The Art of Accomplishment: Embracing Resistance

Key Themes

Embracing Resistance
- Viewing resistance as a natural step in transformation.
- Importance of not fighting resistance but understanding and loving it.
Denial and Resistance by David White
- Denial as a crossroads between perception and readiness.
- Denial as a form of resistance; inviting unready powers into our lives.
Understanding Resistance
- Resistance is about not being at peace with what is.
- Often based on not wanting to feel certain emotions.
- Nervous system responds with fear, anger, or frustration.
- Transformation always involves resistance.

Types of Resistance
- Checking out, fighting, being evasive, defensiveness, sleeping, becoming overly cerebral.
- Resistance can occur in business meetings and personal growth.
Loving Resistance
- Encourage and allow resistance fully.
- Listen to the wisdom in resistance; it often unveils deeper needs or fears.
- Transformation and resistance are deeply interlinked.
Approach to Transformation
- Avoid trying to force a change; embrace the process of resistance.
- Curiosity in others' resistance leads to better understanding and cooperation.
- Avoid judgment and impatience towards resistance in oneself and others.

Procrastination as Resistance
- Fear of failure or imperfection leading to procrastination.
- Feeling procrastination with curiosity may reveal underlying anxieties.
- Overcoming procrastination by positively associating the task.
Transformation and Suffering
- Engage with the feeling of resistance deeply to overcome it.
- Transformation involves recognizing and integrating resistance.
- Avoid creating multiple layers of conflict by resisting resistance.

Universal Will
- Ambitions belong to a greater universal drive, leading to a more collaborative and gentle life.
- True transformation happens through embracing and integrating resistance, not fighting it.

Embrace Intensity
- Running towards intensity/resistance leads to deep personal growth.
- Avoid seeing resistance as a problem; see it as a transformative process.

Joe Hudson on Overcoming Marijuana Addiction
- Initially fought against the habit exacerbating the problem.
- Transformation occurred by addressing underlying sadness, leading to natural cessation of the habit.

Embracing and understanding resistance is crucial for personal and collective growth.
Navigating resistance with curiosity, love, and joy leads to transformation and a more peaceful existence.