Facing Inner Resistance To Change
Quick Overview: Lots of inner resistance bubbled up for a client who doesn’t want to take medication for his restless legs…and yet another part of him does. During our session, his inner child presented himself for healing and reparenting. Read on to see how the mind created illusions and impacted his inner dialogue to keep him “safe” from the change his spirit truly desires.
An opportunity presented itself the other day with a client. He has experienced restless leg syndrome for numerous years and currently takes medication for relief from the pain for now. However, that does not sit well with him.
He deeply desires to be off the medication because he believes it is a toxic substance damaging his liver and brain. It does not feel authentic to him, which is not how he wants to live. Inside he is torn, and every time he ingests the pill, a massive amount of resistance is involved. By forcing himself to take it in hopes of relief, he unconsciously feels inauthentic, and a punishing inner dialogue says to him, "I'm weak. I'm broken."
After digging into this further, we discovered that, in essence, he was keeping a pattern alive that was programmed into him from childhood. He shared, "Whenever I spoke up, my mother would force a bar of soap down my throat." Through these experiences, his subconscious inner child learned to be quiet and submit. These (and many other) experiences also taught him what "parenting" was (punishment, force, abuse), and it has had severe impacts on his spirit.
So how is this pattern showing up for him as an adult taking medication? Because he is resistant to taking medication but doing it anyways, he is now "forcing" pills down his throat to make his body be quiet and submit. See the pattern? Obviously, it has different nuances, but the essence is there and unconsciously at play.
All this resistance fuels the conflict within, creating a tremendous amount of disturbance and self-punishment. A part of himself does not want to take this medication, and yet another part desires to feel relief. Each is at odds with the other.
Inner Resistance To Change: Changing The Dialogue Within
But what is beautiful is that this situation provided a profound healing opportunity for him. He gets to transform his relationship with himself by lovingly reparenting his inner being and offering peace!
I guided him to bring conscious awareness to the situation and allow all the parts of himself to express themselves: the part that wants to take the medication, the one that does not, the fears involved, the doubts, the criticism...ALL of them.
Hearing the pieces of himself out began to interrupt the pattern (be quiet and submit), which he was unconsciously telegraphing to his body every time he took the pill when he did not want to.
Giving space to each piece of his inner self INCLUDED his full being in the decision versus being forced to submit. It is totally different energy!
Welcoming all parts to SPEAK, express, feel heard, feel respected, and come to a mutual agreement allows him to be in FULL AGREEMENT with the decision. He gets to utilize this conscious practice each time the medication decision presents itself, which fosters a new relationship and understanding in his psyche rooted in love, acceptance, and trust.
Inner Resistance To Change & Shattering Illusions
Let's also loop in the unconscious belief that showed up during our session: "If I take this pill, I am weak and broken."
The truth is, he is not broken. He is not weak. This is just an illusion that his mind created to keep him from changing.
The mind does not like changing long-standing unconscious patterns. It views change as unsafe and will do whatever it can, including creating illusions rooted in self-devaluation to keep change at bay. The mind is not the enemy, though. Its intentions are pure. In essence, his mind is just trying to keep him safe because it does not know what change means and what it looks or feels like on the other side. It feels dangerous, unknown, and threatening! The known is safe, even if that means pain and suffering. (Thank you for your protection, brain, but we would also like to surrender to change now!)
So how do we lift the illusion? When we bring awareness to SEE the illusion, we can shatter it with consciousness and perceive the truth. All we need is one truth to disprove it.
In this case, we helped him disprove the belief that he is weak, showing his mind that this was false. Pulling from his current reality and experiences, we helped him see how strong and powerful he actually is! I like to think of this moment as a mirror shattering to reveal a portal to the truth.
The portal was revealed, but now he must walk through it and live the change. Most of us do not because it feels scary! The mind will try to distract us and make us forget about that portal over and over again.
Living a life of truth sets the spirit free and what the soul desires, but it can also feel genuinely terrifying to the other parts of the self. Walking through the portal of truth requires consistent practice, patience, love, penetrating the fears, and deep trust.
I wholeheartedly believe he is up for that path. In fact, he is already on it. :) He shared this in an email with me after he a few days of him implementing what we talked about:
“Hello Steve, I spoke with heart/ body before I took my Rx, 3 times yesterday. I cut back to 75% on all 3 dosages. I asked my heart if this is ok, “[Heart], let me know what you think I will continue taking this dosage, with joint permission, until I hear a message from you. Before, I would just slam a pill, and tell you what you're going to do. This time, I am asking, and wanting full partnership. Allow, accept, nurture....not force. Hopefully, WE, can either get slowly get weaned off of this Rx, or maybe just require less and less of it.'“
Yesterday and last night, had zero symptoms, with sound, restful sleep. Very happy with results here. Today, so far, symptom free. 2 Rx's down, 1 Rx to go, later this evening. Again, at 75% level. (This feels a lot different than the last time that I reduced the dosage, and thought that I could keep going. But then the next day the rls kicked back in, as if the Rx had wore off. I guess we now, know better.) Booyah!”
Amazing! I truly celebrate him bringing change into the internal dynamics of his body, mind, and spirit, and reparenting himself in a loving way! This work is deep and powerful, and his whole being is responding. :)
If you are experiencing health challenges and you would like help, I am here.
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