The professional tackles the project that will make him stretch. He takes on the assignment that will bear him into uncharted waters, compel him to explore unconscious parts of himself. Is he scared? Hell, yes. He’s petrified.
I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.
We need to ascend beyond our own petty Resistance, our own negative self-judgment and self-sabotage, our own “I’m not worthy” mind-set.
Start before you’re ready. Good things happen when we start before we’re ready.
When we sit down to work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.
We’re wrong if we think we’re the only ones struggling with Resistance. Everyone who has a body experiences Resistance.
Our greatest battle is to become ourselves, in the face of adversity.
The hero wanders, the hero suffers, the hero returns. You are that hero.
Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.
Contempt for failure is our cardinal virtue.
There is an enemy. There is an intelligent, active, malign force working against us. Step one is to recognize this. This recognition alone is enormously powerful. It saved my life, and it will save yours.
Do we have to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront Resistance?
Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance.
In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term grown, health, or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our high nature instead of our lower. Any of these will elicit Resistance.
We cannot let external criticism, even if it’s true, fortify our internal foe. That foe is strong enough already.
Have you ever wondered why the slang terms for intoxication are so demolition-oriented? Stoned, smashed, hammered. It’s because they’re talking about the Ego. It’s the Ego that gets blasted, waxed, plastered.
The instinct that pulls us toward art is the impulse to evolve, to learn, to heighten and elevate our consciousness. The Ego hates this. Because the more awake we become, the less we need the Ego.
Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.
Every sun casts a shadow, and genius’s shadow is Resistance.
Do I really believe that my work is crucial to the planet’s survival? Of course not. But it’s as important to me as catching that mouse is to the hawk circling outside my window. He’s hungry. He needs a kill. So do I.