When you are struggling to accept a painful reality, the question is not just “Why am I resisting this?” but “What am I afraid I will have to feel if I accept it?” In this Coaching Hotline episode, I answer a listener’s question about her mother’s cognitive impairment diagnosis and why she cannot bring herself to learn more about what it might mean. We talk about why resistance is often not about the circumstance itself, but about the grief, fear, or other emotions we are trying to avoid feeling.
You’ll learn why acceptance is not something you can force by gathering more information, and how exploring the thoughts and emotions underneath your resistance can help you process difficult situations with more compassion. Pasted markdown
Welcome to UnF*ck Your Brain. I’m your host, Kara Loewentheil, Master Certified Coach and founder of The School of New Feminist Thought. I’m here to help you turn down your anxiety, turn up your confidence, and create a life on your own terms, one that you’re truly excited to live. Let’s go.
Welcome to this week’s coaching hotline episode where I answer real questions from real listeners and coach you from afar. If you want to submit your question for consideration, go to unfuckyourbrain.com/coachinghotline, all one word, or text your email to +1 (347) 997-1784 and when you get prompted for the code word, it’s coaching hotline, all one word. Let’s get into this week’s questions.
Let’s get into this week’s questions. “I’d appreciate your coaching on resistance. My mother has been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment and I’m having trouble accepting it. She has a family history of Alzheimer’s. My friend gave me a book about Alzheimer’s to help family members and I can’t even bring myself to read it. I would love some coaching on this.”
All right, my friend. So I’m sending you so much love and it is of course so human to feel resistant to this circumstance. No one wants to go through this with their family, and I’m sure you’re having a lot of thoughts and feelings. The question is, what is behind the trouble accepting it? Now, of course, like I said, it’s a very human, common response, but it’s still being caused by your thoughts. And so, where I would want you to start kind of exploring is what is the story I’m telling myself about this, and why am I unwilling to accept it? Is there grief that I am unwilling to feel about what might happen? Is there fear of a potential future?
You said she’s been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment and has a family history of Alzheimer’s, so it’s not totally clear to me whether this means she has an Alzheimer’s diagnosis or you’re worried she may get one, but either way, asking yourself to really play out what is it you’re afraid will happen is going to help you get some insight, I think, into what this resistance comes from.
Fundamentally, resistance is always resistance to an emotion, right? There’s an emotion we don’t want to feel, and we think that if we resist the circumstance, we won’t have to feel it. So in order to make progress about it, you need to start exploring what that resistance is about. What are the things that you are afraid will happen? What are the things that you are afraid to think or feel about them? Is there grief? Is there anger? Is there fear of future obligation or resentment?
There’s a whole spectrum of very human emotions that you might be having, very human thoughts you might be having, but that’s what you have to explore. It’s not an informational deficit. The book is not the problem. The question is, what are your thoughts about what this circumstance of this diagnosis means? And what is it that you are unwilling to feel right now? That’s what you’re really resisting.