just in time

another excerp from Hale Dwoskin :)

Have you ever started a project really gung ho and lost enthusiasm somewhere in the middle? That's resistance. Resistance is quite insidious. It's one of the main things that stop us from having, doing, and being what we want in life.

In fact, we resist even the things we really like, the things we care about. Sometimes you can't even get yourself to go to the movies when you want to go because resistance comes up.
And if someone tells you to do something, that's a sure-fired way resistance is going to come up even if you want to do it. I remember as a child growing up I used to hate when my mother would tell me to do something that I wanted to do because then I didn't want to do it anymore. When someone tells you that you should do something or you have to do something, what do you feel inside? "No way! Don't tell me what to do!"

The same thing happens when you tell yourself what to do. If you say to yourself, "You have to stop smoking," what happens? "Oh, yeah?" Or, "You'd better not eat this anymore." You may eat even more. That's just the nature of the mind. It just doesn't like being told what to do. So resistance is operating all the time because we live in a sea of "shoulds" and "have to's" and "must do's" and imperatives. Any time there is an imperative it stirs up resistance.

Resistance manifests in many different ways, some subtle, such as forgetting things that are important to you. Or you'll just find yourself gradually moving away from things that are really helpful. Does this sound familiar? You're doing great and you're really enjoying something; you just think it's the best thing since sliced bread. And then three months later you're back to your old ways and you're bummed about yourself for it.

What happened? You hit resistance.

Resistance happens all the time in life. And sometimes it's extreme, such as not wanting to get out of bed in the morning. Any time you feel like you have to, or you should do something, or you must do it, you're hitting resistance. This is because the "should" creates an opposing force equal to or greater than the force that you're exerting when you're trying to get something to happen.

Allow yourself to start noticing where resistance manifests in your life and then, rather than resisting it, let yourself to do something about it.