Rosemary's View of Resistance

Rosemary Senjem — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 05:53:33 +0000

When Stephen Pressfield describes Resistance, I am reminded of the old Pink Panther movies and the relationship between Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau and his assistant Cato Fong.

"Trained by his boss to attack without warning (the better to keep Clouseau on guard and in shape), Cato has invariably done his job too well, kicking and chopping at the Inspector at the most inopportune times -- when Clouseau is making love, for example." - New York Times

We each move through life, much like Clouseau, full of our own logic and foibles. Our Resistance is like Cato whose task is to kill us. Resistance shows up with the Cato's timeliness, bringing the biggest challenges just before we are about to be really successful and just after we've tasted success.

When it comes to working with resistance, I differ with Pressfield.

Rather than see a war, I see a team effort of your own "Little Rascals" run amuck. Have you ever seen the classic black and white television series called the "Little Rascals" also known as "Our Gang?"

"The Little Rascals represents a happy-go-lucky haven from the pretensions and rules of the adult world. Caught up in the timeless struggles of childhood, a gang of good-natured kids fights back with the only tools they have: common sense, friendship and an indomitable spirit. " - kingworld.com "A wealthy society matron treats the underprivileged kids of the gang to an outing at her country estate. The gang turns both the journey and the visit at the farm into a chaotic adventure." - tv.com

We all have our own set of "Little Rascals" inside us. The most famous one is "The Inner Child," written about in many books. Let me assure you there are others. All we need to do is roll call! Some show up like archetypal characters and others are simply another aspect of our Self. Just like the television series, there are times in our lives when our inner gang of rascals is leading us on an adventure and trouble ensues. This trouble looks a lot like Pressfield's Resistance. Why does the Resistance happen? In the stories of the "Little Rascals" trouble inevitably resulted when one of the Rascals was left out or didn't understand what was going on. This Little Rascal was inevitably the cause or at the center of the chaos. Our inner gang of rascals can have the same problems when we try to move forward to achieve our dreams. The key to overcoming Resistance is team work. If you're training for your own Olympic level achievement in life and you've got a rag tag support team, you need to work with them like a coach. You probably need to do some training together and have team meetings. At Intuitive Plan, we engage your Rascals in conversations and find out who feels left out and what kind of support they need to contribute to the team's success. Often the rest of the gang can rally to support rascal who is instigating resistance to your success. A client was struggling with the slow pace of starting her business. She was aware of other parts of herself wanting her to slow down, but she thought she had to actually kill them to move forward. The opposite was true. Her adventuresome rascal that had been driving the business development so far was getting a little pushy with this fledgling venture. The resistant rascal only wanted to make sure that care was taken with this young project to keep it growing into maturity and not die an early death. When this dynamic was brought to light, she was able to see the wisdom of both rascals and make agreements to move forward. Intuitive Plan helps you take a roll call of your gang of rascals AND provides you with tools for ongoing conversations together.

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Rosemary's View of Resistance