Resistance, flow, and a counterintuitive method to embody your messaging!

Yoda famously said to Luke Skywalker “Do, Or do not. There is no try.”

That line resonates for me when I think of resistance because what Yoda is saying is that when you believe in yourself, forget everything you think and believe that gets in the way of flow, and become open to possibility instead of allowing resistance in, you can become at one … aligned with your deepest inner wisdom. Trying means pushing - resistance. Embodying your message requires you to let go of that and embrace your deepest truth. Only then can the words emerge, and embodiment naturally follows.

Usually, we think of resistance as the emotions and internal blocks we have around doing something important. Have you noticed that the more meaningful the task or the project, the more that feeling of being stuck surfaces? When it comes to defining and embodying your messaging though, there are other ways resistance can show up.

Resistance isn’t always something we feel and can easily identify as a block to creativity or action.

Resistance can be sneaky. It can lie quietly at a deeper level where we can’t recognise it. It can sit in disguise as something else that is easier to name … sometimes it is fear, sometimes it is insecurity, sometimes it is denial … or a sense of needing to force the pieces of our puzzle together so it appears to be making sense and working. Figuring out what is actually making it difficult to feel centred in our messaging can make it easier to unlock what is holding us back and allow us to move into freedom and flow - if you can name them.

Your core message isn’t always going to be exactly the same in all the places you share it, but the central idea of it is ideally based around one idea that is easy to understand, connect with and remember. The best way to be the first name on people’s lips when they’re looking for someone who does what you do is to find a way to express it that is unique to you. Not so easy when you’re not sure what IS unique about your way of doing what you do…. that’s why it’s important to have a strategy to reveal that to yourself.

Visibility is essential for those of us who need to build trust and relationships in order to connect strongly enough to have others pay for our services - never more true than for online businesses. And visibility is one of the key aspects of business that brings up resistance.

But just as resistance isn’t only something we experience in direct proportion to its importance, when it comes to our visibility there can be more going on that makes it difficult to figure out how to do it authentically - communicating what we do, who we are, and what we care about while also feeling fully onboard and aligned with it.

This is what embodiment is.

Stepping in and feeling and embracing it is hard when you’re not doing it right. And normally I don’t talk about right and wrong, and I believe that what works for one person may not work for another and vice versa … but when it comes to embodied messaging, I strongly believe this:

As hard as you try to come up with words that resonate and clarify and stick in the memory and connect and even sell …. you can’t come up with the message first and then do the work to fit into it and embody it.

That’s not how alignment works. It’s the wrong way around.

It’s a bit like understanding what meditation is and how it works and what it looks like and what is possible as a result of practicing it, and ACTUALLY practicing it and experiencing the benefits. You can’t get the benefits through academic study of it. The effects and benefits come as a result of the continued practice.

So it is with embodiment.

Embodiment of your messaging happens when you do the inner work first, connect with your purpose and values and passions and energy and personality and truth, allow yourself to accept what is true, let it into your sphere, and with the right questions and reflections, your messaging will be freed to flow from that.

When your messaging flows from your truth rather than being forced like those metaphorical jigsaw puzzle pieces to fit what you believe you should be doing and saying, embodiment just happens.

And thanks to Yoda for the many wonderful insights!

To tune into our podcast episode “Resistance and Flow”, click HERE.