Written by: Cheryl Whitelaw, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Resistance is fear in action.
I think I became a coach because first and foremost I was an expert on resisting change.
As a teenager, I wore an old yellow leather coat, a hand-me-down from my mother because I liked the feel of the buttery soft, well-worn leather better than my new coat.
I re-read the same series of books (Frank Herbert’s Dune series) every year for 10 years.
I attempted, unsuccessfully to establish a regular meditation practice for 10 years. My best run was meditating regularly for almost two years and then one day I just stopped. It took me another year to try again.
I learned the 108-move form of Tai Chi three times between 18 and 47 years of age – I successfully learned the whole form each time but resisted bringing it into daily practice.
The common denominator for each of these experiences is resistance – leaning away from change and leaning into what is already established, familiar, comfortable – even if it is the familiar failure to meditate when I really wanted to.
Resistance is defined as the act of fighting against something that is attacking you or refusing to accept something – we see this form of resistance happening in Ukraine as the people fight for their sovereignty, for their own independent country.
Resistance is also defined as a force that acts to stop the progress of something or make it slower. Fear acts as a force to stop our progress in trying to create a new behavior, a new habit. As we age, the overall drag of fear as a force in our lives can increase – fear of life-changing injuries, fear of losing our mental and physical abilities. Fear of the consequences of actions. Anxiety is a close cousin to fear, a kind of alert mental state, proactively on guard for all of the unfortunate consequences that might happen. An imagined possibility that shuts down a real action.
Once we know more intimately loss, pain, life-halting limitations, our fear of those life events and our concern to avoid them can get turned way up. I don’t want that to happen again!
In our pandemic altered world, I believe we have seen in a large societal way, how fear feeds into resistance. Resistance to social restrictions on movement, on masking, on vaccines. Resistance to people resisting social restrictions. Fear on all sides in action.
Resistance can also be paired with a fixed focus on getting things right, as if getting it perfect give me a kind of free pass from falling into unwanted, unfortunate events.
It is also a place where our choices, our conscious and unconscious habits can impact how we age.
Consider these choice points:
You have been diagnosed with osteoarthritis in one knee and your doctor has told you to limit the strain that you put on your knee. You have a great group of women that you play soccer with each week. Do you keep playing or quit?
You fell and were knocked unconscious last month while mountain biking. Your family is planning a big trip this summer that includes off-road biking. Do you join them or wait in the vacation condo?
You find that your energy levels are lower than they used to be. You try to get out for a walk several times a week but lately, it seems like something always comes up – snow overnight makes the sidewalks slippery or your daughter needs your help with a school project. You haven’t walked for over a week. Do you go for a walk today or leave it?
In aging well, it is not just the big decisions that shape us. It is the daily small decisions that shape us into the person who quit playing soccer, waited in the condo or stayed at home. Resistance makes our progress towards being the person who stays active, who finds meaningful movement, who connects with others or with nature through an activity slower. Or stops it altogether.
I like using one simple question to face my fear.
I recently recovered from a tear in my Achilles tendon and faced several choice points in my own recovery.
Should I quit training Aikido until it heals?
Should I start wearing orthotic insoles?
Should I stick with activities that are safer and less likely to put me at risk of aggravating my injured tendon or of snapping my tendon altogether?
I should mention that I received several opinions, often from medical professionals that fed into my fear. Stop training altogether. Here is a prescription for orthotic insoles. Stick with walking or cycling so you won’t make it worse.
The simple question I asked myself was, “What can I do?”
I decided that I could continue to train Aikido but stopped rolling for 4 months.
I decided I could supplement my training with cardio work on a rowing machine, smooth, predictable use of my legs and tendons that worked on strength and flexibility.
I decided to work with a physiotherapist to work on strengthening and flexibility exercises to address issues that fed into my injury.
I decided to work with my Feldenkrais knowledge to explore ways to find more flexibility in my back, hips and ankles to support a new movement habit so I could avoid moving my way back to tendonitis once I healed.
I decided not to buy orthotic insoles, choosing instead to work on some under-developed strength and coordination in my feet.
I decided to ask to work with a sports medicine doctor who assumed I would stay active and provided several additional options to support my recovery and my movement.
And I listened to my body throughout the process, noting when I had created greater pain and inflammation by doing too much and dialing back what I did until I could wake up, stand up and walk without pain. I feel like I am about 98% healed and will likely need to continue to attend to my strength and flexibility from now on.
There is a saying, “Getting old is not for the faint of heart.”
I agree. It takes courage to face the way life happens to you, to your body and to your personal sense of what is possible for you. Aging well takes daily courage to ask “What can I do?” with what has confronted me. And to look for a way to do it that is functional for me. The bottom line for is me is choosing how to move so that my world continues to get bigger, not smaller. Choosing what supports me to keep growing rather than fading, settling, becoming some smaller, less vivid version of me.
Cheryl Whitelaw, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Cheryl is a leader in using movement to improve brain and body performance, reversing the impacts of aging. As a child, Cheryl asked, “If we can do war, how do we do peace?” Her lifelong exploration of that question led her into embedding transformative learning technologies into adult education, coaching, inclusion, and diversity training and supporting people to recover their personal sense of wellness and wholeness after injury and trauma. A devoted practitioner of aikido, Tai Chi, and Feldenkrais, she is committed to her personal evolutionary path to integrate body, mind, and spirit in service of peace in the world. She has coached individuals in private, public, non-profit organizations, unions, and utility companies from over 12 countries around the world. She is a published author in the field of diversity and inclusion and is well regarded for her blog on how our movement can help us create a more potent and peaceful self in the world. Her mission: Move more; react less, and live more fully with no regrets.
