistance obstructs movement only from a lower sphere to a higher.  It kicks in when we seek to pursue a calling in the arts, launch an innovative enterprise, or evolve to a higher station morally, ethically, or spiritually.

  So if you’re in Calcutta working with the Mother Theresa Foundation and you’re thinking of bolting to launch a career in telemarketing…relax.  Resistance will give you a free pass.”

 

“The first duty is to sacrifice to the gods and pray them to grant you the thoughts, words, and deeds likely to render your command most pleasing to the gods and to bring yourself, your friends, and your city the fullest measure of affection and glory and advantage.

-       Xenophon, The Cavalry Commander’

 

Both above excerpts from The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

 

Jason Chan, an inspiring spiritual teacher with whom I have the privilege of studying, also counsels on the hazards of the path of Enlightenment; the higher our spiritual aspirations, the more our Ego will seek to deter and detract us from our task.  In his experience, the path of commitment to a higher level of spirituality is a revolution rather than an evolution.  It must be consciously undertaken and requires great courage.  His book The Radiant Warrior is an informative and inspiring guide which offers great support to those seeking liberation.

So, everyone experiences Resistance; whether we want to tone our abs or save the world, as sure as the gravitational pull of the Earth keeps us from floating into space, we will hear those voices attempting to drag us down to prevent us from progressing with our goals.  Our best defence is to be on the lookout for these destructive marauders and, once we become aware of them, to relegate them to their proper function of protecting us from stepping out in front of oncoming traffic or over the edge of real, live, as opposed to imaginary, cliffs!

 

VIVE LA DIFFERENCE!

 

 

This particular post brings together two loves of mine, one   enormous intrinsic interest being personal freedom, the second, lesser love being France.

 

The following comes from an article by Debra Ollivier, an American living in France and concerns her observations regarding cultural differences between women of American/Anglo-Saxon heritage and French Women, who are regarded as being in a class of their own.

 

She moved to spend a year at the Sorbonne in her early twenties after reading Jean Paul Sartre who declared “L’enfer, c’est les autres!” (Hell is other people) a sentiment which she wholeheartedly embraced at the time.  She became mesmerised by French women:  “They were a sensual and resilient counterpart to the one-size-fits-all beauty standard advocated around me, and seemed to make an art form out of ennui….their sophistication seemed wrapped up in the way they diverged from the aggressively sunny imperatives of “happy”.  She noticed that they had a “defiant sense of self-possession that was somehow sexy in and of itself …..a certain “je ne sais quoi” and “inhabited their own worlds so completely that I might have been from another planet.  My smiles were greeted by a frosty reception, or often returned with a look of placid indifference.  I got the distinct feeling that my sunny Californian demeanour was a mortal faux pas.” 

 

“If hell is other people, I thought, these women don’t seem to care what other people think of them at all.  News flash:  They don’t.”

 

She goes on to say it took her years to actually absorb this insight “that the seeds of the French woman’s defiant and sexy self-possession are rooted in girlhood, and all tangled up in the cruel machinations of youth.  Consider the contrast:  Indeed, one of the first pressures bearing down on American girls is the pressure not only to be liked but to be like everyone else.  This seminal feat of self-transformation often invloves loosening one’s grip on that quiet sense of inner self and hitching one’s wagon to a single standard of beauty and behaviour.  The stress of that effort insinuates itself into the young heart and soul with a vengeance, and insecurities go from being hard little buds of confusion to overripe, tyrranical fruits that hang on the vine as we age.”

.

 

Ollivier goes on to state that the opposite attitude is fostered in France, individualism is hailed, cloning and conformity of behaviour considered suspect.  The concept of Jolie-Laide, the French term for “ugly-pretty” honours striking looks above tame prettiness.  “The allure of a jolie-laide woman lies in her imperfections, and in the way her inner life informs her outer beauty.  It is the anti-thesis of perfection, because perfection is boring.”

