When those who’ve mastered the art of creative transformation feel an internal resistance, they’re able to acknowledge it, and work through it with trust. They’ve learned that openness and awareness are at the heart of the process and the mind’s role is to identify and let go of the emotions that stop them from following their heart’s directives.

If your resistance to change is stronger than your desire for a better situation, you must find your courage and delve deeply into your psyche. There, you can discover your resistance to change, break it apart, to the fuel of your passion. By exploring and dissolving these deeply rooted resistances you can start to release the grip of fear.

Here are five typical payoffs to change from my book, Wise Mind Open Mind. Which ones do you relate to?

Payoff 1: By resisting change, we can avoid the unknown. What’s familiar may not be terribly comfortable, but sometimes it seems that the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t know. We fear that venturing into the unknown will cause us to discover painful secrets about the world and ourselves that have been hidden from us. We don’t think about the change that will allow us to feel more fulfilled.
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Mindfulness can help us move forward through the dark jungle and thick fog of the unknown despite our fear, empowering us to take productive action. Mindfulness creates a container for the mind and its relentlessly anxious thoughts. Rather than whipping themselves up into a storm of fear that paralyzes us, we can observe them in a detached way and make a conscious decision to redirect the mind where we want it to go.

Payoff 2: We can avoid being judged as “strange.” Some parents can instill in a child the belief that being different, using the imagination, and taking risks is something to be valued, admired, and rewarded. When parents are frightened by their child’s differentness and too controlling they’ll try to stifle his creativity. The child, sensing their disapproval and fearing abandonment, shuts down their ability to express his creativity and then either tries to conform to his parents’ expectations or acts out.

As adults, we’ll cling to the desire to fit in with everyone else, at the expense of our own imagination. If we can recognize that our resistance is rooted in the false belief that being different will automatically result in loneliness and suffering, we can start to accept who we are and create relationships with people who aren’t unsettled by or envious of us.

Payoff 3: We can avoid failure. The fear of failure is intimately connected to our childhood fear that if we risk behaving in a new way, our parents will be angry and withdraw from and abandon us. When we fear failure, we tend to overestimate the risk we’re taking and imagine the worst possible scenario. What we picture is so dreadful that we convince ourselves that we shouldn’t even try to change.

Many artists have stories of crippling fear of failure that they could not completely erase but were able to overcome through being consciously aware of it and letting themselves experience it yet determinedly moving forward despite it. Overcoming the fear of failure requires us to consciously examine our long-forgotten experiences of feeling embarrassed or ashamed after taking a risk, and put them into perspective.

Payoff 4: We can avoid success. Strange though it may seem, a fear of success can cause as much resistance to change as a fear of failure can. While you may consciously long for a promotion or hope that your romantic relationship will result in marriage, unconsciously you may be afraid of what will happen if these changes occur. You may fear that your friends and loved ones will envy your success and withhold their love and approval or even abandon you because they can’t tolerate their feelings of jealousy and self-hatred.

If you can muster the courage to face your insecurities, you can heal yourself of the shame that prevents you from soaring to your destiny. Becoming aware of your insecurities also helps you see when others are acting out of envy, fear, or anger, and that makes it easier for you to consciously reject their distorted and hostile criticism.

Payoff 5: We can avoid feeling guilty. If we take a risk and make a change, we may feel guilty because we’re contradicting what others think we should or shouldn’t be doing with our lives. It takes great courage to stay true to the soul’s calling when it’s in conflict with what others believe we should want for ourselves.

To embrace the art of creative transformation, you must work through any feelings of guilt stemming from the belief that if you attempt to express your unique individuality and agenda, you’re being bad or selfish. Attending to yourself differs from being selfish. You’re only selfish if you take advantage of others for your own gain or knowingly cause them to suffer while giving no thought to whether you could prevent their being hurt.

When you give in to hidden fears it’s hard to believe that the discomfort and pain of accepting or making changes is worth experiencing. Your suffering may be so great that it feels as if it’ll never dissipate. However, after a loss, something new will come into your life, and it may well be something of equal or greater value.

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Here is a brief explanation of each hindrance along with a remedy to help you shift the unwanted emotion and thoughts. In my book, Wise Mind, Open Mind I discuss these resistances in more detail along with a specific mediation to augment each remedy. I always encourage my patients to include a mindful meditation practice to enhance their efforts.

Hindrance #1: Wanting Mind

Wanting mind has the qualities of grasping or clinging. We cause ourselves suffering when we ache for something that lies out of our grasp or cling in vain to something that has already passed away. In wanting mind, we feel that our current state of unhappiness could be cured if only we could have the money, job, relationship, recognition, or power we had and lost, or never had and strongly desire. Sometimes, wanting mind involves tightly holding on to something negative: an unwholesome belief about how things ought to be or should have been, or an unwholesome emotion such as anger, sadness, or jealousy. We also often suffer when we get what we think we want and suffer when we don’t get what we want, a paradox to explore.

