Since my higher education has been in social science, I have a deep respect for scientific methodology. At the same time, right from childhood, I have been very drawn to spirituality, the unknown, and what people might term “woo-woo.” It is no surprise then, that I am constantly searching for answers that explain the woo-woo from a scientific perspective.
Let’s take the phrase that you might have heard from Eckhart Tolle, “Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists." Tolle has been one of the spiritual teachers whose work has been instrumental in my own spiritual growth. His book, Power of Now, addressed being present long before mindfulness became popular. However, what Tolle meant by what you resist, persists, was hard to wrap my head around from a purely spiritual perspective.
A similar statement had been made by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, “what you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.” Jung was referencing the fact that whatever we deny, or hide about ourselves out of shame, goes into the shadow. What goes into the shadow may no longer be conscious but that doesn’t mean that they have no hold on us. In fact, what’s in the shadow is what controls us the most, keeping us stuck in old, repetitive patterns.
Why does what we resist, persist?
Typically, what we are resisting are those things we don’t want. We may complain about it, resent it, protest against it, or get into conflict with it. Our energy is focused on avoiding it. What we are trying to avoid is the pain from what we are resisting. The problem is that in doing so, we keep creating structures that support our denial. There is an emotional charge in this resistance - shame, blame, fear, and feelings of being out of control.
Last year, I took a course with Dr. Dan Siegel on Interpersonal Neurobiology and I share with you a quote by him that explains the science in the woo-woo, “Where attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connection grows.”
So, in a nutshell, the reason why what we resist persists is that by putting our attention on what we don’t want, and by staying focused on it, we are actually reinforcing the neural pathways in our brain to strengthen those neural connections. In other words, by resisting what we don’t want, we energize it so that it persists!
No matter what some coaches might tell you, breaking this cycle isn’t as easy as simply shifting your mindset. Attempting to do so will create more resistance! This is why so many of us feel stuck in patterns despite a ton of spiritual and personal development work. This shift has to be supported at the level of your nervous system via embodiment practices.