 

Oh! What liberation!  While, for the most part, we have been spared those Little Princess beauty pageants so plaguing young America, the concept of jolie-laide could do with a bit more press worldwide.  As for not giving a fig for the opinions of the general population, how much more powerful would we Irish women be if we eschewed the contradictory assertive male/aggressive female attitude we unconsciously uphold.

 

This lack of respect for the concept of needing to be liked by everyone is a very powerful one.  A friend of mine recently described a French Vice-Mayoress who she came across at an International conference.  She said that this particular woman raised the hackles of a number of the women in her (UK) entourage.  My friend admired the woman, who, she felt, wore her power very effectively.  She voiced the opinion, that the women attending the conference would have had no problem at all with a man displaying the same attitude as the passionate and powerful Madame.

 

Debra Ollivier reveals that the movie He’s Just Not That Into You bombed in France.  Co-author Liz Tucillo (who also writes for Sex and the City) went to France to investigate.  She discovered that when a French woman comes across a man who’s not that into her she simply moves on, without needing a book or movie to figure it out.  She simply doesn’t give a damn.  “Adieu, next!”  Tucillo was told the key to French womens self possession by a French woman:

 

 “You have to love yourself. You have to know who you are.”

 

Which prompted Tucillo to reply “If I could, I would have an operation to become a French woman.”

 

I wish I’d paid more attention to French women when I spent a lot of time in France in my late teens, early twenties.  Ollivier herself said it took her years to figure it out.  Personally I think the key is to know and love oneself, to desire to love and be loved, but not to take things personally.  There are some people you just won’t like, and some who simply won’t like you.  If I don’t like you, it’s my stuff, and if you don’t like me, it’s well, yours.  You can still like you and I can still like me.

 

I gave my children the benefit of my experience and personal exploration by allowing them a very long rein.  They had to discover exactly who they are, in order to know themselves, have a high level of self respect, and to allow me to know them and them know me.

 

They are confident and friendly, have excellent social skills, and are philosophical about rejection, quickly processing matters and moving on.

 

As they are still in their mid-teens, they run with the flock rather than the wolves yet, but I so look forward to meeting the women they will become.

 

 

 

FIVE STEPS TO FREEDOM 

When I was a little girl, my mother wrote this is my autograph book: 

“Whatever people may say, whatever people may do

If you want to be happy the rest of your life

Always paddle your own canoe”

 

That was damn good advice, but easier to read than live up to in a culture which seeks to tame and herd.  She said her mother taught her that, they both grew up in a society which was very tough on women.  I believe societies in general make it difficult for all of us (male and female) to find and express the exquisite essence of our Self.  Also,  we seem to be wired to somehow diss ourselves, to believe we are less than the reality of our true Self.  We can look at this as an inbuilt ‘device’ designed,  at some level with our agreement, to lead us, lesson by lesson, to truly recognise ourselves as equal expressions of Life.

 

STEP 1 STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHERS

     By the time we reach adulthood, we have been criticized far more

     than we have been praised.  This gives us the false notion that

     we are not good enough, or inept.  This is simply not true.  We

     are all interconnected and have unique gifts.

 

STEP 2  BECOME AWARE OF YOUR THOUGHTS

 

    Our false beliefs about ourselves are constructed when we are too

    young to realise they are untrue.  When we heard things like “Why

    can’t you be more like….” as children we didn’t know to question

    the assumption and make the decision that it would not be the right

    thing for us to be like the so called paragon held up as an example

     of perfection.  As adults, by tuning in to our in-built critic, we can

     now reason and decide that no, we have a different way of being 

     which suits us.  This will take time, but will help you get to know

     the real you which you unconsciously repress.

 

STEP 3  STOP BLAMING

 

    Yeah, I know this is a tough one,  blaming others is something we 

    all do.  Undoing this way of thinking is absolutely necessary 

    though if we are to i) KNOW and ii) BE our true selves.  Blaming

     keeps us focused on those who ‘done us wrong’, this keeps us

     focused on them, rather than ourselves and wastes a lot of time

     and energy. 

