Friendly Disguise

I have a friend who plays a huge part in my life. They're always there, through "thick and thin" and "ups and downs", always with the same useful words of wisdom, always pushing me onwards.

Sometimes I don't see it that way though. I don't recognise what they do for me. I'm ungrateful and unaccepting of the gift of their friendship. I sometimes want to change them to be more like me. You see, they always think they know best. Always have lots of advice about the way to do things. For example, with the Raw/Living Food lifestyle I've chosen - they've had plenty to say about that.

I listen to my friend. That's what you do for your friends. It makes them feel good and I feel better if they're happy.

My friend's the complete opposite of me, where I'm fearless they are full of fear. Where I'm optimistic they are pessimistic. Where I'm open to new ideas, they are very fixed in their outlook.

I wish sometimes we weren't so close, as the intimacy of our friendship can sometimes be overwhelming - I worry that I'd miss them though.

Okay I'll come clean - my friend isn't a person. Between my life as it is now and the life I want is my friend, resistance.

I've just read an amazing book called "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. I read lots of books and can recommend many, but this book is in a league of it's own. Maybe, it's because of the huge impact it's had on me, maybe you'll find it does the same for you. Anyway, you can let me know.

It took me a while to read the signs that I needed to read this book but when I eventually started reading it, I knew straight away it was written by a man who had felt and experienced what I feel and have felt a lot of over the last year a half.

I had resistance before I realised that's what it was. Since I've stepped out of my comfort zone and have continued to do this in lots of different situations, my resistance has been in a spin. Trying to get me to stand still, to stop, to do what I've always done and has used numerous methods to achieve this.

You may be wondering why, if it trys to hold me back in my comfort zone, I would call it my friend. Well, firstly it wants the best for me - it just has a funny way of showing it! It can only know past experiences and therefore bases it's advice on what's happened before. We've all had friends like those haven't we!

From my own experience it was my identification with the voice of resistance that led to feelings of overwhelm and loss of control. To put this simply, I forgot that the voice of my resistance, and it can take different voices, - is not ME and therefore the voice of your resistance is not YOU.

I had forgotten as I suspect you have! So I'm reminding you and myself here and now, that the voice of resistance that is finding excuses and drama around not doing the things that will make you happy, is not YOU, it's your resistance.

What makes me feel enormous relief is that my resistance is my friend as it shows me contrast. Without contrast we would not manifest our dreams. We have to know what we don't want in order to decide and chose what we do want. So, it's not wrong to have a friend who points out the pessimistic view point and things that could go wrong, it's just information about what we don't want. The problem is that most people identify with the voice, believe what it's saying and allow themselves to be talked out of their desires, making themselves very unhappy in the process.

My advice is to make friends with your resistance. As in all relationships, friendships are places we go to learn and grow. Use your relationship with your resistance to grow and develop yourself, challenge, accept, and listen as you would to a friend. But at the end of the day, believe what you believe and act from that place of faith, trust and relief that once we choose what we don't want, the things we do want are available to us very easily.

An example of how this works in my life is that resistance has been building a brick wall between me and my writing projects for sometime. Each day they add a couple more rows of bricks and each day I sigh and get stuck into the other priorities in my life. Sometimes I can scale the wall and sit down on the otherside at my favourite spot and churn out my hearts murmurs. The energy it seems to take to do that varies but it is of no consequence when compared with the elation of the writing and achievement of my goal. The interesting thing is, and Steven refers to this too, is that you would think the wall would start to crumble after climbing it, however it doesn't, it does the opposite and gets stronger. Yet, it will never out match the self-belief and feeling that to write is what I'm being guided to do. The resistance helps me on my journey, teaching me how much I want to write, as well as tools for helping others express themselves in whatever way they desire.

So, go read the book, experiment with the concepts and believe in your desires. Accept that your resistance is showing you contrast, be strong and courageous and stand up for your desires, you're worth it!