What you resist persists…

You might've heard the phrase: what we resist persists.

And it's true, but why does it happen?

'What we resist persists' is one facet of a deeper truth: what we place our attention on grows.

Resistance is a kind of attention.

If we're resisting something, even if it's not totally conscious, we're feeding it with our attention. And so it sticks around.

So what do we do instead?

There's a concept in Somatic Experiencing (a gentle way of working with trauma and nervous system regulation, if you're not familiar) that offers a suggestion. It's called 'coherence'.

If a nervous system is chronically dysregulated and holding a lot of trauma, it can be tempting to put our attention on the biggest tangles. But kind of like trying to untangle a ball of wool that's been attacked by enthusiastic kittens, if we're starting with the parts that are the most tangled, we tend to end up with more tangle.

What we resist persists.

To keep our ball of wool metaphor going - if we're trying to untangle our kitten mangled wool (or come to a place of more regulation and build more resilience in our nervous system, or have more fun in our lives - this works for most things) it can be more effective to focus our attention on the parts that are the least tangled and work from there.

We find one loose end and work to loosen it.

We find the places in our lives that are already fun, or have the most potential for more fun, and grow those.

We focus on what's working, rather than what's not.

And kind of like how if you're thinking of buying a red car you start seeing red cars everywhere - your mind starts seeing more of what's working. Your nervous system starts leaning towards more moments of coherence, more regulation.

You start naturally finding more opportunities for fun.

In this way, by focussing on what we do want, rather than what we don't, we stop resisting our own resistance, and start to orient ourselves to a different way of being in the world.

I don't mean this in a bypassy kind of way, we're not ignoring or sweeping the challenges under the rug (denial is another form of resistance), but through acknowledging the challenge is there, tending to any immediate needs, then re focussing our attention on what is working.

Paying more attention to the things in your world that are going well. The parts you like. The bits that are beautiful. It doesn't matter how small.

And over time, watch them grow.

It's one of those simple but not so easy things - do more of what's working.

Perhaps you'd like to give it a try.

And then see what happens next…