I'm the opposite most of the time. I resist doing, getting up and doing, even things that I know would make me feel better. Exercising self-discipline in general would give me a real boost of self-esteem. I know that and still I resist. Resistance has a certain feel in my body and I recognize it. You'd think being able to identify it so specifically would help me get passed it. But old habits die hard and I've had such a long time of falling back when resistance comes up.
I've thought long and hard about why this is true. My childhood, my depression, my lifelong default position... those are interesting whys but as well as I know them, that knowledge hasn't led me to changed behavior. There needs to be some other way.
In meditation, if painful feelings come up, I know not to run from them. I turn my attention to where that pain is in my body - my chest, my belly - and when I concentrate for as long as it takes, my attention eventually dissolves the pain. That practice can help me with resistance. When it comes and I feel it in my body, I can focus on it and let my attention dissolve it. Even if I don't get up and do, I'm sure the repetition of that focus, dissolving resistance again and again, will help. It may be in the long run, though I put so much pressure on myself to make it the short run. I can relieve some of that pressure, maybe most of it, if I cultivate patience and lovingly forgive myself again and again.
Change will only come if I'm willing, and willingness only comes out of surrender, and asking help from the Spirit of the Universe or whatever it is I find myself asking for help. Something greater than myself, out beyond my conscious mind. I must remind myself over and over again to ask for this help. I know that simply in asking I'm helping myself along the way.
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