Resistance is one of those words that you will hear all the time in healing, spiritual, self-help circles. Resistance is nothing more than opposition. It is any oppositional force.  We can experience opposition on the outside and we can experience opposition from the inside. When there is resistance external to us or within us, what it means is that we are out of alignment. Either we are out of alignment with someone or something external to us. Or two aspects of ourselves are out of alignment with each other. There are always negative consequences for not being in alignment, especially when we make a decision or take an action when we are not in alignment. Because of this, when we meet with any form of resistance, we must directly face that resistance and resolve the mis-alignment that it suggests, so as to reach a state of alignment before we make a decision or take an action. To learn more about this in-depth, you can watch my video titled: Urgent! Deal With Your Resistance Before You Do Anything Else.

All this being said, there is a misconception that many people hold that resistance is always a bad thing. That whatever is in resistance is the problem. And that whatever is being resistant is always in the wrong. Therefore, the resistance is the thing that always must be released, gotten rid of or bulldozed. You’ll hear people say things like: “It’s just their resistance or It’s just my resistance”.  And it is easy to assume. For example, let’s say that what you want is a lifelong relationship. A resistant thought to that might be the image of you sitting by yourself in a nursing home at 70 years old. Resistant words may be “there’s no point because all relationships end anyway”. A resistant action might be never going out to meet people and spending all your time alone at home instead. This thought and these words and this action are in resistance to your desire because they are oppositional to it. It is easy to see in this scenario that if the person really wants a lifelong relationship, this resistance is the problem. If this resistance is not released, he or she has energy going towards the manifestation of a relationship and also energy preventing the manifestation of a relationship. But resistance is not this straightforward.

The truth is that resistance is not bad or wrong. It must be resolved, but it always exists for a very important reason and sometimes, it exists for a very good reason. For example, let’s imagine that you want a lifelong relationship and you meet someone that you really like, but you experience resistance to committing to them. That resistance may be there because you have been left before in relationships and the part of you that is in resistance is terrified of that ever happening again; even though in reality, this person will not leave you. Or, that resistance may be because while part of you is focused on all the positives about the person, another part of you is noticing all kinds of red flags. Red flags that you should be taking into account because this person is not capable of having a long-term relationship.

Two more examples of when whatever you perceive to be in resistance, is the one in the right are: Let’s say that you are about to go swim in a Crocodile infested river, you will feel resistance. This is resistance that should be heeded instead of treated as the problem.

Or for example, let’s say that you have to get somewhere fast. You come to a crossroads and you want to go right, but another person is there who knows that the right-side road is flooded and impassible. When this person tries to block your progress down the right-side road, you will perceive this person as being in resistance to you. But this external resistance you are meeting with is more in alignment with your desires than you are, because taking the right road means getting stuck.

Or for example, let’s say that a man has codependent tendencies. His current partner decides that she wants children. Being codependent, and because he automatically wants that sensation of confluence with her, he says “Yes, I definitely think it is time. I’d love to do that with you” and starts having unprotected sex. But his actual authentic truth, that he wont look at, is that he doesn’t want children. He just wants confluence with his partner. That nagging feeling of “no” that he keeps suppressing and the passive aggressive way he is always too busy or not in the mood for sex when she is ovulating, is resistance that actually represents his authentic truth.

Sometimes when we become aware of the aspects of us that are in resistance to each other, we find that instead of opposing our true desires, they point to even deeper desires and that going in the direction we were intent on going was in fact the opposite of what was best for us.

We have the tendency to identify with one side of the resistance equation. For example, If I consciously want to go to a party, I will Identify with that part of me and consider the part of me that doesn’t want to go, the one that is “in resistance”. The reality is that both are in resistance to each other. The part of me that doesn’t want to go to a party perceives the part that does, as being in resistance to it just as much as the part that does want to go to a party experiences the part that doesn’t, as being in resistance to it. Resistance is that oppositional force that is created by both of them not being aligned with each other. Resistance takes two.

If we want to genuinely resolve our resistance and find alignment, we need to let go of our strong identification with any part that is participating in or creating resistance and is therefore misaligned. Resistance always carries important information. We need to directly face, see, hear, feel and understand both sides of the equation of resistance. It is only by doing so that we can understand where this resistance is coming from and gain the information it contains and achieve a more objective perspective so as to be able to resolve the resistance and reach a state of genuine alignment instead.

There is always a WHY to resistance. It always exists for an important reason. If we don’t understand this, we will not be able to resolve the resistance so as to achieve a state of alignment. Your resistance deserves to be treated as valid and important regardless of whether it is about something true or real or not.  If you do not treat it this way, if you approach resistance with resistance (by having already decided that it is stupid or shouldn’t be there or needs to change its stance) you will not be able to see, listen to, feel and understand that resistance enough to be able to arrive at your personal higher truth in any given situation and resolve that resistance so as to reach a state of alignment instead.