Remedy:

The real antidote to suffering marked by the quality of wanting is not to achieve a temporary panacea but to experience satisfaction in this moment, exactly as it is. Only by experiencing satisfaction right now can you open yourself up to the type of creativity that will help you see what you have to do to bring about better circumstances. Click on the link to listen to the Satisfaction Meditation to help you with this remedy. This is from my Meditations for Creative Transformation CD.

Hindrance #2: Illusory Perfection

Sometimes we dearly wish to hold on to a chimera: the illusion of perfection. You’ll cause enormous suffering for yourself if you feel entitled to lasting satisfaction with every aspect of life. Thinking about what you “ought” to have achieved or acquired, you may become angry, frustrated, sad, or confused, wondering what went wrong. You may also find yourself feeling envious or jealous, thinking that the only thing standing between you and the perfect relationship, financial situation, career, or happiness is someone else.

Remedy:

The remedy for this hindrance is acceptance and clarity about the impermanent nature of your experiences. To release the negative thoughts about your entitlement to perfection, you must let go of the idea that perfection is a set of unchanging, external circumstances that you find pleasing in every way. Every moment, no matter how perfect, must fade into the past. Another such moment can’t occur until you let go of the hindrance of illusory perfection that keeps you locked in suffering. The remedy is to accept whatever’s happening in the present moment.

Hindrance #3: Sleeping Mind

Depression and ennui spring from the hindrance of “sleeping mind,” which is marked by the qualities of drowsiness, sluggishness, fatigue, laziness, apathy, and malaise, or torpor. A major part of depression is the lack of energy or motivation to get out of bed, to do what needs to be done without procrastinating or giving in to the feeling that there’s no point in taking action.

Remedy:

The remedy for sleeping mind is vitality, which is experienced in the body as well as in the mind. Vital thoughts and feelings arise when you awaken your body. To start remedying this hindrance, be mindful of any physical causes for your sluggishness, from a poor diet to a lack of exercise and sleep, and even allergies and intolerances to substances in your food and environment. Also stress and the powerful emotions of anger and sadness can create physical fatigue, which destroys motivation to move physically and leads to depressive thoughts and emotions. Exercise actually alters the body’s chemistry, making it easier to let go of unwholesome states of mind and replace them with wholesome ones. The traditional Taoist and Buddhist walking meditations focus on the slow process of putting one foot in front of the other and being mindful of the shifting sensations as you propel yourself forward.

Hindrance #4: Restlessness

On the surface, restlessness may seem like a positive state, because it inspires you to keep moving instead of becoming stagnant. Creative artists talk about having an “itch” or urge to get back into their music or art studio. What they’re describing is a form of creative motivation that’s quite different from restlessness. They’re referring to a discomfort with being distracted and unfocused, and a desire to enter a focused, creative state. Restlessness is most often simply undirected, unproductive action, such as puttering or flitting about from one activity to the next, never completing a task.

Remedy:

The hindrance of restlessness can be remedied with comfort and relaxation. Generating a feeling of comfort allows the mind’s frenzied activity to slow down, and triggers the sympathetic nervous system to begin releasing calming hormones into the body and slow your heart rate and breathing. A mindfulness meditation practice is particularly helpful in shifting restlessness.

Hindrance #5: Doubt

The hindrance of doubt has the qualities of skepticism, cynicism, confusion and pessimism. But unlike pessimism, doubt at least leaves some room for the possibility of positive change. Cynicism and pessimism only provide an illusory sense of power for a short time. There can be no true joy or contentment in believing that what lies ahead will, in all certainty, generate more suffering.

Remedy:

The remedy for doubt is curiosity, appreciation of the mystery of life, and resolve, all of which are intertwined. Acceptance and wonder at the mystery, coupled with the resolve of acceptance, allows you to minimize the suffering of a loss. No one likes losing something of great value, and you don’t have to believe the loss was meant to be part of a divine plan, although some may find that belief comforting. What’s absolutely necessary is acceptance and the resolve to move forward with an open mind, believing that positive people, opportunities, and situations will show up in your life again.

Acceptance of what’s happening in the moment, and of the current situation, is a cornerstone of positive psychology. The paradox is that this wholehearted acceptance of the present, regardless of how unpleasant or even painful circumstances might be, is absolutely necessary if you’re to change the situation for the better. From acceptance, you move into action allowing resolve and determination to rush in.

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