Have you ever felt the frustration of desperately desiring change, only to find no real change occurs? Whether you long for positive change in your circumstances, relationships, personal or spirtual growth; where you place your focus determines the outcome. If you feel stuck in a perpetual pursuit of unsuccessful change, you may be too focused on resisting the negative. Learn to release resistance and shift your focus to your desired outcome instead.
Welcome to Mindfulness Monday! Where we learn some easy ways to be more present “in the moment” at our jobs, in our homes, with our families and friends.
Learning to recognize God and what He has for us in each divine moment He offers. We acknowledge the belief that God is with us always.
We confess His presence is available to us, lifting our spirit and helping us with power and grace. Learning the art of “stillness” so we can hear His voice and view ourselves, others and our surroundings through His eyes.
resistance perpetuates negativity
Famous philosopher Carl Jung stated “What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size”. A pithy little statement easily dismissed; except for its painful truth.
Consider how many hours you spend thinking about all the things you dislike about a particular situation, job, relationship, or even your own habits. You earnestly desire change in these areas, you may even work towards change; yet nothing changes and things may even seem worse.
Your thoughts about a situation, relationship or your own habits determine your focus; your focus determines your direction: your direction determines your destination or outcome.
resistance hinders real change
Carl Jung’s principle of “what you resist, persists” applies to many areas of our lives. We mistakenly focus on the things we dislike, asserting more willpower and energy on avoidance than real solutions.
You desire to lose weight or get healthier, but end up focusing on all the things you can no longer eat or do. Despite your best efforts, you still look in the mirror and see an overweight, out of shape person.
What you resist (overweight, out of shape) persists.
Pursuing financial freedom and debt free status, you tweak your budget, set savings goals, and attend financial seminars. All the while voicing your dislike over your debt and lack of funds; coupled with constant anxiety over any expenditures. Despite your best efforts, you never seem to attain the financial freedom you desire.
What you resist (debt, lack of funds, anxiety over expenditures) persists.
You create resistance by your focus on the very things you dislike and desire to change. Your focus communicates to your brain to find more of the things commanding your attention.
Instead of moving away from the unpleasant, you reinforce it. Unless you learn to release resistance, and shift your focus to the solution, change cannot happen.
how resistance hinders spiritual growth
Grasping the benefits of releasing resistance in general, I failed at noticing the same principle at work in my spiritual life. The Lord spoke to me about a particular area of sin and my need for change.
After a time of repentance, confronting this sin became a priority. Suddenly I saw it everywhere, all the time. Becoming overwhelmed, I lost hope of ever gaining freedom from its grip.
Despite my best efforts, the sin not only persisted, it became more prevalent.
God showed me the flaw in my approach:
The sin claimed my entire focus. All my thoughts, prayers, and scripture memory paraded this sin before my mind day and night.
My efforts exclusively centered on avoiding that sin. Rather than a forward focus on living righteously and walking in truth, my eyes kept glancing backward towards the sin failure.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead
Philippians 3:12-13
the subtilty of resistant thinking
Often, resistive thoughts permeate our minds without our realizing the impact. Until considering the verses in Philippians, I thought my approach appropriate. Afterwards, I saw how resistive thinking hindered my spiritual growth.
Choosing a random sin illustration let me explain.
For avoiding anger, you may choose the following verses:
Proverbs 29:22: “An angry person stirs up conflict, and a hot-tempered person commits many sins.”
Colossians 3:8: “But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.”
Great verses for the illustration of sinful anger and its necessary removal from our lives. But what is the focus of these verses? Correct, ANGER. Remembering only the point of these verses, the brain sees only anger.
No doubt, these verses convict of sin, but a singular focus on these verses provides no deliverance, but rather locks your eyes on the very thing you desire to avoid.
What you resist, persists and tends to grow.
release resistance and uplevel your spiritual growth
The power of the Word of God coupled with the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, effect change and spiritual growth in your life. But misguided enthusiasm and a poorly wielded sword create more resistance, obscuring the way forward.
By a continual backward focus on my sin problem, I hindered progress forward towards real change.
The following approach reveals resistance thinking, while enabling you to release resistance and uplevel your spiritual growth.
reflect
Similar to our reframing “what ifs” and finding possibilities in the impossible, bringing awareness to our negative thought processes provides the starting point.
- Reflect. Examine your thoughts surrounding a particular issue or area of desired change. Staying with the sin issue example of anger, notice:
- Thoughts centered on avoiding anger or annoyance of its presence in your life.
- “I wish I didn’t have such a quick temper”
- “I hope I make it through today without getting angry”
- Actions taken to avoid anger.
