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Resistance: What is the meaning of it?

August 4, 2019 By Erin Tracy, Medical Qi Gong and Health Coaching

Resistance.

“The more scared we are of work or a calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.” – Stephen Pressfield, War of Art

What are you in resistance about the most? Are your stories keeping you stuck? I talk to people every day who spend so much energy in resistance they have little energy left for anything else. Not that useful.

Choose to see your resistance as a gift showing you the next place to expand and heal.

I can assure you that the more you resist something the more interesting it is to look at what is really going on there.

What does resistance mean?

Does it mean if you said “Yes” to something and you are now regretting it, that you made a mistake?

The more interesting question

The more interesting questions are “what is the story you are attaching to the resistance?” and “what is the meaning you have made of that story?”

It just doesn’t feel right. I don’t really enjoy their company. That won’t work for me. I am too tired. I really ought to make time for her. It’s a complete waste of time. I dread it. They don’t really want me to. I suck at that. I just am not going to put up with that #$%. [Insert your story here.]

What does your “resistance chatter” sound like? What has been the meaning you have attached to that chatter? Is it true?

The last question is the hardest to answer authentically, in my experience. Because if our stories and chatter of resistance and the meaning we attached to it were true, there would be no resistance.

If the meaning were “true”, it would be a simple Yes. Or a simple No. Without ensuing chatter and drama and suffering. There would be no resistance.

One of my most infamous stories that I come up with know when there is a part of me that knows it’s time to evolve is:

“I just don’t want to.”

I have endeavored for years to drop the stories of obligation from the choices I make, to drop the “shoulds”. So sometimes, when I am in resistance, my story has become, “I just don’t want to.”

My stories typically came up when I was invited to do something that will make me visible. Or when I create a story that I am going to have a difficult time connecting with people. Perhaps when I know that I can support someone but they aren’t yet willing to take a stand for themselves. Or I feel I don’t deserve it. Or I fear I won’t have the time.

How about getting up at 5:45am to practice Tai Chi, meditation, and qi gong? That is freakin’ early.

“Yeah, I don’t want to do that.

I will just sleep another hour.”

[I have that conversation with myself about twice a week. I get up anyway.]

Water doesn’t have a story about what’s in the way. It just flows around it.

It seems way easier to stay home in my dog-walking clothes/binge-watch Handmaid’s Tale/just shrug and give up.

“I deserve to flake out. I work hard. There’s a lot going on.”

TOO vulnerable. TOO tired. Just TOO busy. It’s TOO much.

And you know what? It’s often NOT TRUE, that “I don’t want to.”

It’s a belief.

Then I remember, when I have strong foundational energy and a big intention to connect, love, heal, empower, AND that I am actually NOT vulnerable (nothing can hurt me), NOT tired (I choose random energy infusion), NOT over-scheduled (I can plan my own schedule). It’s all as it should be.

I recognize my resistance. I GREET it. Choose gratitude for it and move forward anyway choosing a fondness for the moment and a smile for the story.

Because choosing No and Yes is easy – not a struggle. If it feels like a struggle, this could be resistance and it’s coming up to show you something.

Peace be with you.

What’s the Negative Self-Talk Doing for You?

September 16, 2018 By Erin Tracy, Medical Qi Gong and Health Coaching

What would it take to decide to never beat yourself up again with negative self-talk? How would making that decision change how you go through your day? I made this commitment to myself some time ago – never to stay or play in a mode of “beating myself up”. I can’t say I have completely erased the pattern, but I can catch it before it takes me in a direction that is not in alignment with infinite love.

*One* thing that works well to INTERRUPT a self-pity path has been to look open-heartedly and humbly at

what is it that I’m GAINING from being hard on my self in that moment.

Somewhere in my soul and in my mind, I have rationalized the self-pity with some sort of positive intention.

Or else, I wouldn’t do it. Yikes.

This isn’t so easy to face. I have a positive intention in “being hard on myself”? WTF – My ego does not like to go here. And yet, if I am committed to breaking this negative self-talk pattern (this legacy in my case), taking this hard, deep, loving look at what I GET from self-pity is a key part of changing the pattern at a deep level.

In the meantime, have compassion for when the inner negative self-talk is not so friendly. And choose to remember that you are doing the best you can. And now, what do you choose instead?

Life With No Regrets

August 10, 2018 By Erin Tracy, Medical Qi Gong and Health Coaching

Life with no regrets. I have made this an intention for quite a number of years now and was pondering how this intention has shifted my perspective in enormous ways. I am writing this now as I sit outside at a local coffee shop where I have come to work on administrative tasks. A young mom with her two preschool age children have arrived and occupy the lounge area in front of me. They are chatty and happy – delightfully sharing a pastry. A lull this rainy afternoon means the usually full outdoor couches are empty, allowing the young girls to playfully arrange the cushions (no harm done) and watch the sparrows pick up crumbs.

A warm feeling spreads across my chest.

In this moment, I think of myself when my own children were that age about 14 years ago. I attempt to remember if I experienced moments like that with my kids. Instead of regret or dwelling on the fact that I cannot remember many moments of relaxed glee, I warmly and fondly think of that younger version of myself.

You were doing the best you could with the tools that you had.

I take a few breaths and send the mom before me in the moment AND the younger version of myself COMPASSION: A sincere wish and prayer: to be free of suffering and the root of suffering; to know happiness and the root of happiness. I choose to allow my heart to smile at this woman and her children at Starbucks and at myself and my kids more than a decade earlier.

That might sound bananas: My Heart To Smile?

Back then I had no tools for dealing with stress and high anxiety. Everything felt like and emergency or a fire to put out. While I did have an intense life then, there was plenty to be thankful for. There were many moments to relax and enjoy the moment. However, my memories of actually doing that are few and far between.

Over time, the intensity with which I greeted life, started to take a toll on my health. It certainly didn’t do any favors for my contentment and ability to go with the flow.

Chronic pain and a health crisis brought to light the fact that I needed to calm down.

These days, I write and speak about the role of a powerful qi gong practice called Pangu Shengong (qi gong) in helping not only build my internal energy but also to CALM DOWN. I am stronger now than I have ever been (even during my triathlon years). I sleep well. I have FREEDOM from physical pain (huge). My relationships are strong and I am blessed to have incredible people in my life. I am doing what I love and was meant to do for a living. It is an honor.

No Joke. Everyday I feel like life keeps getting better.

Better – In the midst of “stressful” events happening: Life IS happening. People are sometimes challenging. Teenagers are sometimes frustrating. Unexpected and expensive car repairs show up. Someone close to me has a health crisis. Etcetera.

Practice Compassion in big broad ways, including transforming a tendency to have regrets. Become stronger internally, not just externally. Great personal power resides in choosing to allow our HEART to SMILE at what stirs up discomfort in us – Our hearts to smile at what WE DO NOT LIKE. Catch Regret. And Choose authentically to have No Regrets in the first place.

It’s a game changer.

It heals.

No regrets is a Compassion practice. Compassion is not just a nice thing to have for yourself or others. It heals. Just building your energy isn’t enough. Elevate your heart and soul too.

LOVE LOVE LOVE

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