From Resistance to Resonance: The Two Practices That Quiet the Mind
Lately, I’ve been sitting with a word that keeps showing up in coaching conversations: resistance.
Not the motivational-poster kind. The real kind.
The kind that shows up when you’re trying to be present… but your mind is still negotiating with the past.
Or when you’re doing “all the right practices”… but the emotional charge of life still hooks you.
In a recent coaching session with a client, we explored this exact edge: the gap between having tools (meditation, breathwork, mantras) and mastering the moments when life doesn’t match your preferences.
And the breakthrough wasn’t another complicated technique.
It was two simple practices—done consistently—designed to rewire the loop at the exact moment it starts.
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The Real Problem Isn’t Resistance. It’s Dissonance.
My client described resistance as a constant mental friction:
• “Why did this happen?” (past-oriented pain)
• “What if this goes wrong?” (future-oriented anxiety)
• “Why me?” (comparison + meaning-making)
In the session, I offered a small but important reframe:
Resistance isn’t always bad. Resistance training builds strength.
But what was being described wasn’t useful resistance—it was dissonance:
That internal clashing when reality doesn’t match what the mind thinks “should” have happened.
Michael Singer calls this preferences.
Life arrives. The mind compares it to what it wanted.
And the gap becomes suffering.
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Why “Why?” Can Be a Trap
There are questions that lead to clarity…
and questions that lead to loops.
The mind loves “why” because it feels productive. But often it isn’t.
When we ask:
• “Was all that sacrifice worth it?”
• “Why did my family have to be this way?”
• “Why is my situation harder than others?”
We’re trying to rewrite something that already happened.
And what makes that dangerous isn’t the thought itself—it’s what happens physiologically when we let the thought run.
The nervous system doesn’t always know the difference between:
• a real external threat
and
• a vividly rehearsed internal story.
So each time the loop repeats, the brain gets better at finding evidence to support it.
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The Shift: Stop Feeding the Old Program
My client had already built a strong base:
• consistent morning/evening practice
• breathwork every other day
• solid awareness of personal patterns
But they felt plateaued—because the “game” isn’t won during bookends.
It’s won in the middle of the day, when the trigger happens.
That’s where the next level lives:
Catch it. Interrupt it. Install a new program.
And that’s where these two practices came in.
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Practice #1: The “Blessing Reframe” (Real-Time)
When the mind starts the loop—past pain, future fear, comparison—do this:
1. Pause
2. Take 1–3 slow breaths
3. Say (internally or out loud):
“It was a blessing.”
Not because it feels true yet.
But because it’s a new instruction.
You’re not arguing with the past.
You’re training your nervous system to stop treating the story as reality.
Over time, this does something powerful:
It removes the emotional “charge.”
The same memory may still exist…
but it stops owning you.
This is the difference between:
• “This ruined my life”
and
• “This shaped me.”
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Practice #2: 3 Gratitudes Every Night (Bookend)
Gratitude isn’t fluff.
Gratitude is state training.
Before bed, write or speak three things you’re grateful for.
Start simple:
• food in the fridge
• a safe house
• a kind interaction
• a small win
Here’s what’s wild:
At first, you’ll only be grateful for easy things.
But if you keep doing it… something flips.
You begin to find gratitude in the hard things too—
not because you’re bypassing pain, but because your nervous system is learning a new default:
Receiver state.
And receiver state changes what you notice.
What you notice becomes your reality.
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If You Feel Plateaued, Don’t Add More. Go Deeper.
The biggest insight from this session was simple and grounded:
Integrate gratitude at night and “blessing” reframes in real time.
That’s it.
Not 12 new habits.
Not a perfect spiritual identity.
Not waiting for life to get easier.
Just:
• the interrupt
• the daily rep
• the emotional retraining
And if your current meditation/breathwork feels “too easy”?
Stretch the edge:
• add 5 minutes
• reintroduce a midday sit
• replace one scroll-session with silence
Because plateaus don’t mean you’re failing.
They mean the practice is ready to level up.
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The Goal Isn’t a Perfect Life. It’s a Different Relationship With Life.
This session ended with a simple, high-level aim:
Fall in love with all of it.
The parts that match your preferences…
and the parts that don’t.
That’s not spiritual poetry.
That’s emotional freedom.
And it’s built the same way everything else is built:
one rep at a time.