Search Results: resistance

Resistance Thrives in Darkness

By Steven Pressfield |

[The following is a post from a couple of years ago that just stuck in my head, Let’s bring it back today as a “blast from the past” … ]

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Wilderness = Resistance

By Steven Pressfield |

What are we running from when we find ourselves in the Wilderness?

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Resistance and Mass Hysteria

By Steven Pressfield |

One of the things a writer realizes when she first becomes aware of her own Resistance—her internal, diabolical pull toward self-sabotage—is that it’s a dangerous world … not just “out there,” but “in here.”

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Resistance and Dreams #2

By Steven Pressfield |

Picking up from last week, the dream described in that post has helped a little. But I’m still being hammered by self-doubt about this new book. 

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Resistance and Dreams

By Steven Pressfield |

I’m starting a new book and Resistance is beating the hell out of me.

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Resistance = Fear

By Steven Pressfield |

Artists and warriors live and die by one primal emotion.

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Perfectionism = Resistance

By Steven Pressfield |

Have you ever blown an entire morning noodling with a single paragraph or, worse, a solitary sentence? Resistance has outfoxed you. You have hung up an entire battalion trying to capture an outhouse.

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Ego and Self (and Resistance)

By Steven Pressfield |

Let’s revisit the quote from Rabbi Mordecai Finley that we cited two weeks ago. “There is a second self inside you, an inner, shadow Self. This self doesn’t care about you. It doesn’t love you. It has its own agenda, and it will kill you. It will kill you like cancer. It will kill you to achieve its agenda, which is to prevent you from actualizing your Self, from becoming who you really are. This shadow self is called, in the Kabbalistic lexicon, the ‘yetzer hara.’ The yetzer hara, Steve, is what you would call Resistance.” I believe absolutely that…

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Resistance Thrives in Darkness

By Steven Pressfield |

Resistance kicked my butt for almost a decade in my twenties. I’ve written about this in The War of Art. I crossed the country thirteen times in that era, driving my ’65 Chevy van, for no reason whatsoever except that I was running away from myself and my obligation to do my own work and follow my own calling. But here’s the Big Takeaway: The reason Resistance won was that I had no idea it existed. Resistance thrives in darkness. Resistance loves invisibilty. Resistance’s most diabolical trick is that it masquerades so convincingly as our own voice. When you and…

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Resistance Wakes Up With Me

By Steven Pressfield |

People ask me sometimes, “When in your day do you first feel Resistance?” My answer: “The instant I open my eyes.” In fact maybe sooner. Maybe before I even know I’m awake. I feel it. It’s like Resistance is this huge, rapacious bear that sleeps in bed at my shoulder. By the time my feet hit the floor, it’s already lacing up its shoelaces. Resistance is waiting for me. He’s wide awake. He’s ready to rumble. He does not give me .0001 second of slack. What’s the answer? What’s my answer? The only way I’ve found to beat this bear…

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