The Power of Resistance

Early this year, I sat at dinner with one of my long-time friends, Taylor, a TV writer, catching up. We chatted about our respective sons, and then the conversation turned to my book. I had received notes from my editor earlier that week asking me to restructure each chapter according to a formula and so I had spent the intervening days sitting on the floor, physically cutting my book up and taping sections back together. “Ugh Taylor,” I wailed. “I don’t want my book to be formulaic. What if this ruins my book?”

He looked at me, amused, waiting for me to finish my tantrum. “I haven’t read your book,” he noted. “But I can tell you that she’s right. What’s the note behind the note?”

I thought for a minute. “That she’s struggling to follow my argument.”

“Bingo,” he replied.

“But I am SO TIRED. I thought I was on the 90-yard line,” I responded.

“No, you’re not on the 90-yard line, you’re in the belly of the beast. You’re battling resistance, and when you get through it, your book will be so much better.” After dinner, I drove Taylor home and he pressed his copy of Stephen Pressfield’s tiny book, Do the Work, into my hands. At a slim 100-odd pages, I powered it down that night. Taylor was right: I was in the belly of the beast and it is the suckiest place to be. Chances are, if you’re a creative, you’ve been there with me, feeling like you can’t possibly put any more work into something, and that the overwork will only make the project worse. Well, six months later, I’m still working on my book, and with every spike of resistance that I’ve learned to work through, my book gets better. (And yes, I really am on the 90 or 95-yard line now.)

At various points in my life and career, I’ve also been the resistance—slowing projects down, pushing them in a different direction, or shutting them down for a re-imagining. And I’ve been able to sense how irritating this can be. “You’re too negative.” “Why are you resistant?” etc. But turning my head away, or telling someone to proceed anyway, or lying and saying that something is ready for the world, is not always true or right. And so I’ve continued to wear this mantle because it feels both honest and important. Rubber stamping our way through life is not what we’re being called to do.

So it was with great pleasure that I picked up one of Cynthia Bourgeault’s difficult but stunning book, The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three. An Episcopalian minister, Bourgeault is one of my favorite writers on wisdom teachers, Mary Magdalene, and an evolving Christianity—and I particularly love her writings about the Armenian mystic G.I. Gurdjieff. (For that, look at The Eye of the Heart—I’ve read Gurdjieff directly and it is tough and heady stuff—Bourgeault’s version is much more understandable.) In The Holy Trinity, she explores the function of The Trinity in Christianity, arguing that we have grossly misunderstood its power. She posits that it represents a ternary rather than a binary system—and that it’s something of an alchemical key to how the universe evolves and moves forward energetically. (Stick with me.)

She writes:

Most of the world’s ancient metaphysical paradigms are binary systems. That is to say, they function on the principle of paired opposites. Yin/yang is an obvious example. In binary systems the universe is experienced as created and sustained through the symmetrical interplay of the great polarities: male and female, light and darkness, conscious and unconscious, yin and yang, prkriti and purusha.

The categories masculine and feminine also belong to a binary system; in fact, they are perhaps the primordial binary system within creation. Life sustains and expresses itself in the tension of opposites, and a slackening of this tension through an imbalance of the parts leads to a collapse of the whole system.

A ternary system envisions a distinctly different mix. In place of paired opposites, the interplay of the two polarities calls forth a third, which is the “mediating” or “reconciling” principle between them. In contrast to a binary system, which finds stability in the balance of opposites, the ternary system stipulates a third force that emerges as the necessary mediation of these opposites and that in turn (and this is the really crucial point) generates a synthesis at a whole new level.

Bourgeault is talking about Gurdjieff’s “Law of Three” here: That for anything to move forward, three forces must be present: Affirming, Denying, Reconciling. The “Denying” force, the “negative,” is resistance. And it is as critical as forward movement or positivity in order to create essential growth.* Resistance is a critical source of momentum.

This revelation has changed my thinking about everything, and I hope it helps you!

*Bourgeault cites a few examples of this in nature. For example, a seed (positive or affirming force) meets moist soil (negative or denying force), but cannot grow without the third force of sunlight (reconciling).