Your EGO must die (temporarily) to live life to the fullest.
Why do we resist the things that we know will help us?! This was the question I asked myself for many years. I knew what I needed to do, but my ego told me otherwise.
First and foremost, resistance is a psychological reaction to change. Resistance means that, despite being highly motivated with the best intentions, we fight that change at a psychological level.
Anyone else struggle against our desired behavior modification? I have! But why the resistance?
I love teaching Feng Shui and the excitement of how
it changes the circumstances of people’s lives for the better. Even more than that, I love helping others achieve their dreams and create the life they deserve.
Working as a Feng Shui consultant is the most rewarding thing in the world. I contribute something great to people's lives and also get to share my knowledge of what I am passionate about.
So when it came to swallowing my own medicine, or taking the advice I was dishing out, I was the one falling short of taking care of myself! I continued to ignore the warning signs of depression by staying busy, focusing solely on helping others. Anytime I considered doing something helpful for myself, my ego warned me that change was going to be hard, and it was just easier to silently stay in misery.
For me, the tools were right in front of my face. I'm a Feng Shui consultant and energy coach for god's sake! Now, I am not talking about Feng Shui’ing my home—I am talking about mental health and self-care.
As I have written before, Feng Shui has many layers and works in tandem with the universe. Sometimes
life will show us what we may not like, and deliver an important lesson that you need to learn before you move forward, or hit the jackpot. There really is a silver lining in the clouds.
I was so good at helping others succeed but when I finally stopped and looked around, things in my life were not as rosy as I made it out to be. I realized I needed to take care of myself first so I could take better care of others. I then thought about this: Things were going great with my clients. I was being praised for my work, received calls about how someone had found love, a raise at work, a new baby, and one client was finally sleeping better after months of trying everything else. Referrals were coming in, and all my clients were happy with me and the Feng Shui they implemented in their home.
But then I imagined: If I actually took better care of myself, my mental health, and my physical health, what would that look like?? I got goosebumps.
For me, the answer was meditation. My ego was right there telling me the same shit, “Don't do it Adrienne. It's going to be hard and it's easier to stay put.”
So, that led me back to the question of why we resist. Why do some of us resist the practice of meditation?
Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace, and balance that can benefit both your emotional wellbeing and your overall health. If done as a daily practice, meditation helps increase your focus and attention and improves your ability to multitask. It also helps us clear our minds and allows us to focus on the present moment.
For me, it was the things going on in my life that troubled me and if I am not comfortable with certain emotions, I tend to avoid them. It was my ego-driven frame of mind that was causing me to feel like ‘I’ don’t want to meditate. My resistance was all emotional. It's not because I have hang-ups about the concept of mindfulness or didn’t believe any of the myths about it. It was just that for some reason there was a block between me and the practice.
I knew that when I started meditating, something had to stop! What had to stop was the mode of mind that keeps us striving, judging, clinging, rejecting, narrowly focusing on “for me against me.” That is the ego that is resistant to meditation because it dies (temporarily) when we enter into meditation. Your ego does not want to be put on hold. The ego is subtle and manipulates and can trick us into serving it rather than our own best interests. SAY WHAT? So, by recognizing the mind's resistance to giving up its habitual mode of activity, we can successfully break through it.
Whether it's practicing meditation, yoga, speaking with a therapist, talking with a friend, confiding to a family member, exercising, re-evaluating your relationship with your partner, taking a day off, self care and even facing your finances. Whatever you know you need to do, these actions are imperative to your health and wellbeing. Resistance to doing any of these things is fueled by fear of your ego and what isn't comfortable or predictable, and it’s why we often hold back from achieving things that we have potential for and from living the life that we’re capable of creating.