Resistance Is Futile
Written October 2010
There comes a point in everyone’s life where they have to face themselves and that resistance within. Resistance is felt due to the experience of an issue or trauma that is ignored day after day, month after month, year after year at the expense of our physical and mental health.
Facing our inner fears and looking at them intently is probably one of the most difficult things to do. Jumping into the darkness of that abyss to see what is at the bottom is the only way to go. Facing it is the only way to go. Experiencing that infinite space between tick and tock is the only way to go.
Resistance builds to such an extent that it becomes an armour coating, a shell, a covering, a protection that can only shatter once you have discovered the reason why it is there. Resistance behaves like a wine glass – you first have to determine the frequency at which it will break. And uncovering that in yourself can be one of the most challenging and arduous times you will ever come to know – this can be thought of as a dark night of the soul.
For me, my resistance has taken me down many blind alleys, many changes of route, many years of healing and talking, many years of anti-depressants, only to discover the answer was there all along if only I was willing to look. The answer is always in the feeling, working out what that feeling is and putting a name to it and fixing it in time and space by attaching words to it.
My Gemini, airy mind always got in the way. I analysed everything to the nth degree hoping that the choices I made were the right ones. But were those choices mine or were they the right choices according to my parents, peers and work colleagues? You see, I had learnt almost from birth that all my choices were wrong – I shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t do that, cannot possibly do something else, not capable of doing anything, you won’t achieve much, you are wrong, you are too sensitive.
Rather than magnify the positives, my parents and peers strengthened the negatives to such an extent that all that remained was a timid, scared, frightened little boy who never pushed against the envelope of new experience due to the fear that it may be a wrong choice. And I can tell you that my fear was great, so great that I experienced panic attacks anytime I had to try something new or that challenged my view of life. Failure was not an option for me so rather than face that possibility, I chose not to do anything. The idea that success comes with the doing regardless of the outcome was completely lost on me.
Fear always acts as a brake in our lives whereas motivation is the accelerator. My motivation was the fact that I was different, felt I was different, acted different. I couldn’t put words to it at that early age – I just knew I was different. What that was would eventually become clearer as I hurtled towards my fifth decade.
We chart a route through life learning to navigate the torture of being a child facing parents who sometimes don’t have your best interests at heart. Mine were doing what they thought was best due to their own childhood experiences. They had charted their very own path through life – they could not do anything else. Although my map was very different to theirs, they were pulling and stretching, manipulating and distorting mine so it resembled theirs. Parents are there to guide, to instruct, to nurture, to encourage, not to make just another clone of themselves.
When you have something so deep within that opposes your parent’s ability to deal with and control, the minefield that becomes your life is ever more treacherous. Mine was gender or rather a discomfort with my body. You see, it didn’t quite fit me. It was like a badly cut suit, it rubbed in all the wrong places. Unlike a lot of transgendered people who know from an early age that they inhabit the wrong body, I was happy - just. I played with boy’s toys and racing cars, took things apart finding that eternal single screw left over when I put things back together again! But, there is always a but, something within me screamed for expression and acknowledgement.
My internal feelings were left unexpressed, left unacknowledged, left to fester, pushed to the far corners of a young mind unable to comprehend. I didn’t have the words at that age and even now, 50 years later, still quite don’t have the words to explain to others the pain of not being whole.
For a family of the fifties, I was subjugated to play specific roles for my parents and peers and when I started to deviate from those defined roles I was heavily reprimanded. Learning to fit in is fine, learning to communicate is good – learning to hide, learning to suppress, to smother, to contain major parts of oneself, is not.
In the more un-enlightened times, some homosexuals and transgendered people were given electro-aversion therapy in order to make them “normal”, to rid them of their insalubrious and unhealthy thoughts and acts, to make them adhere to society’s rules and dogma. The psychiatrists who administered these “treatments” were no better than the Spanish Inquisition. Has torture really been abolished? A rose by any other name!
At least these “treatments” lasted a short time. Childhood lasts a decade or more and the “training” we get as children is far more insidious and subtle and far more devious. Neither us nor our parents realise this is happening. It is only when we start to dig deep cracking open the hidden memories that we discover the sheer deceit of it all.
During a particularly striking healing session with Sarah-Jane Grace, I discovered many of the isolated dots that had been tantalising me for many years were suddenly connected and connected in ways that I had not previously considered. Sure you have a suspicion, a notion of something hovering in the mist before your eyes but always the grasp is just that bit too far.
I experienced that epiphany moment.
Fear seems to spread its tentacles wide for me and this session was no different. I was faced with the Borg Queen. For those who know (or don’t know) Star Trek, the Borg is a race of beings who evolves by assimilating others, usually without their permission. In this process, you will lose any coherence of individuality becoming the drone working for the whole at the expense of your personality and uniqueness. The Borg has this mantra “Resistance is futile” meaning that you have no choice – you will be assimilated or destroyed.
For me, the appearance of the Borg Queen presented a multi-layered, multi-faceted image couched in symbolism the most obvious of which is that of resistance. I was actively resisting dealing with my inner issues. I had suppressed my individuality so far that I had become that drone and lost any form of uniqueness I had just to fit in. The Borg Queen also represented that armour and shield I had formed over many decades protecting the inner world from the outer. To add further to the mix, there was that feeling of being the robot working on automatic just doing the things that were expected of me – there was no real sense of the possibility of joy and happiness, of being creative and living the life I wanted, of being who I wanted to be.
