RESISTANCE, AGAIN

I'm in awe of people who embrace routine. Housekeeping, exercise, work - they feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from doing daily things. 

     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.     

     

CLARK KENT'S SHIRT

I don't like to do anything on a daily basis. I don't like routines.  I've known people who thrive on routine; they know where they'll be next Monday and every Monday after that, they have a set time for various activities, they always go to the same restaurant on Sunday night.
     It may be that routines make people feel safe.  I can see there's comfort in structure, not only in not having to think about what to do next but in the repetition itself which can function as an anchor.
     I'd like to say I'm a spontaneous person, a free spirit, easily jumping into the unknown.  But in truth my disdain for routine comes from two issues I have always and still struggle with: commitment and self-discipline.  The commitments I don't keep are mostly to myself - I say I will meditate and don't, or write for an hour in the morning and don't, or clean the bathroom and don't.  I say, I need to sit down and do my taxes and don't, I need to make that phone call I've been putting off and don't.
     In a sense, lack of commitment and lack of self-discipline are two aspects of a single coin.  They both lead to a life of little accomplishment.  I sometimes think I've been like a seed in a field.  I sprout, took around, decide there's more sun over there and run to that new place, then look around and decide there's more water of there and run....again and again.  But one day I look around and I see all the other sprouts who have stayed in the same place have put down roots and are thriving while I am stunted and weak.  I may have seen more of the world but I have less to show for it.
     The sprout story actually describes the way I used to be.  Somewhere along the line I learned that the resistance that comes up in me at the thought of routine or the thought of doing what I say I'll do about my work or the house - that resistance keeps me from connecting with myself and others. And I know now I want the energy and well-being that comes from those connections.
     So I focus on resistance.  I've learned what it feels like in my body so that I'm able to recognize it.  Oh, this is my old old friend Resistance, one of my oldest responses - which I don't want to drive me anymore.  I want to break free.  I often get the image of something like a beetle, an insect with a thick carapace and I feel I have one, too, and I begin expanding until it cracks and I can get my hands in the crack and pull it open.  It occurs to me that is what Clark Kent does as he changes into Superman.  Rip open that shirt!  Rip open that carapace!  Do what you can to get free!