Let Go of Resistance With These 4 Easy Steps

This article was originally published on Soulaia.com. This version has been lightly updated to reflect my current understanding, work, and offerings while preserving the heart and core message of the original article.

As with every circumstance in our lives, what unfolds is a function of how we respond to it. It’s not the actual events that happen, but the responses we have to these events, that determine the degree of difficulty or ease in our lives.

When difficult emotions arise, many of us instinctively respond with resistance. We blame, judge, overthink, criticize, avoid, shut down, distract ourselves, or try to “fix” what we’re feeling as quickly as possible. And underneath a lot of those reactions is often something more vulnerable that we don’t quite know how to be with yet.

Over time, I’ve come to see that these resistant or protective responses are not necessarily problems or pathologies. More often, they’re parts of us trying to help us cope, protect ourselves, stay safe, avoid pain, or manage overwhelming emotional experiences the best way they know how.

I often say that we must start where we are. If where you are right now is in a state of resistance or objection like blame or judgment (as all of us are at times), then that is where you start. This resistance, despite popular misconception, is not a problem to be fixed or an issue to be solved. Once we stop viewing resistance purely as an obstacle or problem to eliminate, we can begin relating to it more like information — a signal that something vulnerable, protective, painful, meaningful, or emotionally important may be asking for our attention underneath the surface. Here are 4 steps to help with that process.

1. Move from head to heart.

The first step in integrating resistance is to stop thinking about everything so much, and move from mind to experience or from head to heart. How you do that is by tuning in to the sensations and feelings in your body, which when paid attention to, contain information about the source of your reactions to the experiences that make up your life.

Begin by gently noticing what’s happening in your body.

Maybe there’s heaviness in your chest, tightness in your throat, a pit in your stomach, tension in your jaw, restlessness in your body, or a wave of emotion moving through you. Our bodies often carry important information about our emotional experience long before our minds fully understand what’s happening.

When we move from head to heart and begin paying attention to our inner experience more directly, we often realize that what we call “resistance” is usually a protective response of some kind. These protective parts develop for reasons. Often, they formed to help us cope with pain, rejection, fear, shame, overwhelm, loneliness, or emotional vulnerability at different points in our lives.

And thinking itself can sometimes become one of those protective strategies too. Many of us learn to overanalyze, intellectualize, rationalize, or stay “in our heads” as a way of avoiding the vulnerability of what we’re actually feeling underneath.

When we begin observing ourselves more honestly, we may also notice that judgment is often functioning as a form of protection too. Sometimes judging others helps us feel safer, less vulnerable, more defended, or less exposed in situations where something tender or uncomfortable is being stirred up underneath.

And while judgment or other protective responses can absolutely create suffering or disconnection at times, they are often trying to protect something vulnerable underneath. That’s why healing usually begins not by shaming these parts of ourselves, but by learning how to understand them more compassionately.

2. Honor it.

We’ve been taught that our emotional experiences of judgment, blame, etc. are wrong or inferior in some way, and that we need to deny, ignore, or positive think them away, but that kind of approach usually doesn’t get us very far. Trust me– I tried it for many years (decades even), and I bet you have too. What if, instead, we stopped resisting resistance – what would happen then? What would happen if you welcomed this judgmental side of you?

By the way, it can help to think of these responses as protective “parts” of ourselves rather than as our entire identity. For example, instead of saying “I am judgmental,” we might begin noticing that “a judgmental part of me is showing up right now.”

And to make this a little more relatable and easier to work with, you might even give that part a name. Maybe “Judgmental Amy,” “Judgmental Jack,” or whatever fits for you. Sometimes simply recognizing and naming these protective responses helps us begin relating to them differently — less like flaws to hate and more like parts of ourselves that are trying to help in the ways they know how.

If you grew up in a family, for instance, that didn’t honor emotion as a normal and valuable experience, you may have developed a protective part that acts stoic, tough, and emotionless when you are hurting inside. If you grew up in a family structure that suggested that being close to people meant getting hurt, then you may have developed an overly independent protective part as a psychological shield to keep people away.