Occasionally, I broke through the cracks in the amour and found the creativity and joy I so desired but these moments were shortened by the fear and panic that came bounding back towards me like Jonah’s whale and swallowed me whole.
Resistance, like everything else in life, has a yin & yang, a dark & light, a positive & negative. Although resistance is overwhelmingly negative, the positive side is far more subtle. This is the side which gives you thought before action, a consideration of the possibilities, a reflection of the consequences, a pause before answering. Taken to ridiculous extremes, a predominately useful trait becomes a burden, a liability, a problem, a millstone. Steps are lost because one deliberates fully just in case our choices have unforeseen circumstances. We limp from crisis to crisis unable to decide the best path, the best option. Mole hills become mountains rising out of the distant fog that serve only to increase the dread and terror we feel. We become stationary, stuck, pinned to the floor, frozen, unable to move in any direction, paralysed.
My view of life consisted of nothing but mountains, huge obstacles to navigate around for I never thought of going through. Going around something always takes longer but going through grants you the opportunity to gather resources vital for your evolution and growth and usually takes a lot less time. Struggle changes!
During the healing session, the struggle before me was to release the armour and gaze intently at the fear beneath. Once I was willing to let go and leap into the abyss I discovered myself as a man, my masculine and myself as a woman, my feminine. Communing with my masculine I felt no fear or trepidation or unease. However, the same could not be said for my feminine. With her I felt a calmness envelope me, a whoop of excitement in my belly, a flutter of the butterflies, a moment of elegance and refinement, a moment of happiness.
You see, in any choices we make, we choose to move towards something for one of two reasons. Let’s say we have A & B. Do I move towards B because I like B, or is it because I hate A? In my terms, do I want to be feminine because I like being feminine, or is it because I hate being masculine?
These two scenarios are polar opposites. One is based around attraction and the other based entirely on repulsion. Which one needs the emotional work? My masculine and feminine gave me the answers I needed to bring conclusion to an issue that had dogged me for decades.
I was working towards being feminine because this is how I need to express myself. I did not hate the masculine self so was not running away. However, here I was confused. Were these feelings real or imaginary? My mind quickly came in and started to override the feelings, started to analyse and question and dissect. In that instant, my mind decided that it was all imaginary, all invented, not possible, cannot be. I wasn’t ready for what happened next.
When Sarah-Jane said I have permission to feel what I feel, that the dam burst. The sense was a momentary one, quicker than the flit of a butterfly wing, the fleeting glimpse of smoke as it exits the cigarette, a blink and you would miss the moment. The feelings were as overwhelming as they were short. The waters of my emotions cascaded over the falls to be released from the cage. It was one of being validated, one of being allowed to feel the feeling and it be ok to feel that feeling. Someone else had said this so it must be right!
My programming was so deep that still, 50 years later, I react in the same way I did in my childhood. Then, so many times was I contradicted in thought and feeling that, in the end, I gave up and allowed others to dictate my life. It was easier, less resistance, less trouble. I learned to abdicate.
The benefits to allowing others to control your life do not in any way shape or form compensate for the irritation and frustration and anger and fury that develops inside. You notice these dark emotions but actively ignore them hoping that they will go away. Depression builds, anger builds, dejection builds, and finally, hopelessness invades the soul. Everything that is within rots away until very little is left that describes you. Choices were made that would not be made again given second chances simply because those choices were based on substandard and inadequate information – other people’s substandard and inadequate information. Pathways trod were those of your guides and mentors. You struggle along the journey in an ill-fitting pair of borrowed shoes not having had the time to fashion your own.
Is resistance futile? Yes, absolutely. Resistance is pointless, resistance is stupid, resistance is useless, resistance is meaningless, resistance is futile. But, you first have to recognise the resistance, that you are resisting something, and be willing to look at what this resistance might be.
And as for that epiphany moment!
When in a meditative state or a healing session, your perception of time changes - seconds appear to last minutes and moments extend to infinity. This opportunity provides a slow motion view of the feelings as they navigate the loops of the rollercoaster giving the chance to see the feelings for what they are and where they come from. I was able to observe the feelings closely and intensely, negotiating every nook and cranny to discover their origin. Revelation, understanding, comprehension all hit me at the same time. Gnosis, self-awareness, self-knowledge.
Monitor your feelings, stare intently at your feelings. Feelings arise due to the action of an outside stimulus. Feelings can also rise from a thought, which in turn is prompted by an outside stimulus. Sometimes, the feelings are slow to surface and you can see where they originate but occasionally, some can come and go in the blink of an eye fading quickly like a dream in the mist of the morning. These are the ones to study as they can hold the key to unlocking the resistance.
In conclusion, my resistance came from the way my family and peers interacted with me and how they trapped me in an envelope of belief so strong it has taken incredible strength just to look at the paper bag surrounding me. My belief suggested a steel cage but in actuality, it is just a cobweb.
P.S.
A couple of days after completing this article, I had to visit the dentist and this helped me to witness the depth of the programming I had experienced to strengthen my obligation to be what other people wanted me to be. When I had to have a filling done, the dentist said that I should have an injection. I do not like injections, particularly in the mouth as I gag very easily. The dentist then refused to continue with the filling without that injection. What surprised me was the feeling that came over me. I actually felt that I had let the dentist down, disappointed him, upset and saddened him to such an extent that he felt frustration and anger with me.
Looking back, this is a common thread in my life. Even at work my section head told me that I should have to deal with and accept the idiosyncrasies of the design engineers but they shouldn’t have to deal with and accept mine.
top |
