What we resist.....

A dear reader wrote:

“I've been pondering something for a long time related to the concept and universal truth that what we resist persists.  It makes sense and I hear references to it frequently.  The problem I have is that many of the gains we have in the world/society are because of the courage of some people to step forward and speak their truth.  This can be related to women finally gaining the right to vote, other women's rights, LGBTQ rights and on and on it goes.

So, these steps forward/major reforms occurred because of the resistance of many out there to what was in place.  I would love it if you would address this discrepancy so that I and many others out there can have some clarification.”

The key to your question comes with the word resistance. The issues you mentioned were not being resisted as much as they were being refocused. Consider this example.  An angry dog is coming at you and you fear she will bite you. Resisting her would be grabbing hold of her, holding her by the collar, keeping her at arm’s length, not letting her go so she won’t bite you. You would be resisting an angry dog. Neither of you would go anywhere until someone came along to help you or the dog got loose and attacked.

Refocusing the dog (changing her behavior) would be throwing a treat, stick, or a dog toy away from you so she would go after that rather than chasing you. This is not a perfect example since I realize you might not have a treat or toy handy, but allow some grace here since this is simply an example. There is resisting and there is refocusing. This concept is taught in some martial arts where the practitioner is shown how to move out of the way of her opponent instead of fighting back and engaging them, allowing their opponent to strike air.

In the case of women’s rights, the marching and speeches and other actions didn’t just resist the wrongs being done. It refocused them so people would see women as full human beings capable of participating in society’s functioning rather than seeing women as one-dimensional beings who didn’t have the right to participate in their own societal rule.

Resisting anything gives it power and helps the issue to remain. Refocusing the issue gives space for things to evolve and move forward. Here’s a different example.

If you’re reading this, you know the planet is going through a major shift in evolution. There are a group of people who are resisting the changes happening. Let’s call them the far-right. These people not only want things to stay the same as they are now, they want the planet to go back to the 1950’s and 1560’s! Their resistance is causing people to persist in making positive changes and move forward.

This is a painful process because sometimes it looks as if the far-right people are winning. They aren’t and the more they resist evolution, the more they resist the growth of humanity, the stronger the rest of us become. Our job is not to resist their resistance. Our job is to refocus it by leaning into the evolutionary cycle and helping it along.

Let the folks on the far right continue to resist the rest of us and we will persist. “What we resist persists.” We can use this principle to help move things along rather than allowing their resistance to make us fret and worry. This process isn’t easy and it isn’t pretty. Sometimes it hurts a lot and some of us are being treated very unfairly.

Our jobs are to stay the course no matter what, have faith and belief that Divine Mother knows what she’s doing and celebrate the long-term cycle of light-filled evolution that is happening whether or not these other folks like it. They are on the wrong side of history.

Living in grace and ease,

Krysta