Resistance Recruits Allies
This is the title of a chapter in The War of Art. But let me expand on it here, from recent experience …
Resistance, remember, is that negative, sneaky, brutal, merciless force that you and I wake up with every morning. Its aim is to stop us from doing our work, from becoming the realized individual and artist we were born to be.
All by itself, Resistance is a massive challenge. But Resistance is so diabolical that it can search through our circumstances like some evil form of AI … and add a dimension to its perniciousness.
Resistance recruits allies.
If we are facing any kind of adversity in our lives—a child struggling at school, a health issue in the family, a lost job, a divorce—Resistance will piggyback onto this and use it against us. It will tell us—the voice in our heads—that this exterior headwind is so urgent, so time-consuming, so critical that either we must devote all our time to dealing with it (and thus not do our work), or we must become so demoralized and depressed that we can’t deal with anything at all.
This phenomenon is front-burner stuff for me right now, dealing with the (very real) rebuilding process after losing our home in the California wildfires.
What’s the proper response? First (I’m coming to this realization myself even as we speak), we have to recognize the component of adversity that is Resistance. It’s there. It’s hiding. But it’s real. Fifty percent, maybe more of the intensity of adversity that we feel is almost certainly Resistance.
We have to dismiss it. We have to tell ourselves, “This is bullshit. This is our own self-sabotage. Gear up and fight it.”
At the same time, we have to cut ourselves some slack. If our emotions are on overload over the very real problems we’re facing, we have to take a deep breath and sit ourselves down for a little talk. “Yeah, this feels like hell … but remember, fifty percent of this intensity is just our own Resistance. We can get around this. We can overcome it.”
Again, we must dismiss the element of our issues that are Resistance only. They’re not real. They’re the bully that vanishes as soon as we stand up to it, as soon as we ramp up our commitment to ourselves—no matter how much we don’t want to—and sit down and do our work.
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
THE AUTHENTIC SWING
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.
NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T
Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers—advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
TURNING PRO
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"
Fuckin’ A.
Mr Steven, this is so relatable.I know ypu will conquer this resistance. I pray for restoration of all you have lost. Tbanks for the article. Best wishes.
There is something I want to do. It will take someone to help me do it with both permission and encouragement. Yet, I fear this person will not, and may oppose me.
That is my resistance. I have built it myself. Only I can take it down.
You’re right, and thanks for the reminder. I was talking about this with a friend just yesterday. Although my challenges haven’t been quite the same as losing a home to wildfires (I’m glad you’re alive to tell the story!), some things in my life have knocked down my usual confidence and go-get-it-attitude into a ditch, at least in a certain area of my life and work. But the main thing is that no matter where the resistance is coming from or why, it all really comes down to what we need to do. Tasks. Projects. Work. “Just do it.” Even if we don’t think we can, sometimes we can just be in the present moment and knock out our to-do lists no matter what. Weep later. 🙂
Thanks again, and best wishes to you in your recovery and rebuilding.
On point, Mr. P! However, I believe resistance must be of some evolutionary benefit. Can anything so ‘real’ and universally experienced be all bad?
Thank you for showing up and sharing. It puts my resistance into perspective. Validating the ‘real’ problems in our lives is important. Allowing ourselves to feel what we need to feel after loss is part of the healing process that will lead us back to the creative well.
Thank you for showing up for us despite the challenges you are facing. You are an inspiration!
Take good care.
Absolutely my battle for the last 18 months. I may be coming to the end of something and deciding whether to battle on or give up and move to something else is marooning me in indecision. I know some of it will be resistance, and some of it will be true (as I age there are some things that I won’t be able to do as well, whatever resistance says) but differentiating the two is a killer.
So encouraging. Weekly perspective injections in my inbox – MUCH appreciated. May circumstances disentangle and fall into place for full restoration and more for you and yours. Resistance resisted builds strength? Hopefully.
G O L D E N — thank you!
Thank you so much dear Steve.