     It assigns them power than over us;

     stops us from perceiving them as equals who also bought into

     false ideas about themselves received from the authority figures

     in their lives and keeps us reacting from the past rather than

     spontaneously responding in the present.   If we keep

      blaming, we’ll keep missing opportunities to live a life we love.

 

STEP 4  LET GO OF JEALOUSY AND RESENTMENT

 

    Again, something we all do, and like blaming, difficult to release.

    However, jealousy doesn’t serve us, it makes us feel less than.  If

    we had a difficult child/adulthood we may feel others have had all

    the breaks.  By re-viewing our difficulties from the perspective of

    what we learned from our traumas, we can begin to identify our

    specific skills and how we can use them to serve us.  By realising

    that we inter-are* we can see the gifts of others as gifts to ourselves

    this will help us to appreciate the talents of others and support us to

    realise and manifest our own unique contributions to the world. 

    When someone is successful, it helps us to study how they do it

    then modify their methods to suit our endeavours.  Simple, but

    effective.

 

STEP 5  ESTABLISH YOU OWN VALUES

 

    This comes back to ‘watching’ your thoughts and questioning

     the assumptions you have about yourself and others.  Where

     did that thought originate?  Where did you first hear it?  From

     whom?  In what context?  Does it enrich you or deny you?  Does

     it deserve your respect?  People have different values, think about

     people you know at home and at work, what does their behaviour

     tell you about their values?  Are they in accordance with yours or

     are they different?  What is important to you?

 

Taking the time to observe and get to know yourself can lead to remarkable transformation.  It takes getting used to, it takes focus, it won’t change you overnight but it will begin the process of change immediately.  You’re going to be around anyway, so you may as well begin now and observe the benefits of your new practice of self awareness reward you over time…..

* Inter-being is a term coined by well known peace activist, Buddhist leader and spiritual teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.  Thay (his nickname) teaches that if we take anything and trace it we will see that it is a continuation of everything else.  A famous example he gives is that of seeing the cloud in the blank sheet of paper.  By realizing that the rain had to moisten the seed for the tree to grow, that the earth had to provide it with nutrients, that the sun had to shine on it, that the logger had to cut it, the loggers husband/wife provide him/her with food, the logging company pay his wages, the paper firm make the paper – you see where this is going – nothing can exist without everything else.  We are One.

May as well feel jealous, resentful, less than or blameful of your own knee as of someone else.

 

   

                

 

 

 

 

 

 

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* Inter-being is a term coined by well known peace activist, Buddhist leader and spiritual teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.  Thay (his nickname) teaches that if we take anything and trace it we will see that it is a continuation of everything else.  A famous example he gives is that of seeing the cloud in the blank sheet of paper.  By realizing that the rain had to moisten the seed for the tree to grow, that the earth had to provide it with nutrients, that the sun had to shine on it, that the logger had to cut it, the loggers husband/wife provide him/her with food, the logging company pay his wages, the paper firm make the paper – you see where this is going – nothing can exist without everything else.  We are One.

May as well feel jealous, resentful, less than or blameful of your own knee as of someone else.

NIBBLED TO DEATH BY DUCKS

                        