Protective parts develop for reasons. They form to help us cope, stay emotionally safe, avoid pain, navigate relationships, or survive difficult environments in the ways they know how. And while these strategies can create suffering or disconnection later in life, they often began as attempts to protect us from emotional pain, vulnerability, rejection, fear, shame, overwhelm, or hurt.

That’s why healing often begins not by shaming these protective parts, but by learning how to acknowledge, understand, and relate to them with greater compassion instead.

3. Get curious about it.

When it comes to your protective, resistant parts, the next step is simple, though not always easy: become genuinely curious. I don’t know about you, but some of my closest friends are those that listen well and genuinely care and are curious about what is happening with me, my mind, and my heart as a function of my day-to-day life expression.

So, listen closely. Ask questions. Learn about the history of this protective part. Try to understand what it’s afraid of, what it’s protecting you from, and what it might need you to know.

Protective parts, as you now know, exist for a reason. Well, how long have Judgmental Jack or Judgmental Amy been around, and why? Learn about your protective part’s history. Find out the kinds of things it is used to doing to protect you. What exactly is it trying to protect you from? And… what is it afraid would happen if it wasn’t there to do its job (i.e., to protect you via judgmental thoughts and attitudes)? What is it afraid will happen if you tap into the emotional experience beneath it that it has been protecting you from? Is it afraid, for example, that you’ll feel all alone? Or that you’ll feel worthless? That you won’t be able to handle the experience? Whatever it is, let it speak and invite yourself to simply listen.

Be interested. Grow more curious. Ask Judgmental Amy, Judgmental Jack, or Judgmental [whatever your part’s name is] what it needs. What does it want you to know about it? What does it wish could happen that hasn’t happened for it yet? Often, one of the most healing things we can offer our protective parts is the experience of finally being listened to rather than fought with, ignored, or shamed.

Then, couple this thoughtful listening and curiosity with more of the honor, respect and appreciation that you showed when you first welcomed this part into your awareness in the last step. Let these parts know you see them. That you understand they’ve been trying to help in the ways they know how. That you recognize how hard they’ve been working to protect you all this time.

4. Offer hope.

Sometimes our protective parts become so used to operating in survival mode that they forget other ways of being are even possible. Part of healing can include helping these parts begin realizing that new experiences, safer relationships, emotional support, connection, healing, and greater inner safety may actually be possible now.

In the mind and heart of Judgmental Amy or Judgmental Jack, judgment is the only way to protect you from the pain, rejection, criticism, shame, or emotional hurt you might experience by way of the situations and people in your world. That’s why our judging and other resistance-oriented parts resorted to judging in the first place. They don’t realize that there is another way for us to experience safety, worthiness, love, connection, or security. So, upon acknowledging its history and its reasons for existing, it’s also important to lightly invite your judgmental part to see that it doesn’t have to do what it’s gotten so used to doing all this time… that it doesn’t have to be like ‘that’. Not because it’s bad to be like it is- but because there are other ways (to feel safe, to feel secure, to feel loved, etc)!

And often, when protective parts begin feeling more heard, understood, respected, and less alone, something inside naturally starts softening. What once felt rigid may become a little more flexible. What once felt guarded may begin opening slightly to greater vulnerability, connection, trust, or ease. And that is exactly what we do by moving from head to heart, by honoring our resistance, and by getting deeply curious about it all.

What can you welcome, honor, and get curious about today, knowing that might be the very thing you need in order to heal and reconnect with more of who you are beneath old protective patterns?

Oh, and much of the work I guide people through inside my course Happy from the Inside Out® is around this process of understanding our protective and resistant parts more compassionately, building a safer relationship with our inner world, and learning how to move through life with greater awareness, connection, and emotional honesty rather than shame, suppression, or self-rejection. Please check it out if you feel called. I’d love to see you there.