Resistance

The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it. – Steve Pressfield – The War of Art

It has been a long time between putting my thoughts down on paper the last time and now, in the context of expressing what I am observing within myself and how that relates to my life. Nothing like a major change in one’s life to promote action, the shift beyond the comforts of the known, the security of the expected into the realm of the unknown and unexpected.

What this change has given me is time, time to step back and notice what has been happening in my life, where my focus has been, what I have been making important and how I am feeling about that. It has been a harsh reality check for me.

The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day

The warrior in me has been silent, the part of me that fights for living my truth with purpose and courage, I have been successful at creating other focuses in my life that have kept me distracted and determined to follow through, to achieve results, to make things happen so then I can do what is important for me to do, to feel that sense of purpose and satisfaction.

I could look back and say in some ways I have achieved those results, in that now I am putting time and energy into the very things that I cleverly avoided for so long, but I didn’t get to this point from a carefully laid out plan where it was going to happen at a specific time when all the specific conditions had been met. What happened was a rather drastic shift in circumstances, which initially seemed like a backward step in my plan, but it has become the catalyst for the change that was never going to happen whilst I was plugging away at that strategy. Really all it was about was building resistance to me making the changes and following the decisions that were going to lead me to my truth.

I was busy keeping busy, however I know that at any time throughout this period in my life I could have chosen to write more, express more, follow my true path but I had other things that I gave more importance, legitimately so, as I kept telling myself, I had a business to develop, I had a relationship to nurture, places to go, things to see and do, but it was all coming unstuck and harder to maintain even though I believed that it was the direction I needed to go in and also wanted to be in, to create the circumstances for that next stage of my life. What an awesome strategy of resistance, quite creative when I look at it but ultimately taking me further off the road to a life full of purpose.

I am at the point now, having broken away from that trajectory, where I am opening to hearing these calls to take up arms, become the warrior, fight for what is really going to lift my spirits, not the easy path, one filled with fear and challenges, I notice it when I start talking to others about it now, voicing my intentions or desires, the inner critic comes out, I get nervous but at least I am expressing it, I do want to share my experiences with others, to support others to come to their own true path, take steps towards living that.

So here I am, on an island in North Sumatra, a few degrees off the Equator, contemplating my direction, breaking open the rusty box of thoughts and ideas which I have kept closed in the attic of my mind and heart, tucked away. I am brushing off the dust, shaking down the pages of these privately held expressions, willing to take the first step, transferring them to form that is legible and relatable.

I am here also because it has been a dream of mine to create a place where I can come and surf beautiful waves, slow down and converse with nature, spend a few months each year re-energizing and now is the time to take action on that as well. This year I have created one month, and I will build this up year upon year. And as I make decisions to create this opportunity, I also create the time and space and desire to take action in other areas of my life in line with my true nature and purpose. I like how that happens!!