Awareness and Resistance
September 9th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina
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I’m well aware that many people will become pissed off, turned off, put off, or simply want me to step off when I stray from “safe” topics like productivity and time management and explore more sensitive, even controversial topics like relationships, health, or spirituality. However, from past experiences I’ve seen that it’s the ideas we resist most vehemently that are fertile ground for new growth experiences.
Through this blog I’m providing ideas for you to react to, and your reaction to those ideas becomes the seed for your own personal growth. If an idea resonates with you, great. If an idea seems to have no impact on you, it’s not likely important for your growth. But if an idea sparks a fire of resistance within you, there you have a potent seed for growth.
Exploring your own resistance to ideas can help you clarify your own thinking and understand why you believe what you do. My goal isn’t to convert everyone to my way of thinking about subjects like diet or spirituality or relationships. My goal is to help raise your awareness of how you think and behave and to encourage you to make such choices more consciously and deliberately instead of falling back on social conditioning and/or mindlessness.
I have more genuine respect for the meat-eater who takes the time to explore and think about his/her diet carefully, makes a conscious choice about what to eat, acts in accordance with those beliefs, and continues to remain open to new information, than I do for the vegan who simple eats that way because it’s how s/he was raised to behave and never gave it any conscious thought. I have the greatest respect for those who consciously and deliberately explore all aspects of their lives without excessive fear, defensiveness, or resistance — those who are most open to finding out the truth as opposed to justifying their current beliefs. Becoming more conscious and aware requires that we do know, and that we don’t ignore information, especially when it provokes resistance within us.
Live consciously and deliberately, with full awareness of what exactly it is you are doing and being. That process leads many people towards similar types of diets, relationships, and spiritual beliefs, but pursue this path for yourself and see where it leads you. The goal isn’t to adopt some particular lifestyle. It’s to look at all the information you’ve gathered from your own personal experience and make what you genuinely believe to be the best choice for you.
If you want to become more conscious, one of the best places to start is with your resistance. By noticing the areas of your life where you can easily be made defensive and resist ideas emotionally, you will see the places where you have tremendous opportunity for growth. Imagine for example a couple you may know whose relationship seems lifeless. If you try to raise the issue with them, they may practically boot you out the door — you meet with strong resistance. For that couple their relationship is an area where they have high potential for growth. Where we most resist change is precisely where we must change.
Resisting an idea emotionally and becoming defensive isn’t the same as disagreeing with an idea. If I tell you that I’m really 250 years old, you may dismiss me as a liar or an idiot, but my statement is unlikely to provoke your emotional resistance or make you defensive. You simply disagree, but you don’t resist. However, if I tell you that you look fat and should change your diet, that may indeed provoke some emotional resistance, depending on the degree to which that statement reflects back to you an area where you need to grow.
I believe that if an idea provokes emotional defensiveness and resistance (and not merely intellectual disagreement), therein lies a grain of truth that must be faced in order for you to grow. If I tell you your marriage is a sham and that you should get a divorce, you’ll simply blow me off if you don’t believe it. But if there’s an element of truth to my statement, you’ll likely become defensive, with increasing tenacity the more I press the issue. But the only way to get past that resistance is to face it and to become more fully conscious of exactly what you’ve been resisting, such as the reality that your marriage isn’t working, that your diet is wrong for you, or that your career isn’t fulfilling.
If you and I were to have a one-on-one conversation about your life, which topics could I bring up that would provoke you to become emotionally defensive and resistant? What could I say that would really piss you off and even make you angry at me? Your health? Physical body? Job? Finances? Relationship(s)? Social skills? Parenting skills? Family? Religious beliefs? Political beliefs? Emotional state? Your courage? Your confidence? Your discipline? Your sordid past? Your worst habit? Your addictions?
What will provoke the fight or flight response, making you feel a strong need to either kick me out or fight back hard? Not simple intellectual disagreement — but the type of response that shuts down your ability to think logically and has you reacting far more emotionally. What is it?
Resistance shows us where we need more conscious clarity. As you recognize and explore resistance in yourself and become more courageous in facing the unfaceable parts of your life, you will in fact become much more conscious and aware, which will increase your ability to face down other areas of resistance with greater success. It will be increasingly difficult for anyone else to put you into a state of emotional defensiveness because you will become open to new ideas and information without needing to resist them. Clarity will become more important to you than comfort. Change will feel more natural than stability.
Invite ideas to flow through your awareness freely. Think about them. Agree or disagree with them. But when you find yourself emotionally resisting them, recognize that the resistance is within you, not the idea. When you track down the source of that resistance, you will soon recognize where you most need to grow.
Here’s a related article which explores what to do when you recognize where you need to grow but don’t yet feel strong enough to face it consciously:
The Courage to Live Consciously
September 9th, 2005 at 9:27 am
Your posts, whether on “safe” topics like productivity or others–like spirituality or water flouridation, always make me stop and think. Thanks for doing that!
September 9th, 2005 at 9:45 am
Currently, I am an omnivore (I eat meat, dairy, and processed foods), but I am very interested in reading about vegan and natural/raw food diets.
