Resistance to reality is an unwillingness to see things as they truly are. It’s the struggle you’re in when you fight against an unsatisfactory situation, trying to change it through force, manipulation or any tactic where you’re trying to control the outcome. It’s the fear you feel in the face of change. In insecurely attached relationships, resistance abounds. Perhaps you are resistant to accepting your own emotions AND the emotions or position of your partner. You may even be resistant to the fact you’re stuck in this dysfunctional relationship. Because you want things to be different, you deny reality and hope something will miraculously change. Anything you do (or purposely don’t do) to impact someone else comes from this resistant state, otherwise you’d stop trying to control everything and just let things be as they are. Resistance to reality leads to the place many insecurely attached people live… fantasy land. And when you’re in fantasy land, it’s really hard to change things because you can't allow yourself to let go of control. This fear of the "feeling" around letting go keeps you stuck as you imagine yourself in an extreme state of anxiety, like you’ll bottom out and your life may be over.

The opposite of resistance is acceptance and surrender. Yes, easier said than done because this is not a mental exercise. Simply telling yourself to let go and accept everything as it is doesn’t work. You actually have to FEEL it. And own it. To start breaking up resistance, accept you’re where you are (don’t be resistant to the fact you’re in resistance!). If you’re in an dysfunctional relationship, sit down, close your eyes, find the pain in your body and say to yourself, “Ok, this is where I am right now. It’s not what I want, but it’s where I am.” Let the pain or whatever you feel surface, then see if you’re able to connect with the feeling of surrendering to the situation as it is. This doesn’t mean you’re happy with it, it just means you acknowledge where you are right now. Only then can you start making changes toward a life and a reality that fulfills you. So simple, and yet so hard.