Witness 13: Is The Magic In The Resistance?
Loving ourselves is more than just the sweet things
A QUIET JOY
FROM YOU
A few weeks ago I was feeling the immense weight of life on my shoulders and it was burying me deeper and deeper into the coziness of my couch. My husband was getting ready for our after dinner walk with our pup, and he was attempting to coax me into joining. I resisted even though I knew it would create some ease. Though, after some more gentle pushing I begrudgingly joined them. As I grumpily walked through the familiar roads of northern Canadian suburbia my husband stopped abruptly with a "whoa" and a look of wonder on his face. I followed his line of sight and I too became filled with wonder as a bull moose sauntered slowly across the street, his hooves clack-clacking on the pavement, and the street lamps illuminating his lush dark fur. It was such a gorgeous fleeting moment, that I never would have witnessed if I didn't go for the walk. I said so to my husband and he replied, "but the timing wouldn't have been right if you hadn't of resisted.
Catherine, Sherwood Park, Canada
A REFLECTION FROM ME
I've always believed in the idea that there is magic in the resistance. Not in a passive-aggressive, “everything happens for a reason” way or the words that escape the lips of someone who is trying to find a nice way to silence your big feelings. That annoying push people give you to find a grain of hope, when quite frankly you don't want to hear nor see it. This idea can often fall into the trap of there being a need to understand or rationalise our suffering. That there has to be a reason for it, and if we can find a magical one, then even better.
So, of course, I believe that our feelings just get to exist. Even the really shitty painful ones. Without forcing ourselves to see the fan-fave silver lining. Our suffering gets to be there.
Without being forced into seeing the magic in it.
Sometimes pain is just pain.
Yet, there's another kind of resistance. We all know it well. The resistance that we can poke the ribs of. Toy with a bit. Inquire and ask questions of it. The kind of resistance where we know there is something swimming underneath it. Something we don't always want to look at, but we know it's there.
And the “there” is often a bit of magic. Magic isn't always unicorn-hued and radiant smiles. It doesn't always feel good but it feels like growth or movement. An opening. Magic can be seeing a bull moose like Catherine did, or a deeper understanding of ourselves, another or life. There is always a bit of magic in the sticky feelings that feel so resistant to be in.
I've been slapped in the face with resistance this week and those groaning feelings of murky discontent. Before this week, it was simmering like soup on a stove teasing to reach its boil. This week it decided to boil up, threatening to spill over. I let it spill.
I knew there was resistance for a few years, or maybe even a lifetime. I rationalised it. Made excuses for it. Told the feeling to shut up, leave me alone, not today. I did not have the inclination to find the magic in it. Until this week. As my friend told me at the weekend, “maybe the action that feels so scary and hard to do, is actually an act of love for yourself.”
And that's it. The sacred reminder of words I wrote myself in August last year, that I'll share below.
When something feels on the edge of our understanding. That gives us an internal ick because we know there's “stuff” there. When we know it's the kind of resistance that's asking for something of us. A place for magic. A place for growth. What if our questioning and befriending of the resistance was reframed as merely an act of love. To see what lurks underneath. To see if it will allow an opening into something magical. Something for you…
Self love is so much more than the sweet things we do for ourselves and how we feel about ourselves.
Self love also looks like doing what is difficult because it will challenge us.
Self love is moving cities to grow. It's in saying no to people.
It's saying yes to opportunities that terrify us.
It's creating work that moves us and pushes us.
Self love finds its deepest expression when it has a place to be realised.
It's in the choices we make.
It's how we live our lives.
2 Little Practices For…
QUIET REBELLION
READ
Women Without Kids by Ruby Warrington. A fascinating book about the place for women without kids in our society, what it means to be a woman and the social and cultural norms and expectations around mothering.
LISTEN
Challenging the Myth of Marital Bliss with Clementine Ford on Jameela Jamil's I Weigh podcast, for a deep dive of the patriarchal and capitalist roots of marriage, women's agency, celebrating ourselves and invisible labour.