I plan on eating less meat, dairy, and processed foods than I do now. Personally, I believe humans are historically omnivores, but because of modern agriculture and distribution, it is now easy to eat a vegan/natural/raw food diet that is nutritionally complete, healthy, varied, and delicious. The benefit is better health for the whole of a longer life.
My challenge is that my wife cooks all manner of meat deliciously, and our whole family really enjoys sushi.
I would really like to read your recipe ideas for meals and snacks.
Please continue to write about health and diet, I really enjoy it.
September 9th, 2005 at 10:02 am
I was about to be caught up in the vegan/meat discussion (It’s sort of a Mac vs. Windows vs. linux hype – bear with me I’m a sys admin). Still, atacking or disregarding another persons belief is beyond the point. If one can take an opposite point of view and analize it and decide if it fits ones lifestyle or not is the important thing. I will challenge my beliefs and if after that I still believe in the same things then good, it means I was in the right path for self-fullfillment; if I change, then great, I’ve just corrected my ways.
And for the record, I’m also a big meat eater, but I’ll try to read more about other ways besides the Zone (I know, I know, at least it’s not atkins). Flame on!
September 9th, 2005 at 10:03 am
Absolutely true!
However, I want to add alittle bit to the entry: in my experience, emotional reaction defines not the most significant problems, but the problems the person is unaware of.
I mean, if you know you have a problem with time management, and you are aware of that problem, and you’re trying to solve it – you’re not likely to enter a heated argument stating your time management is fine.
But once you get defensive on some subject – that’s a hint that you should search for the problem.
September 9th, 2005 at 10:18 am
“Whatever you resist, will persist.” — I learned that a while back, and seems true so far, in all areas of my life.
But I understand the fustration people “New Agey” thinking: not that your thinking is “New Age”, but I really think that people aren’t used to thinking like: “OK, let me experiment for myself for the next 30 days and see what happens and follow that.” Because I think that people have be “forced” (since a young age) to listen to experts and follow what they have to say. We have all be conditioned to not live consiously, and to wait for other to decide many of the things for us.
And I don’t think there is lots of scientific research on many of the diet issues you talk about. But there are lots of flaky material in the New Age camp by scam-artists. So it is harder for people to accept ideas that look “New Agey”.
September 9th, 2005 at 8:43 pm
One thing I like about this blog is that when I make a post that takes a stand on a controversial topic, it usually gets abundant comments filled with alternative ideas, resources, and links (whether in agreement or disagreement). So the whole thread becomes a great resource for anyone wanting to research the topic in more depth. And this is wonderfully congruent with my not-so-hidden agenda of raising people’s awareness. Plus it certainly helps me to grow as well by exposing me to ideas I might not otherwise have found on my own. It helps keep me from becoming too rigid in my thinking.
As an alternative to making polarized posts, I could also make posts that simply ask questions and invite debate. However, I find that taking a stand works best when the issue is very lopsided. For example, if there’s only 1 vegan out of every 500 Americans, I feel I’m better off making the case for the vegan side, since most people are far less educated on that side, especially given the billions of marketing dollars spent to promote animal products. This seems to foster a more thorough exploration of the topic. However, I find that open-ended questions work better when a controversial topic is more balanced and much less lopsided.
Even so, it’s still challenging to figure out the best way to present ideas… whether to take a strong stand on them, to take a moderate stand, or to simply ask questions and take no stand at all (like Socrates did).
September 9th, 2005 at 8:47 pm
@Nick: I used to think that too. However, I’ve often found that there are often unexpected surprises to be found when we take a conscious look into the darker areas of our lives.
For example, if you seem to have a problem with time management or procrastination, and you’re well aware of the problem and working on it but still not making progress as fast as you like, it could be that it’s the areas you aren’t exploring that are contributing to the problem. Perhaps you don’t manage your time well because you don’t have strong enough reasons to do so, and those reasons may be found by balancing other areas of your life. You could get a big boost in overall motivation by improving your relationship. There’s a great deal of overlap between these different areas. Whenever I have a problem in one area, it’s often the case that the true source of the problem is somewhere else.
September 9th, 2005 at 10:50 pm
I wanted to post a question about how you increased your dig ranking in another post but comments are closed.
September 10th, 2005 at 7:42 am
@Bruce: Several articles got high ranks at digg.com — the “How to Win an Argument” article received over 1000 diggs. But that’s all done by the digg users. I don’t even have an account there, and I’ve never submitted anything to them.
Social bookmarking sites are an interesting phenomenon. I’ve gotten many traffic surges from such sites this year, but it’s a mixed bag because those surges often include a high percentage of trolls. Out of each batch of new visitors though, there’s also a percentage who are genuinely interested in personal growth.
September 12th, 2005 at 8:18 am
*I believe that if an idea provokes emotional defensiveness and resistance*
Ah, Shadow.
If an idea or topic comes up and generates an emotional storm, there’s work to be done.
A lot of reaction depends on -how- a message is delivered. If it is delivered as an attack, the person’s response may be to the attack instead of the content. If you told me I’d put on some pounds, I’d respond much more pleasantly than if you told me I looked like a fat cow. One of the dangers of feeling “rightous” about something (diet, religious beliefs, parenting skills, etc) is that it is easy to step over the line into insulting or attacking the people around you.