Your stance against Resistance is a polemical one, and in it lies the ability to awaken the forces inside us that are antagonistical. When we face an enemy, he is the antagonist. And, like you said with the story of the compass, the antagonist can actually show us the true path. It can awaken the motivation of antagonism which is precious, like a useful power that is easily awakened if we find the way to call it forth. Still, Resistance uses this weapon: the invisible cloack. It is invisible, we only have a sense of it here, not an image. And with an invisible antagonist it’s harder for the protagonist to find that calling, even though he or she may know about them. Even religions have to use statues, paintings, other sensible objects or written words that are actually painting fear and awe and inspiration to give a shape and so to have something against which or towards which to stand. And, in the case of religions, since it has been known how easy it is for man to forget, steady rituals are more of a must than a choice: they remind, they remind. On the other hand, when one is at war for example, the antagonist is right there – he can see him and he can see the gun that will take his life. Talking about “motivation”.
I also want to remember Assistance at all times. Those “angels in the abstract” that are on our side. How do we evoke them? That’s another point.
I hate hating my work. I hate being bored with my work. But I am both. And I am softened, not hardened, for some reason. But I have the flow in every day life, and I must use that. It was always there, like the Force as symbolized by Lucas’s great films. Still on the road yet, and my dual nature (the perfecter and the instinctive-er) is a big trouble.
There are also other allies, but they all hide from view. The good sleep, the healthy life, the not strict life, the best personal way to write or create anything from books to enterprises, all these and so many more evoke Resistance if they are not well used. On the contrary, if they are well used, then we get that Flow.
I also have a feeling that all the ways our world/society works are wrong in terms of being in the Flow. As if on some aspect we are actually in the Matrix. I don’t mean it literally, always symbolically, but here it seems to be truth. What if there IS a way to dismiss Resistance but the society’s river has us think that this is the way things are, the road of Resistance? And so it (the society) supports that road unwillingly. Zeus expressed it:
“Oh, how the mortals do blame the Gods! For they say that evils come from us; yet they themselves, by their recklessness, awaken grief beyond what is destined.”
(Odyssey)
If we believe that the obstacles are the path, and the path is the path is the path, everything is just kind of our lot (in a good sense). If we come to believe that our life is our life is our life and we have no other, we try to flow through it.
Good morning, Steve 🌄 All I can add is something I mentioned in an earlier post, a quote from Illusions, by Richard Bach: “There is no problem that doesn’t come with a Gift in it’s hands…”
Richard Bach did some good work in his day, didn’t he, Muriel? Illusions and Bridge Across Forever were a couple of my favorites.
Thank you.
Thank you for leading by example. I believe I can walk through the hurricane of resistance. It’s been a buggering the last few weeks.
As Ms. Radner said as Roseanne “There’s always something! If it’s not one thing, it’s another!”
Wow, I really needed to hear this, and you wonder, the size of the resistance equals the size of the coming success. Wow a wild fire burning your house down, well there is a lot of success on the other side of that one!
Thanks for being honest with us, Steve and sorry about your home troubles. I have been experiencing that exponential Resistance that comes at the end of a project – a decade in the works- now Im losing confidence and pulling back on the crucial agent publisher tasks. So afraid of Rejection I am sabbotaging myself before agents and readers do! Talk about Resistance. Yeah I’ve had to get with my therapist and a writing coach and help them help me talk some Courage into myself. Any wise words – perhaps a post on this subject – would be much welcomed.
Semper Fi and Hang Tough!
Resistance hates both of those attitudes !!!!!!!!!!
This post is a goldmine for BGMI fans. I was specifically looking for the BGMI Jonathan sensitivity code and finally found it here. This will help a lot of players reach the next level in close-range fights.
Appreciating the thoughts from Steve and from all of you. On this journey together.
The last paragraph is the key. So true!
All the best to you! You help so many!
Thanks for this, Coach. I have friends here in L.A. who lost homes in the fires that are in the middle of what you’re experiencing, and I’ve got friends who packed up and left due to the economic uncertainty we’re currently facing with film and television moving overseas. It’s been a tough year for my head, too. What am I doing? What’s going to happen? What’s next? But also surprising myself that I’m firing on all 4 cylinders with writing, because it’s really all I can control right now. I stumbled upon this poem the other day that spoke to me:
Lost
by David Wagoner
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
Beautiful, Sam.
If Resistance is still an active force to deal with, even for the author of the book years later, maybe there’s hope for me when I continue to meet it. Thank you for sharing your story. And so sorry for your loss.
