Resistance is merely the sign you’ve been called to Greatness

I've often told people suffering from bad reviews that such feedback is the result of attempting something great. In the throes of Resistance, it is easy to listen to the demons of self-doubt. After all, as a client suffering from gambling addiction once told me, "The Devil speaks to you in your own voice." It is comforting to see that in the history of myth-making, nearly every hero has a moment in which he Refuses the Call to Adventure. The Refusal of the Call is not a sign of weakness, though it may feel that way at the time. If you are willing to believe that life unfolds according to essential patterns of human experience, then you must believe that in order for the audience to believe your adventure is all that great, they must first see you cower in gut-rendering fear. The shadow side of great ambition is that deepest of all questions for the hero: "Do I have what it takes?" In psychoanalysis, it is often hard to separate whether big dreams are a compensation for self-doubt, or whether fear merely attends all important quests and serves to keep us alert, humble, and respectful of the undertaking.

So what is it that lets us accept the Call? Sometimes it's when the earth is giving way behind us, and we simply have to charge forward to save our lives. Sometimes we cry out in fear and a mentor appears. We think we have to do things by ourselves and forget that every Indiana Jones has his sidekick. Sometimes we have to believe in magic — not in a get-out-of-jail free kind of magic that compensates for our defects. But magic of the sort that appears when a gesture on your part shows the universe you are ready to use the Force.

What Great Adventure are you resisting right now? And are you waiting for disaster to catapult you forward? You wouldn't be alone. Have you considered looking up your old teachers? (I mean this in the most folkloric way.) Sort out the difference between chasing your tail and a proper rain dance.

Comments

[Barbara Harmel]

Found this really inspiring! We all seem so conditioned to resort to negative interpretations of feedback rather than viewing them as challenges. Sometimes this is because of the carelessness with which feedback is given; often it is our own negative demons which determine how we see it.
Thank you!
Barbara Harmel
barbara harmel.com