Colleen Wainright, the communicatrix, is presently participating in a 30-day hypnotherapy experiment and describing it on her blog. Her therapist, Greg Beckett, is apparently using psychosynthesis to find her subpersonalities and help her to get them to work together as a team. But on Day 19 they created a subpersonality that isn’t interested in cooperating. It’s called “the Resistor” and is interested only in resisting everything she tries to do. So she’s doomed to fight it forever if she wants to accomplish anything.
Being a great believer in harmony and the development of personality myself, I find that fascinating. I used the term “created” instead of “uncovered” above because just before the session she had read a book called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. As Colleen writes, “the chief slayer of creative output, according to Pressfield, is Resistance. It takes many shapes (procrastination is a favorite) but moves inexorably towards its chief goal,” frittering away your precious time. Colleen had come to the session “full of excitement over this great new guide and its mythic depiction of a wiggly idea. But Greg decided to do old Steven one better: he called resistance ‘The Resistor’ and, after putting me under, got it to talk a bit.”
So now Colleen believes the Resistor is an essential part of herself. Who knows, it may very well work for her. It’s just not my style of operating. When I find myself dragging my feet about doing something that part of me wants to do, I honor that resistance and try to understand it. It may be right or it may be wrong, but it’s trying to protect me. Maybe I’ve been working too hard and need a break. Maybe it’s afraid I’ll commit myself to something I will regret. Maybe I’m just facing some tasks that aren’t much fun. At any rate, it’s worth taking a bit of time to see what the underlying issue is and resolve it in the easiest way.
Am I creating my own version of Resistance? Of course, and that doesn’t make it any less useful. I’m after something different than Colleen. She seems to be after “achievements of magnificent fulfillment.” I just want to live my life deeply and share it with others. For me that means not fighting life and myself but enjoying the process. So when I have something to do and find myself dragging my feet, I ask myself “How can I get this done and enjoy the process?” Usually, in the fullness of time, it starts to work.
Photo: Memorial to the French resistance by Rhian vk. Creative Commons license.
A few things by way of clarification. First, Greg is not my therapist; he is a certified hypnotherapist, but we are doing this as a side project—sort of an artistic experiment. Also, I am after “achievements of magnificent fulfillment” as you put it, but I’ve come to realize that largely, my life is my work; or to be more specific, living my life out loud and externalizing the process is my work. So the experiment, which he was interested in doing as part of his work, dovetailed perfectly with mine.
You make an excellent point about different types of resistance. We discussed this same phenomenon in the comments section of the post you’re referencing. There is certainly something good about certain types of procrastination, for example: sometimes, it’s about letting something “stew” until ready. And with my psychotherapist (i.e., not Greg), I’ve done a lot of work getting in touch with the part of me that can say “no”–I suppose it would be The Protector, if you wanted to put a label on it. That part of me was pretty weak when I first went to therapy in my 20s, and over the years, I’ve had to work assiduously at letting that voice be heard.
Finally, I think I’ll have to write more about The Resistor at some point because clearly, I’ve not done it justice. While it’s a powerful force, it’s just the yin to one’s own yang—the desire to create that pushes back against the desire for stasis. It’s not evil; it just is.
Fascinating stuff, isn’t it?
xxx