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Week 24: Resistance

This week's email continues the theme we've been exploring for the last month, of connecting action to intention and purpose. One question that comes up again and again is, If I know what matters, and I have a clear intention, why don't I follow through? 

This week, I was finalizing the questions for a psychology exam. The producers of textbooks typically provide course instructors with sample exam questions, and one such question caught my attention beyond its value for assessing students' learning. The questions asked simply for the definition of "resistance", from a psychoanalytic perspective. According to the textbook's answer key, the correct definition is "motivated hesitation".

Resistance is something we deal with all of the time in yoga and meditation practice - most often in the ways we avoid practicing, but also in the ways we manage to avoid hearing certain ideas that we are not ready to understand and apply. In all the times I've heard a yoga or meditation teacher discuss resistance, I've never heard it described in such a neutral and thought-provoking way: motivated hesitation. Resistance to practice isn't laziness. It is more useful to think of resistance is a force that carries its own desires, emotions, and energy - as much as, and often stronger than, our motivation for practicing. 

One kind of motivated hesitation is overwhelm - the feelings associated with the belief that it is not possible to do what is needed, or that there is too much to do. The feelings of overwhelm creates a freeze response that literally overwhelms the motivation to do whatever is desired or needed. I think when we experience overwhelm, it feels like we don't have enough of something: enough energy, enough motivation, enough drive. It may help instead to realize that the resistance is a force itself - some instinct to protect yourself - and adding more struggle can only strengthen it. 

You can experience this very clearly in your asana practice through a phenomenon known as the "stretch reflex". When you try to stretch a muscle (for example, the hamstrings in a forward bend), the muscle fibers monitor how "hard" you stretching. The more you try to stretch, by pushing, pulling, forcing, and ignoring pain signals, the more those muscle fibers create resistance by contracting. The result is that stretching feels harder and more painful than it needs to be, and you don't actually stretch as far as you could if you approached it slowly and without struggle. You may have the motivation to stretch your hamstrings, but the belief that you need to do it all at once, or need to reach a goal rather than explore a process, creates a stronger motivation to not stretch. You don't need to apply more force to push through the resistance. You need understand the resistance as a motivated hesitation - and change the energy around that motivation.

This week, I encourage you to notice how this process shows up in your yoga practice when you stretch. See if you can feel physical resistance in a stretch as a real force in the body, and dissolve that force with patience and presence.

Then explore if there is something in your life that you have a strong motivation for but find yourself not doing, or unable to do. It might even be your yoga practice. Instead of beating yourself up for not having enough motivation, ask yourself what the motivated hesitation is that is manifesting as resistance. What is the energy that is blocking you? Does it have something to do with an emotion, or a belief?

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