What you resist, persists.

When you’re trying to kick your impulse buying/procrastination/takeaway ordering/insert unhelpful habit here, for the third, fourth or fifth time…

Firstly, know that you’re not alone. You’re doing a dance that most people have done before. It’s a universal experience that everyone you know has had (promise).

But also: it might be about time to mull on this timeless Carl Jung quote to make sure you aren’t unknowingly in self-sabotage mode. You know the one:

“What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.” - Carl Jung

Carl Jung popularised the idea that if you are resisting something in your life that you want to let go of, you may be unintentionally keeping yourself stuck in a loop with that behaviour.

So how do you know if you’re resisting a behaviour? What does “resisting” actually mean?

You know you’re resisting a behaviour if you react to that behaviour, or the thinking / feelings behind that behaviour with:

• frustration or annoyance: “Ugh I hate that I keep on doing this!”

• anxiety: “Ahh, what does does this mean about me? What will my future look like?”

• resentment: “Why do I have to deal with this? It’s so unfair that I’m still struggling.”

• catastrophizing: “This is going to ruin my life. I’ll never be able to get over it.”

• despair: “What’s the point? I’m never going to make any progress.”

• dismay: “How did I let it get this bad? I should’ve kicked this already.”

• shame: “Something is wrong with me. I am a failure and everyone knows it.”

• guilt: “I shouldn’t have done that again. I should know better.”

Or any other big emotion that puts you on high alert, you are resisting your behaviour (or: the thoughts and feelings behind your behaviour).

And as per Jung, what you resist will continue to persist.

So if you have a pattern that keeps on patterning, what can you do to remove resistance?

Step 1: Set a goal to keep on doing exactly what you’re doing.

So if you impulse buy new clothes as soon as you get your pay - set a goal to keep on doing that. (so long as it’s not going to cause you serious harm, use your good judgment, of course).

This helps you to drop the judgement / big reaction aspect of change that almost always gets us stuck in a resistance cycle.

Step 2: Step into birdwatcher mode.

Mindlessly repeating the same patterns is (sadly) not going to move you from where you are to where you want to be. But mindfully repeating the same patterns? Oof. A whole different story.

As you follow through on your goal (to keep doing exactly what you’ve been doing) step into birdwatcher mode whenever you notice yourself experiencing the urge you’ve been experiencing (to overspend, people please, excessively scroll, gossip, etc).

Observe yourself having the experience of (overspending, overeating, excessively scrolling, etc), removing judgement and adding heavy dollop of curiosity.

Notice how it feels to have the experience. Note down the feelings and thoughts that exist. Pay attention to where those thoughts and feelings “are” in your head or body. Be a birdwatcher.

Do this for three months and your pattern is going to be interrupted (promise).

You can’t ruminate your way to solutions.

One of the mistakes that I made over and over again throughout my 20’s was trying to think my way to solutions whenever I was faced with a problem.

“If I just did enough journaling about that problem (using some kinda step-by-step problem-solving / decision-making framework duh) I would surely get to the bottom of it. I just need to make more time to really think it all over.” was an actual thought I’d have, like, regularly.

I believed, with all of my heart, that if I could analyse and puzzle over a sticky problem (e.g. What do I do next with my life? How can I improve my relationship/s? How do I stop feeling that way about that thing?) enough times that I could make a fresh perspective or a new way of thinking appear.

But as I neared my 30’s and some extra sticky problems continued to hang around, unresolved, I started to pay a little more attention. Maybe it was a pre-frontal cortex development thing, Idk. With a little more awareness, I finally noticed that solutions and fresh ideas actually… almost never appeared mid-analysis. Impatiently puzzling and analysing (with or without a journal and a thoughtful decision-making framework) would often seem to block insights and realisations from coming through and leave me feeling more stuck than ever.

My stickier problems, I realised, weren’t lingering because I just wasn’t thinking about them enough. They were lingering because I was thinking about them too much and in unhelpful ways.

This is one of the most important things I’ve ever learned about problem-solving, and I want to share it with you in this post.

If you’re also a person who loves to think, puzzle and analyse (it’s an addiction) - but you’ve noticed that for your more complex, hard-to-solve problems, it doesn’t seem to be helping (you’re not alone b), here are a few ideas that have changed the way that I think about and approach problem-solving as a whole:

1: Realisations aren’t something that you make happen. They are something that happens to you.

You can gently prompt your brain for insight and patiently wait for it to come.

You can create space for fresh perspectives on old problems to arise in your mind.

You can even nudge your brain and ask it for solutions if that’s up your alley, then relax and give fresh thoughts room to arrive, like a surfer waiting for a wave.

But you can’t force insights, fresh thinking or helpful ideas to appear. They come to you, not the other way around.

2: Sometimes, you need a little thinking, then a little surrendering.

Intentional reflection on your problems, with no desire for immediate solutions, can be really helpful (see point 3 ). It serves the purpose of prompting your mind, giving it material to work with and pointing it in the right direction so that it can do its thing in the background.

Buut, if, after a reflection session or two, your thinking isn’t getting you anywhere, it might be time to lean into surrender and create space for a helpful solution to arrive.

Over and over again, this way of approaching my problems performs better than my old, more sophisticated approach of… impatiently trying to bang helpful thoughts out of my head.

3: The energy with which you problem-solve matters.

The most helpful thinking about problems usually happens when you think about problems as separate from yourself.

When your problems don’t feel attached to your identity or sense of self-worth, it’s easier to approach them with gentle, patient curiosity.

When you make your problems all about you, how capable you are and how you might be perceived, you’ll notice feelings like:

• desperation

• desire / want

• frustration and;

• insecurity

Entering the chat.

Desperation, desire, want, frustration and insecurity are often the first (common) stops on the way to a helpful solution. Don’t get too bothered by ‘em.

But when your thinking seems to keep on leading you towards those feelings, a helpful pattern interrupter is this question:

“Is following this path of thinking actually helping me?”

Or

“Has following this line of thinking in the past led me anywhere helpful, or is this a stale set of thoughts that I’ve followed before - that’s led me nowhere?”

I appreciate you,

Michelle