Pushing Water, Treading Through

As I was doing my laps in the pool the other morning, I was reminded again of the way that we resist things.  Not only do we struggle with change in our lives, trying something new, grumbling over new procedures at work, but our bodies resist pushing through that next layer of the stress it takes to get a new skill.  I  swim 25 laps or 50 lengths in the pool.  Been doing it for over a year now, three times a week.   I always like it when I hit 31 on the count of lengths.  It made me remember years ago when I was a runner, doing 5 miles on a regular basis.  There was a time in that routine, like this one, where I could feel my body release me.  It is like someone suddenly oils my bearings and I roll into SMOOTH mode. In retrospect, it is like my body is resisting, resisting, resisting going to the next level and then AAAH.... it says OK I will let you!!

As I finished my laps I was thinking about how this translates into other areas of our lives.  First of all I think we give up on new things much too quickly.  We don't allow for the resistance thing to have it's way with us.  We try to learn something new, a sport, a language, a new food, or a new way of thinking about something.  It feels awkward, we feel stupid or embarassed, and then our ego takes us out of the arena.

When you think about it, when we learn everything, we feel that way in the beginning.  Think about learning to walk, ride a bike, or drive a car.  We were overwhemed at the complexity of it.  WHAT?  WHERE'S THE BRAKE?  OMG THERE'S A CAR COMING!!  HOW DO I PARK??   Or although it was preverbal for us, somewhere in us we were thinking.....HOW DO I STAY UPRIGHT?  HOW DO I MOVE THIS LEG FORWARD BUT NOT TOO FAR??    The thing is, the rewards were pretty great for hanging in there, we were getting loads of encouragement from our parents, or all of our friends were learning it as well as us.  We were able to push through to that point where it was more fun than trouble.

When learning how to talk about your feelings more clearly, or not expressing our anger in ways that are either frightening to others or simply ineffective, it would be easy to toss it all in and go back to the way you have always done it.  New behavior takes lots of practice.    We walked ALOT!!!  We drove ALOT!!

So here's the other thing.  Sometimes we know we need to keep going, but we act like we don't.  Sometimes we know we need to change, but we act like we don't.  Sometimes We don't know we know what we need to do, but the door keeps coming in front of us..    Remember we are always being helped to see where we need to persist.   Stop pretending to be asleep. Stop letting that lie act like a truth.  You can learn a new trick.  New dog, Old dog alike..   Now breathe, and now, do it again... and again... see how easy that is...

Cue words.   DO IT AGAIN, 
AND AGAIN, 
AND AGAIN, 
AND, 
AGAIN! 

NEW STUFF NEEDS PRACTICE.