Your Resistance to Experiencing Life

Audio version is here – https://open.substack.com/pub/colindurrant/p/your-resistance-to-experiencing-life

As humans we fear change more than anything. We would rather stay in suffering and pain than imagine a world that is different to our current reality.

We have to know how it is so that we think we have stability. And yet, those that embrace change have a totally different human experience.

In a world that is ever changing, we have to evolve or risk losing everything we have. Sometimes we know what is available to us.

We know that our life could be better and yet still, we resist it. We still fear the changes we have to make.

It is only when we understand that we are responsible for what we have created in our past. The good and the bad.

That we start to understand that we have the power to create a different life in our future.

If only we can embrace change and acknowledge our resistance.

Our resistance will always be there but it is when we go ahead anyway that we can often have the best experiences.

Our fear keeps us small. We believe that we are safe when everything stays the same but we are not.

Imagine for a moment that we live in our house in a village at the bottom of a mountain. Our life is ok.

It is nothing special, nothing spectacular, nothing exciting. But we are ok in our little house and our simple life.

Our adventurous friends tell us how they moved to another village, away from the mountain.

For the mountain is a volcano and one day it may erupt and destroy our home. In this new village, our friends tell us how great everything is.

They get up at 5am every day. They go for a swim in the cold sea. They go hiking together and they learn lessons from a wise man.

They have never been so happy and full of life. To you, this all sounds dangerous and way outside your comfort zone.

You would rather stay cozy in your bed for as long as possible. Avoiding the outside world until you have to face it.

Your little house is safe and warm. You can hide away from the world there. This different life and the potential danger of the volcano isn’t something that you can contemplate.

Getting up at 5am is a hard no. And everyone just says the volcano will erupt but it probably never will.

It is just something that people say to try and get you to move. You strongly resist any change. It actually sounds dangerous to you.

But yes, one day the volcano does erupt a great plume of hot lava. It shoots hundreds of feet into the air and covers the mountain side.

Racing towards the village at the bottom. The whole village is in terror and everyone is running around screaming.

Everyone is leaving with whatever they can take with them. But you shut yourself away in your small house, knowing that you are safe.

People bang on your door and tell you to leave with them but you refuse. You are safe in your little house.

You do not want a life where you have to do all those dangerous things. You want your reality to remain the same.

As you sit there, resisting change, suddenly, your house that you thought was safe and sound is surrounded by larva.

The heat is unbearable as it catches fire. It is at this moment that you realise that by resisting change, you have lost.

Your fear of moving and having a different, better life was too great. Your thought you were safe here.

In the same token, you may reach 80 years old and realise the same thing. It is too late to have a different life because now you are too old.

You are too old to change and your resistance won and you have lost. Do not perish or get too old before you understand that a different reality is available to all those that do not resist change.

To realise that you have the responsibility of creating a different life for yourself. Do not tell your grandchildren that you almost had a great life.

You almost went on amazing adventures. But you didn’t and no, you don’t have any exciting stories for them.

You don’t have any lessons for them because you did not fully experience life. You cannot play with them because you are not fit and healthy.

You thought that by doing nothing you would be safe and yet here you are. You lose what you don’t use.

So use your imagination to inspire yourself to take massive action, acknowledge and ignore your resistance.

To create a magical life that you can recite to your grandchildren endlessly. To fill them with excitement as to what is possible in their own lives.

Create a life for yourself that inspires others.