What’s stopping you from changing?
Personal development would be so easy if it weren’t for “resistance”—those unwanted thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that seem to get in the way of our goals and intentions. If you have some big visions, you know what I’m talking about. Big visions elicit big “resistance.”
Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.
–from The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle by Steven Pressfield
Remember the movie War Games? In it, the supercomputers of the 80’s learned that nobody wins in war. It’s time personal development caught up. Whenever you fight yourself, you lose!
“Resistance” is not some evil force out to stop you from following your bliss. It is something you are doing (resisting). There is a better, and easier way to make change. What you resist, persists; what you involve, dissolves.
Here you’ll find practical articles about dissolving “resistance,” as well as personal coaching for those peaceful warriors who are ready to stop resisting and start involving all aspects of themselves in the process of growth and change.
Beyond positive thinking, willpower, and “no pain, no gain”
Much of personal development literature consists of well-meaning advice without the technology to get you there. Eat less, exercise more, be kind to yourself, have confidence–duh! You know all that already. What’s missing is the HOW. How do you dissolve the resistance so change is easy and automatic?
Most techniques of personal development are variations of positive thinking and willpower. Positive thinking often involves repressing thoughts and feelings part of you doesn’t like. Willpower usually means doing things part of you doesn’t feel like doing. If you don’t have a better way, these can be useful short-term tools. But they can also feel phony, hyped-up, or pushy–signs of inner conflict.
Even worse, many people (and some therapists) still have the idea that in order to heal the present, you have to intensely re-experience all of the pain of the past. Yuck!
Towards sustainable growth
It’s no accident that the same authors who advocate pushing and forcing usually equate the good life with never-ending worldly achievement. In attempting to “break through,” important limits are often overrun.
The evidence from happiness research is that we aren’t any happier than 60 years ago, even though our personal incomes (adjusted for inflation) have doubled or tripled. Meanwhile, our relentless pursuit of our “unlimited” potential has ignored the real limits of our natural environment and our adrenals.
What if there was a better way, a way to grow and change sustainably without the inner war?
If this sounds good to you, click here to shift your paradigm… 