When Resistance Shows Up, You May Be Closer to your goal Than You Think

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There is a moment that arrives in every meaningful journey. This is a moment subtle enough to miss if you’re not paying attention, yet powerful enough to reroute your entire destiny. It happens when you’re moving toward something that matters such as a dream or goal that you’ve always wanted or a new chapter in life.

You begin with clarity. You take the first steps and gather momentum.

And then, resistance appears.

It doesn’t always arrive dramatically. Sometimes it slips in like a faint doubt or as procrastination or little things start going wrong which you must attend to. Or it comes with urgency, convincing you that everything is wrong, the timing is off, and you should turn back immediately.

Suddenly, you’re questioning everything.

You wonder whether you’re truly aligned. You start scanning your life for reasons why now isn’t the right time. You remember past disappointments and imagine future judgment. You tell yourself it’s not the right time or you need to wait until something else happens to proceed. You may even try to convince yourself that it’s not in alignment with you or it’s not what you really want.

And before you realize it, you’re considering stopping or giving up.

But what if resistance isn’t a warning?

Resistance Isn’t Usually a Red Light

We’ve been conditioned to believe that discomfort, fear, or doubt equals misalignment, but that’s not always true.

Sometimes the thing you’re working toward is so aligned that it requires you to grow into someone who can hold it. Growth is rarely comfortable.

Writing a book may ask you to be seen in ways you’ve never allowed. Changing careers may ask you to risk rejection and redefine your identity. Moving cities may ask you to release familiar routines and relationships. Starting a relationship may ask you to trust and be vulnerable. Pursuing a dream may ask you to stop hiding behind potential and step into embodiment.

The desire and timing can be right. Plus, you can still feel afraid. That doesn’t mean you need to stop.

Resistance Wears Many Masks

Resistance rarely says, “I’m afraid of change.” It prefers disguises.

It may sound like:

• “I don’t have time.”

• “I’ll do it when life calms down.”

• “I need to figure out a few more things first.”

• “What if people judge me?”

• “It didn’t work last time.”

• “My family needs me.”

• “Maybe this isn’t meant for me.”

• “I’ll come back to it someday.”

• “I should start over.”

These excuses often sound logical and responsible but they’re really just the ego trying to protect you from stepping out of your comfort zone.

You are approaching a threshold where your old identity cannot follow.

And that identity, which is built from past experiences and patters, begins to panic.

You hide behind being busy or perfectionism or overthinking. Resistance is rarely irrational. It’s often the ego’s strategy to keep you in the same place.

The ego isn’t the enemy. It’s the part of you that wants predictability. It would rather stay in a familiar emotional territory, even one built from disappointment or rejection, than risk the unknown.

This is why people remain in jobs that drain them, relationships that harm them, and repeat painful patterns. The familiar feels safer than the unfamiliar.

Even negative emotions can become a kind of emotional home. Disappointment, rejection, and doubt can feel predictable and familiar. However, change requires temporary discomfort and asks you to release old stories and versions of yourself. And that’s often when resistance becomes loudest.

You start to believe that you should stay where you are because at least it’s familiar. But the place you know is not always the place you’re meant to remain.

Resistance Becomes Louder as You Get Closer

I’ve seen this pattern in my own life again and again. Every time I’ve been close to something meaningful, resistance has shown up like clockwork.

Before I understood this, I misinterpreted it. I assumed the discomfort meant misalignment, so I would stop, lose momentum, and tell myself I’d return later. When I returned, the energy had changed and the momentum was gone. Sometimes I had to start all over again.

Then, when I reached another point of progress, resistance appeared again.

This is how people get trapped in cycles of starting, stopping, and starting over.

They begin the book, abandon it, begin another. They pursue the career change until the first rejection. They start building a new life, feel discomfort, and retreat.

Why did I stop when I was so close?

I misinterpreted resistance as intuition.

Intuition and Fear are NOT the Same

Intuition is quiet, clear, and simple. Fear is loud, dramatic, and full of stories.

When something truly needs to be released, you can drop it without drama. There’s clarity and even relief. On the other hand, resistance creates elaborate stories.

It tells you people will judge you, reminds you of every past failure, and convinces you that timing must be perfect. It comes up with various reasons to delay.

And if you’re a writer or creative, you know how persuasive a story can be, but the story isn’t necessarily truth.

Fear Can Be a Sign of Expansion

Fear doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re human. It means you’re expanding, so instead of attacking yourself, bring awareness to the resistance.

First, acknowledge it.

You might say or think:

“I’m noticing fear.”

“I’m noticing the urge to stop.”

“I’m noticing the story I’m creating.”

You can even thank the part of you that’s trying to protect you.

Then ask:

Is this a sign to stop, or is this simply the discomfort of becoming the person who can receive what I want? Would I rather experience the temporary discomfort of growth, or the familiar pain of staying stuck?

If the answer doesn’t appear, take a pause, but don’t immediately quit.

Bring awareness to the fear. Look at the story. Ask whether the desire still matters beneath the discomfort.

If it does, take one more step.

Write one more page. Send one more application. Make one more call. Take one more class. Move one piece of the dream forward. You just need to stay connected to your direction.

Momentum Is Sacred. Protect It.

Momentum is one of the most powerful forces in personal transformation.

When you’re already moving, each step makes the next step easier. You’re connected to your desire. You remember why you began. When you stop, you not only lose time, but more importantly, you lose momentum.

When you return, you often have to rebuild everything from the beginning, especially with creative work.

A book written months later is not the same book. The version of you who began is no longer the version of you who returns.

If you have momentum, protect it like gold. If needed, you can still slow down, rest, or adjust, but avoid abandoning the entire thing.