I use your book in a class I teach called “Creative Thinking Strategies.” I give an assignment of a chapter or so and then use prompts from the reading to spur discussions. Some of the feedback I got from students on their evaluations of my class were “His lectures are insensitive.”
Hoo-hah! That’s Resistance.
Many other students receive this like a cold shower and a strong cup of black coffee.
I’m a retiree who lost my rent-controlled house just before the pandemic. The new owner evicted me on a technicality in the housing law (it was an art studio that couldn’t be lived in) because she wanted me out. I had to start working a part-time job to pay for the added rent cost when I moved. I’m desperate to sell more paintings so that I don’t have to do this gig. Desperation is not a good place for making art. I’m meeting a lot of resistance in whole-heartedly painting.
Thank you Steven, so on the spot as always.
Thank you for keep writing to us about Resistance and sharing your stories and your life situation.
I send you both my prayers for a fast rebuilding process.
What do you mean in your book DO THE WORK, when you speak about Ego and Narcissism as a way Resistance shows up?
Wishing you all the best.
With gratitude,
Sabina
This is a good one. I’ve never thought of adversity in this way. The challenge is learning how to distinguish between what is resistance hiding in adversity, and what is real overwhelm, exhaustion, or our body/mind calling for much needed rest.
Love it. All true as always. Also my current moving house journey is nothing compared to losing one in a fire….
Finish recording a song Stuart. Finish one. Just one. Then move along to the next.
M 1…ever since I first read War of Art I equate Resistance to the NVA,and a statement from a senior NCO instructor on my first day in Vietnam I and 14 other 82nd Airborne lieutenants were sitting in some bleacher at what was referred to as ” The First Cav Academy”. He started his lecture with ” Gentlemen, it behooves you to listen carefully to the next 3 days instruction before you go to the field. Today is July 6th. As platoon leaders by Christmas 60 pct of you will be dead or wounded.. There is one main reason ..because Charlie is a mother fucker !!..and then out of nowhere this really scary former NVA guy crawled through the concertina wire with nothing on but torn shorts and an AK in hand right behind the instructor. Initially all of us thought the guy was real…talk about visual effects. So to me Resistance to me is a MF…that can appear when you least expect it !!! LT
FEAR – False Evidence Appearing Real, the first cousin of Resistance.
These two are always up to tomfoolery. I was reading something about the Spain and Portugal blackouts and it had the same pattern recognition to it as the CA and HI fires. A tone of “let’s take their homes, their communities, their livelihoods,” – paralyze them – and they will have no choice but to submit to us.
NEVER.
DON’T EVER LET THEM WIN – those two aforementioned predators of our souls. Claim your sovereign power and rebuild on the most high. All is well, Steve.
Ah, you get me every time. I was having an internal grumpy response to an email that will cause inconvenience and needless expense. And reading this, I just realised that I woke up this morning with sneaky resistance to my spiritual practice of remaining as present as possible today. I feel totally surrendered and at peace with what is. Thank you!
Wow, this really hits home! Resistance is such a sneaky beast. Good reminder to recognize it and fight back. Thanks for sharing, Steve! Wishing you all the best with the rebuilding.
Rebuilding from anything takes a lot of willpower, energy for the long haul and faith. Thank you Steven for continuing to share so generously with your community. Sending you and Diana blessings, inner strength and grit as you move forward with rebuilding your life. The muse has allies too!
“They’re the bully that banishes as soon as we stand up to it”. That’s going on a post-it!
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Wow, this really hits home! It’s like the author is reading my mind. Resistance is such a sneaky little devil, isn’t it? Gotta remember to fight back and just do the work!
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This really hit me hard. Resistance is such a shape-shifter—it wears the mask of our circumstances, our doubts, even our responsibilities. The insight that much of the intensity we feel in adversity is often Resistance in disguise is powerful. It gives us a way to stand up and reclaim our focus.
As someone who’s building a creative platform while juggling other life pressures, I’ve seen this force at work too. That tug to give in or delay is constant—but the breakthrough always comes when we sit down and do the work, no matter how messy or small the step.
I’ve been exploring similar inner battles through the lens of film and storytelling on my site: https://ssrmovies.media. The characters we admire most on screen often mirror our own struggle with Resistance—only they remind us how powerful perseverance can be.
Thanks for sharing this—it’s more than advice; it’s armor.
Thank you for your sharing.