Don’t Be So Quick to Reject Relationships with Others

What is resistance? Resistance is our tendency to avoid growth. It’s our drive to keep the spiritual and emotional status quo. It’s our inclination to move away from provisions for our growth. And we all have it.

Many of the dynamics, which drive us to choose unsafe people or no people at all, are resistances. We’re loaded with ways to keep our hearts from encountering loving, supportive people. As crazy as it sounds, we often build entire lifestyles around avoiding those who would help fill us up.

So, how do I deal with resistances?

1. Identify your resistances. The more aware you are of your specific resistances to love, the more power you have over them. Denial is your worst enemy here. With the feedback of friends, make a list of the ways you shrink from safe people, and become a student of these dynamics. They are a “road map” to understanding yourself and your real needs.

2. Bring them into relationship. It takes humility to ask people to help you work through perfectionism, guilt or other issues. But safe people are the last to throw stones. They’ve got too much experience with their own issues. You’ll find warmth and patience with your resistances. What’s more, you’ll find that your resistances will begin to melt as you connect.

3. Meet the needs underlying the resistances. Remember that these oppositions are designed to protect you from hurt. They’re obsolete guardians of your soul, like Adam and Eve’s fig leaves. And when the true spiritual needs underlying them have been met, they lose their power. The fight is largely over. Actively seek the connections, the truth, the forgiveness, and the equality with others.

4. Do the opposite of what the resistances tell you. If you’re in need, your internal opposition may tell you to do some destructive things, like:

• Go only to God with this.
• Handle it yourself.
• Ignore your need.
• Realize it’s your moral failure.
• Suck it up. Don’t be weak.
• Find someone to criticize you.
• Find someone to “caretake.”

So, where do you go from here? Well, you rebel against those resistances. They’ll tell you to find critical, irresponsible, or abandoning people-or to not seek at all. Instead, seek out loving, responsible, and faithful people.

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