- Bible memory or reflection focused only on the sin and its destructive behavior.
- Reading books or articles on anger.
- Self-talk rebuking anger: “Don’t respond in anger”, “You know Mary always pushes your buttons…”
- Prayers petitioning for help in avoiding anger.
- “God, please help me not get angry over_____ today.”
- “Lord, I want to be free from these angry thoughts.”
- Thoughts centered on avoiding anger or annoyance of its presence in your life.
release
Once you recognize resistance thinking, moving toward the release of resistance through shifting your focus becomes much easier. using the same example of overcoming the sin of anger, shift from the above examples to incorporating:
- Thoughts centered on cultivating peace, love, and self-control and displaying it in your life.
- “I am seeking to listen calmly, and pause before responding with self-control.”
- “I desire to seek peace in any difficult interactions today responding in love.”
- Actions taken for cultivating peace, love and self-control.
- Bible memory or reflection focused on the fruit of the spirit, forgiveness, and loving others more than myself.
- Reading books or articles on relationship skills, active listening, and loving others well.
- Self-talk encouraging calm, kindness and self-control.
- Prayers petitioning help in cultivating peace, love and self-control.
- “God please help me understand ______ better and see their side of the situation.”
- “Lord, I want to love others well and respond calmly with kindness.”
Try the above exercises with a situation, relationship, personal habit or sin problem of your own. Journal your discoveries and ways the Holy Spirit speaks to you.
move forward free of resistance
Releasing resistance not only helps us learn contentment, flexibility and endure adversity, but it also teaches us submission to God’s sovereign ways in our lives. Conformation to the image of Christ comes through adversity; which often means enduring what we dislike.
While overcoming any sin habit presents a formidable challenge, noticing and releasing resistance, positions us for the work of the Holy Spirit.
Once confessed, the sins of the past no longer require my focus. A continual look back prevents the Holy Spirit’s transforming work in the present. A focus shift to putting on the new man created in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 4:24) fueled a Holy Spirit empowered change. Now, instead of a defeated posture of hopelessness, I am free to pursue righteous and holy living.
Donna, I don’t think I’ve ever looked at trying to overcome a particular sin in quite this way, but it makes a lot of sense. I love the idea of focusing our thoughts and actions on the opposite of the sin, rather than primarily on the thing we are struggling to overcome.
Lois, I hadn’t really approached overcoming sin from this pespective either, but I can tell you, it has made a huge difference!
Donna, there’s so much wisdom and practical application in this post! I’ve gotten caught up in resistance thinking too. And you’re so right; we need to shift our focus. Amazing how powerful that action can be!
Thank you, Jeanne, for your kind words. I find the more practical advice is, the more likely I am to give it a try! I am finding the true power in focus these days. I am shocked at how easy it is to simply focus on the negative!
Oh this is so true 🙁 I am trying this year to focus on “turning towards” the light, instead of “turning away” from sin. I like your idea of thoughts actions and prayers venturing on cultivation. I love your prompt from Philippians 3:12-13: forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead.
David, you have summarized well. The battle against sin cannot be won by despising it and (ourselves for indulging) and just fighting harder to stop. Sin and dare I say any change at all can only occur by focusing on what we want in the end. With regard to sin and spiritual growth, we must feed our minds and souls with truth, so that our focus drives our pursuits. But honestly, even bigger than that, it’s a matter of love. We pursue and do what we love-loving Jesus and the truth of God’s Word MORE, can be a game changer.
Phil. 3:12-13 was enlightening for me as I realized all that focus on my “sin” simply kept me looking back. I refuse to glorify satan and sin by recounting it beyond confession.
I wonder how you can use this principle with your word “face”? You know you go where your eyes go…you can’t “face” one way and go another.
Dear Donna, thank you very much for your reply. This is interesting — “I refuse to glorify satan and sin by recounting it beyond confession.” — so, confess prayerfully and move on?
I use “face” the verb to mean “turn towards”, so I shall follow your points about loving and pursuing Jesus. And certainly “face” the Way I want to follow.
David, actually “yes” confess prayerfully and move on. Unless your sin involves someone else from whom you need to ask forgiveness, rehearsing your sin in all its gory detail only glorifies it and the enemy of your soul. I think Christians can actually suffer from a subtle pride in the depth of their depravity. Back to focus, the more we talk about sin, the more we will pursue it, especially if it is of the more addictive type.
Yes, I understood the way you are using your word, “face”, which is why I mentioned about considering where your eyes are “focused”. Turning towards The Way, we pursue Him!