dissolving work

Resistance and internal work

I've been reading the War of Art (affiliate link) lately and the author talks a great deal about resistance as an enemy to creativity. I think he's right, to a point. I also think resistance can indicate something that needs to change, but what's relevant here is how resistance can be used in internal work, to discover what you need to work on and dissolve.

Any time you feel resistance to doing something or you feel a need to distract yourself from what you are doing, it presents you an opportunity to do internal work to dissolve resistance. The desire for distraction is a form of resistance, even as simple dislike for doing something is also resistance. When you come up against it, embrace it and start meditating on it. Listen to what your resistance has to say, and then dig deeper. What's really underneath that resistance? What's the underlying emotion that's really prompting that resistance to doing what you need to do?

When you focus your meditation on answering this question, you may find that it uncovers a lot that you weren't facing. It's important to face the issues and deal with whatever emotions arise as a result of the dissolving work. As you resolve such emotions, you will that it frees up a lot of energy, and that your resistance will also dissolve. Resistance is not necessarily a bad thing to feel, as long as you can knowingly act on it and use it to work through what is underneath it.