It struck me as I read renowned American author Joan Didion’s exquisitely written and poignant memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, in which she remembers her husbands warning  (prior to her acceptance of a job as staff writer for Life Magazine) - “Working for Life will be like being nibbled to death by ducks”  - that most people find themselves in this position of slow torture during their working life, but often allow fear to prevent them from doing anything about it.   Joan Didion discovered the veracity of his advice when she found herself constantly overlooked when it came to interesting assignments, which were always given to “the guys”, and she was left to cover lightweight assignments as her confidence in herself eroded.  While things have improved gender-wise in the workplace, this is advice so many of us need to heed from our inner voice when we resign ourselves to working in jobs to which we are wholly unsuited - when we cause ourselves to die slowly by succumbing to the tyranny of Should. “I should take this job because…..”  “I should stay in this job because….”  The metaphor John Dunne offered lovingly and knowingly to his wife, succintly expresses the agony of life sacrificed to the everyday torture of feeling less than and diminished by the work we do, or the politics of the workplace in which we feel trapped.  Sometimes, it’s the work itself which bores us to a paralysing deadness, or the feeling of talent dampened, othertimes it can be working in an institution surrounded by sharks in the guise of ducks who seek to undermine us while taking credit for our creativity and talent.  Whichever it is, we owe it to ourselves to get out and strikeoff on our own path; to find that which will nurture, uplift, inspire and allow us to shine and share our unique gifts with a world which waits to receive the authentic expression of our Self.

 

Once we recognise the need to breakout and thrive, and allow ourselves to engage with the delightful prospect of fulfilling our soul purpose, we initially feel joyful enthusiasm and inspiration but almost immediately meet more ducks.  This time, they appear in the guise of harmless little plastic ducks bobbing up and down in the seas of our psyche, glowing in friendly yellow, and cautioning words of warning through smiling red beaks:

 

·      “Ah, I should stay where I am, it’s not so bad, I’ve got  great holiday leave and a pension plan, I don’t know how lucky I am.”

·        “Sure what can I do?  How can I make my mark in a world already full of (insert your own word here)?  I’ll be better off staying where I am.”

·       “I’m too busy to work my job, look after the kids and set up a new business.  Who do I think I am?”

·       “Nobody will support me, they’ll all think I’m mad.”

·        “How will I pay the bills?”

·       “The banks won’t help the likes of me.”

·       “I’ll scare the children if I leave my job, they’re used to the way we live, I can’t ask them to make sacrifices.”

·        “(Insert name of husband/wife) loves the status that comes with my job, I can’t become a…..”

·       “Am I crazy to think of leaving my job in the current economic climate – people would give their eye teeth to be in my position?”

 

Nibble, nibble, nibble.

 

The GREAT news is, once we discover and align with, our authentic self, our soul purpose, we cannot fail.  The universe conspires with us to help us succeed.  Success may not come in a conventional shape.  We may have to sacrifice something (our fancy house or car, the status we thought important) but it won’t be our Self.  It may take time, we may lose money, it may hurt sometimes, but the reward will be one hundred times worth the effort we put in, and every effort counts.

 

Every single person who has recognised and decided to engage in pursuing their passion has met with fear based resistance and has had to overcome a raft of excuses thrown up by emotions based on their egos intervention.  The ones who succeed in forging the life they want to live are those who listen to, then minimise their fears, while simultaneously enlarging and enhancing their desires.  Luckily, there are a multitude of effective techniques one can learn to enable each one of us to do this, and step by step, we enjoy the adventure of living our destiny.

 

It’s important to understand that we don’t have to see the complete picture before we embark on the journey, we just need to see the first few steps.  As we climb  the stairs towards our individual idea of  success, the next few steps will reveal themselves.  Each little step undertaken will bolster our confidence in ourselves and bring us closer to our desired outcome.  We may feel we don’t have the energy to pursue our chosen lifestyle, that it will be too difficult, take too much time and effort.  While this may be true at the start, like a rocket which guzzles fuel on takeoff but which uses less once it’s airborn, the initial stages of changing our lives demand a lot of time and energy, but, as we get our wings, it takes a lot less effort to keep things moving.  Remember, from our present viewpoint we can’t  possibly envisage the opportunities that will come our way, therefore while it’s important at the outset to have an idea or vision of the outcome we desire, it’ s also important to remember that any adventure allows for spontaneity and the outcome we desire will alter as we learn more about ourselves, receive support from unexpected quarters and shape our work and our world to suit.

 

Best get started, you only need to take one small step at a time…