This is part two of a guided exercise designed to support you in moving into relationship with your unique experience of resistance.
Resistance to change and new things is a part of daily life and it is frequently informed by the experiences of our past.
If you have not done part one of this guided exercise,
I do invite you to go do that part before beginning this one.
And of course,
You may always begin your journey here.
That is fine as well.
As always,
I invite you to welcome in that healing havening touch.
The first motion being palm havening,
Running your palm against palm as though you're washing your hands under warm water.
That soothing havening hug,
Fingertips on your shoulders,
Moving down your elbows and repeating that motion throughout the exercise.
Gently running your fingertips along the tops of your eyebrows or underneath your eyes and following your cheekbones.
That will deepen your neurochemical experience of this meditation.
To begin,
I invite you to notice an experience of resistance that you are currently struggling with in your day-to-day life.
Resistance has many ways that it shows up.
A resistance to change,
An internal sense of feeling stuck or paralyzed,
An understanding that there are things that perhaps we quote unquote ought to do and yet for some reason we don't,
Which frequently goes hand in hand with unfortunate and deeply painful experiences of shame.
If you did complete the previous meditation,
I invite you to return back to your identified experience of resistance in that meditation.
As you move into relationship with your current experience of resistance,
I invite you to bring it front and center,
To focus your loving attention on the data that your mind and body is sharing with you.
What comes to mind is what draws our focus and here we are paying intentional attention to the experience of resistance.
Often with resistance,
We want to push it away or pretend it's not there.
This in fact will strengthen the power resistance has over us.
Interestingly,
If we lean in with curiosity and a loving desire to learn more,
Resistance may soften,
Step back,
And create room for us to learn about the ways our mind and body are working so diligently to keep us safe.
Once you've experienced and connected with your own personal experience of resistance,
I invite you to imagine that it is just slightly disconnected from you.
If you can,
Even imagine that you're putting it in your hands and setting it on a table in the space around you.
An experience to be witnessed,
To be observed,
And an experience that your mind and body have created that is full of wisdom about how your brain works so diligently to keep you safe.
And from the subjective space as you're viewing this experience of resistance,
Notice if it has a shape or a color,
A motion,
A movement.
If you were to touch it,
Does it have a temperature?
Is it cool to the touch or warm?
Perhaps even scalding or icy cold?
On the surface,
Is it smooth or rough,
Soft or hard?
What does your resistance look and feel like?
Welcoming in a gentle breath,
Breathing in,
Two,
Three,
Four,
And releasing.
And as you slowly exhale,
Imagining you're creating a little bit more space from yourself and the resistance,
Still staying in loving curiosity-focused connection,
And separating it a little bit more from the core that is you.
Imagine what it would be like to get curious about where this resistance comes from,
Where this shape or texture or temperature began to grow and develop.
Invite your mind now to explore back across the course of your life and notice,
Is this an experience that has been a part of you before?
Floating back across the previous weeks or months,
Or some of us,
Even years and decades.
How long has this particular somatic body experience or cognitive thinking experience been a part of your world?
Being mindful that resistance is a way that our brain,
Particularly our friend Amy the amygdala,
Strives to keep us safe.
Linking into those foundational core values,
How do I stay safe?
How can I be safe?
How am I lovable and do I belong?
And how do I create success?
Our system frequently resists change,
Especially when we're in a situation when our core values are involved.
And those core values about safety and love and success about belonging begin to become developed before we're even breathing air.
Our amygdala is trying to make sense of the world for us at all times to keep us safe and loved.
And oftentimes resistance is tied in to those core values.
Our brains fear that change will be too hard,
That if we try,
We may fail,
That if we succeed,
It will be too much and overwhelming,
That if we stop a behavior,
We might experience great pain.
Our brain is always,
Always working to keep us alive in the way it has learned how.
And the ways it has learned how are the ways that it has been successful throughout our journey.
As you lovingly float back across the course of your life,
Are you noticing hints of this experience in earlier times?
If you do,
Thank your brain for each one that it brings to your awareness.
It is a gift that our brain invites us to explore and more deeply get to know ourselves.
The ability to think about thinking is fundamentally a human condition for better and for worse.
And let's turn that condition for better and extend gratitude for each moment your mind and body showed up with resistance.
Each moment informed by this type of data as an endeavor to keep you alive and to keep you safe,
To keep you safe.
No matter the consequence,
Our brain is always fighting for us and loving us,
Even and especially even when it doesn't feel that way.
With this new information and the times this experience has been a part of your life,
Fighting for you,
Loving you,
I invite you to imagine wrapping a warm fuzzy blanket around this part of your brain that has been working so hard to keep you the same,
To keep you stuck,
To keep you paralyzed in the old ways in order to keep you safe.
Imagine approaching this part of you with tender,
Loving care,
Perhaps with a cup of hot tea or a bowl of chicken soup or ramen,
Whatever it is that is soothing to your own unique being.
Because this part of you has been working very hard and with some loving tenderness,
It may be willing to step back and allow your adult self here and now,
Today,
To start to take steps to be the change that you want to see in your world.
As you move into continual deepening relationship with this part of you,
Welcome in another gentle,
Loving breath,
Breathing in to a count of four,
Three,
Two,
One,
And out to a count of six,
Five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One.
Beautiful.
And as we conclude this guided exercise,
I invite you to let this part of you know that you want to learn from it,
That you want to experience it and move into relationship with it,
That you can be partners in your life journey and find a way forward that aligns and connects with both of your desires.
There is no need to be alone or to be at odds because fundamentally,
Your purpose is one and the same,
To build the life that you want to co-create together.
