I often talk about following my desires so that my dreams can become reality. What I like about this process is that as I’m following my desires, I’m having fun, I’m enjoying myself thoroughly. What could be better?
However, when we’re onto something really precious, we encounter resistance. It’s a little bit as if the Universe was asking: Do you really want this? And if we want to answer YES!, we have to step up.
Stepping up
Resistance is when something comes in the way of you following the path to your dream. It is an obstacle. This is where we have to step up. This is where we have to commit.
This is what I have been going through in a most tangible way, and I thought I would share it with you because you might have come up against something similar that you think is standing in the way of your dreams.
What you must understand is, though, that it is not standing in the way because you can remove the obstacle. So instead of saying: “Oh, I can’t follow the path to my dream because a tree has fallen down and is blocking my path,” you can ask: “How can I remove the obstacle? How can I get around it?”
When you ask these powerful questions and find the answer, this is where you’re offered an opportunity to grow. This is where you can choose to step up, to evolve, to embody more of who you really are.
In order to experience your dream, you’re being asked to change your sense of identity. In other words, you have to do something differently in order to have a different experience. You cannot have a different experience in life if you are not willing to embody the person who can have such an experience.
Back to my tangible resistance: here’s my story.
One of the purposes in my life is to create beauty. I formed the desire to create beauty through household objects. I followed my desires and did an interior design course (a deep desire of mine) and came up with the idea of making lampshades. (There’s another funny resistance story about my interior design course, but this is not to the point.)
Why lampshades? I can never find any so I thought other people might have the same problem. I started looking into how handsown lampshades are made and thought that this would be something people in the area where I live can do. They can do it at home, in their own time, when the children are in bed.
There is a lot of unemployment here and COVID hasn’t helped. So I asked myself: What if we could create handsown lampshades to sell online? What would that take?
It would take learning the craft, is what it would take, so I jumped on the internet to find out how and where I could learn to make handsown lampshades. (We don’t want to make any old lampshade because they probably do that in China and Turkey, no offense)
I found a place in Yorkshire where I could do a mini course. That would be a good start, but then travel to Yorkshire at the time was impossible due to COVID. Resistance.
I then found a place in Paris, much closer to home, where I could learn the craft. L’abat-jouriste (French for the person who makes lampshades) told me that on March 15th, she would open for enrolment. (A little bit of resistance because I had to wait a few weeks).
Respecting Momentum
But when 15th March came around, I found out that the course I wanted wouldn’t start till November 2021. I couldn’t sit around waiting for that. (Potential resistance).
So I asked Google what to do and came up with a full training as a professional lampshade maker just south of Paris. The next course was slap bang during my holidays! I said YES straight away because keeping momentum waiting will make it very tired.
Then the French government threw me a curveball: lockdown again. Resistance. I got on the phone to Céline, my Maîtresse de stage (person who’s running the course) and asked her how we could remove that obstacle. Céline told me as it was a professional training, we could fill in a lot of papers and get a permit for me to come. She said she could do that if I still wanted to come.
Did I want to come? You bet. So yesterday, I received my attestation allowing me to travel to Vendôme where the training is and stay there. Just as well, because on Sunday, I’m off to Vendôme. Céline also told me that I would be the only stagiaire, person training, because everybody else had cancelled, due to lockdown.
How perfect is that? For me, not for them but then they are responsible for themselves.
In France when you work, you have to pay some of your earnings into a foundation which pays for on-going training. I though that as I have been paying towards that for 20 odd years, they might want to give me some of it back.
So I applied but got back the answer (after a long wait) that they didn’t finance training to be an abat-jouriste. Resistance. Fortunately, I can just make some more money and instead of going on an expensive holiday to Thailand which is difficult now due to COVID, I can use that money to pay for it myself. Anyway, I much prefer investing in myself to investing in the Thai economy, no offense.
Enlisting help and support
Manuel, my husband, booked a train ticket for me to Vendôme because I don’t enjoy driving (I’m enlisting help and support wherever this is given). The return trip has already been cancelled, resistance, so I don’t know how I’m going to get back, but I’ll worry about that closer to the time. Or rather, I’ll just remove that obstacle too.
This is a long story just to illustrate my resistance. You may be saying that I didn’t create my obstacles/resistance, I didn’t decide on lockdown, I didn’t cancel any trains, but obstacles aren’t necessarily of your own creation. I could have been creating added resistance saying: “Oh, lockdown is happening so I can’t go”, and that would have been that.
Resistance in the mind
Instead of giving in to resistance, I ask myself: “How can I get around that?” In other words, instead of telling myself why I can’t do, be or have something, I ask myself HOW?
This is what I would like for you: when you come up against obstacles in your path to your dreams, instead of saying: “I can’t have that,” ask rather: “How can I have that? What is one action I can take which will create movement and perhaps give me a solution?”
Our way to our dreams is paved with resistance that will demand of us that we grow. Refusing to grow, waiting to be ready to grow, waiting for it to be convenient, will not take you to your dreams.
If you’ve got an open mind and if you really want to make your dream into a plan, I can help you see how your obstacles can be removed or got around. There really is nothing in the way other than your thoughts about it. Check out Dream Design Here, my new online course that allows you to dream again.
I’d love to have your comments on this. If you’re brave, you could also say what your dream is. If you write it down here for all to see, you’re already making it more of a reality. So what are you dreaming to be, have or do? Let me know.
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About the author:
Katrine Horn is a speaker and life coach who guides women to create the life of their dreams, to recognize their intrinsic value and release the illusion that life is a struggle. Katrine teaches women how to manage their emotions leaving them free to embrace opportunity when it comes their way. She helps them enter their Zone of Excellence where there are able to step aside to allow their highest good to find them.
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