Celebrate the Resistance: It Means You’re Close

You don’t have to celebrate fear itself, but you can celebrate what it reveals.

You’re moving, growing, and expanding beyond the familiar.

The next time doubt appears, ask yourself if you’re being guided to stop or being asked to grow.

What if resistance isn’t viewed as a warning but as the moment that you release the past stories?

Then, resistance isn’t a red light. It’s the doorway to your breakthrough. You just need to keep going and protect your momentum.

Write From Joy

WRITING DOESN’T HAVE TO BE PAINFUL

Photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash

When I found out that a friend of mine got engaged this past weekend, I didn’t just smile politely. Joy rose through me like champagne bubbles. My whole body lit up. I wasn’t anywhere near her when this happened, yet hearing about it made me feel lighter and more radiant as I honored her and the beautiful energy of love.

I brought this joy into my writing, and that’s why I’m here to tell you that your writing or art doesn’t have to come from sadness and suffering as you may have been led to believe. That doesn’t mean that something magical has to happen every day for you to write, because you can use joy you experience in small things such as a cup of tea or a morning walk or a smile from someone, or even secondhand joy of a happy event happening to someone else.

Writing From Joy Is Not Shallow

You hear about writing from pain, but almost never about writing from joy. Why do we assume that depth must come from agony?

What if some of your most creative writing could come from joy, bliss, expansion, and liveliness?

Joy is not the absence of depth. It’s not an extravagance or a silly emotion. It’s the experience of being fully present and alive.

Your attention is more focused and your senses are sharper. Think about the last time you experienced joy. Maybe it was a small thing such as seeing a hummingbird or a big thing such as falling in love.

Did you feel activated and energized? Now, imagine creating under the influence of that feeling. Imagine if pharmaceutical companies were able to turn that into a drug with no side effects. Well, you can create that yourself.

The Myth that Art Must Come From Suffering

For generations, writers have documented their darkest times such as poverty, heartbreak, addiction, grief, and loss. Their stories are compelling because they reveal something deeply human, and their suffering sometimes became intertwined with the work they created.

But somewhere along the way, we turned this into the belief that if they suffered, we must suffer for our art as well. We started believing that pain was the price for authenticity and that a person must sacrifice everything for their work.

We no longer need to inherit that story, and can create our own. That chapter has closed and we can write a new, evolved one. Writing doesn’t have to come from torment; it can come from bliss.

Use Joy to Activate Creative Flow

We may think of creative flow as something hat happens to us sometimes when all the right conditions are in place, but there are things we can do to create conditions that make flow more accessible.

One of those things is changing the emotional state from which we're approaching our creativity.

If you approach writing from a place of frustration, doubt, and insecurity, and treat it as if it’s one more thing on your task list that you don’t have time for, you’re burdening yourself under the weight of obligation and making it harder to access flow.

View Writing as Play, Not Punishment

We may have forgotten that writing can be fun. It can be a form of play instead of another chore we have to do that day. When we view writing the book as another stressor, our excitement dies down and so does our creativity.

What if you changed the relationship between you and your book? Instead of viewing it as a burden, what if it were an adventure?

You don’t know everything that’ll happen when you start writing even if you have a pretty good outline. You discover more about your characters and plot as you go along. That’s the magic of creating.

Your writing time is your playground. Your imagination gets to have fun. Let yourself experiment and write that strange scene or ridiculous dialogue. Give yourself permission to write something awful. None of this is etched in stone. You don’t have to be married to it.

Creativity isn’t an unruly child that needs to be controlled. It needs room to play.

Depth Doesn’t Require Pain

Pain is one way we become self-aware, but it is far from the only way.

You don't have to reopen every wound to be creative. You don't have to tap into sad feelings when you sit down at your computer because you've decided those emotions make you more creative.

Use the lessons you’ve learned and the experiences you’ve lived. You don’t have to drop into a dark emotional state to write even the darkest themes.

You can write betrayal, murder, distress, and grief while remaining anchored in your own bubble of bliss, because the emotional state you're creating from doesn't have to match the content you're writing about.

Writing from a light place can make it easier to handle difficult themes because you aren't drowning in them. You're the witness and the guide as you shape those themes into something meaningful.  

Access Joy on Demand

Instead of trying to think yourself into a creative state, run joy through your body before your write.

1. Recall a moment that genuinely made you happy.

It doesn't have to be a big thing. It could be something that happened that day or at another point in time: a nice meal, a hot shower, a song you like, a sunset, a hug, a funny conversation, being silly with your pet.  It’s a moment when everything else melted away and you could be fully present.  

Close your eyes and bring yourself back there.

Don't just remember what happened.

Remember how it felt.

2. Notice where the joy lives in your body.

Where do you feel it?

Do you find yourself breathing easier?

Maybe you smile.

Maybe you feel warmth in your stomach.

Don't analyze it. Just feel it.

3. Let the feeling expand and take over.

Imagine the sensation spreading through your body.

Let it move through your chest, your shoulders, your arms, your stomach, your legs, your face. This isn’t forced happiness or manufactured cheerfulness.

You're simply unlocking and expressing the happiness that's already available to you.

4. Let your nervous system register the feeling.

Stay in the present moment for a few breaths.

Savor this experience of having your heart be open and feeling lively and present.

5. Then write.

Use the joy as you create within it. Let it become the environment your creativity grows in.

You may be surprised by what becomes possible when you stop demanding that your creativity come from struggle.

The Side Effect

The more often you practice accessing joy before you write, the more you’ll notice it throughout your day. You’ll start savoring small moments of delight and creating joy intentionally, and your life will become more vibrant and creatively nourishing. As joy becomes a familiar, natural state to return to, you’ll slip into it faster, and the line between work and play will begin to blur.