I was enjoying some time away from work with a friend recently when he threw a question at me that required for me to go back into thinking mode as a Life Coach, Counselor, Advisor, “LifeChanger.” I have rarely been out of that mode lately and couldn’t believe this friend was asking me this question while I was trying not to be in that space.
Without getting too into it, and without wanting to get too serious, I responded to my friend that he had resistance in a particular area and that is why he was having the issue he was having. Knowing I usually can go really deeply with these kinds of subject matters, my friend started to ask me more questions, like, “where the resistance was?” “Why he had it?” “Where it came from?”
Not wanting to dwell on this too much, I asked my friend if he wanted to get rid of it. Helping him with that, was what I was willing to do in the moment. This friend said, “yes, but first, tell me what it is, or where it came from…?” I aknowledged that his questions were valid and that I would happily explore them with him at a later time, but not at the moment. I was however, willing to help him make strides forward in getting rid of them.
That wasn’t of interest to him at the moment, so we went on to something else. I started to think how many times I have thought like my friend, that, in the past, and not so distant past, I have wanted to know the whys and wherefores and hows and whens of every issue I had, how they came about, who was responsible, etc. On many levels, I still think this can be important for recurring issues.
I was thinking this while I was scrubbing a pot in the sink. All the while I was scrubbing, I noticed that I wasn’t seeing the caked on food anymore at the bottom of the pot, because the pot was filled with suds, suds that were helping me clean the pot. I couldn’t tell how the caked on food got there, who “burnt” the food, what food exactly it was. All I could tell was, as I was moving the “brillo” pad around, I could tell where the resistance was, and I would scrub away at that spot. Then I would go over that spot again, and if there was no resistance, I knew I had gotten it all out, whatever it was, that wasn’t supposed to be there anymore.
I reflected in that moment, how we often have soap suds all around us helping us with our caked on stuff and how we sometimes remove the suds, so we can take a good look at what the stuff we are trying to take away is. In so doing, we get rid of the help, support, aid, relief of our issues so we can take a closer look at our issues, thus prolonging the issue and then requiring to find more suds somewhere else at a later time.
Granted, this may be important to do if the resistance just won’t go away so we can determine if we need a stronger soap, or stronger “Brillo” pad, or if it is a recuring issue that requires premeptive But often times, the answers/help “suds/soap” around us would do the trick in the now, if we were truly ready and willing to just scrub our resistance away, even without seeing it, or examining it, or needing to know exactly what it is.
Maybe, just maybe, we need to focus more on scrubbing the resistance that we feel, rather than analyzing it. How’s that for “Life Changes?” or should I say, “scrubbing changes?”