CHAPTER 
Release Resistance
Resistance stabilizes the Present State, which is where the problem is. Learn how to release resistance so you can be more agile and have more choice.
Figure 3.1 The Resilience Cycle: Release Resistance
PROBLEM
The marketing team of a major food organization (mentioned in the preface) was stressed out. They’d suffered huge losses in some key brands due to fake news on social media saying their products were unsafe. To make the challenge even greater, times were changing and consumers wanted more healthful food with fewer ingredients. They had trusted our client in the past but now were reluctant to.
An entirely new marketing approach was required to turn around the negative perception and highlight the new recipes and ingredients in the updated products. Headquarters wanted this new approach now, with campaigns launching within 60 days, and high revenue targets were established and expected to be met in the following 90 days.
The team was saying this was impossible. They couldn’t pivot this fast. They were resisting the entire experience, so they fell into victim thinking and had countless meetings, telling HQ that it simply wasn’t possible and they were being set up for failure. People were ready to quit. They knew change was needed, but they were stuck in overwhelm, anger, and anxiety. Leadership called a five-day all-hands meeting to forge new strategies and lay out their 60-day plan.
PROMISE
Yes, there was a lot to accomplish in the next five days: finalizing and then pitching the new marketing initiative to headquarters, reorganizing and reassigning many direct reports to new teams, and an omni-channel approach to rebuild trust and enroll external brand ambassadors. To get it all done, we needed to shift the emotional state first of the 15 regional leaders and then that of their teams.
Starting with the regional leaders, we used the Emotion Wheel (which we’ll cover in this chapter) to help individuals identify the emotions in their Present State (which were in the sad, mad, and scared categories). To help shift their emotional state toward empowerment, we taught them how to use the Maneuvers of Consciousness tool in a guided buddy process so that each buddy could watch the other one shift. Throughout, the leaders checked in with our Emotion Wheel so that they could track their emotional agility. Fifteen minutes later, the first half of the group had shifted from the sad, mad, and scared sections to one or more of the emotions in the powerful, joyful, and peaceful categories. Fifteen more minutes and the other half had shifted.
Later we used the same tools to help their teams shift, which included the leaders’ direct reports and some key stakeholders. Now we could get to work.
RESULT
As a result, the team was now able to be present, and they were telling themselves new, more powerful narratives. The environment in the room had completely transformed from constricting to expanding. People were standing up and writing down on flip charts how they’d achieve goals. The buzz and energy of possibility and enthusiasm were palpable. Some of the strongest naysayers volunteered to be spokespeople when the plan was presented to the executive team the next day.
We worked long hours in deep creativity, mapping out the final details and graphics for the executive presentation. The next morning the core team took the stage. The presentation was open and honest. They showed the upsides and downsides, and they forged a deep bond with the executive team. Finally, everyone was in this together.
Fast-forward just 90 days after the launch: revenue was starting to climb, online consumer evangelists were praising our client for valuing the voice of the consumer, and everything was coming together beautifully.
THE EMOTION WHEEL: KNOW YOUR STARTING POINT
You may be familiar with the Chinese finger trap. It’s a toy that traps the victim’s fingers (often the index fingers) in both ends of a small cylinder woven from bamboo. The initial reaction of the victim is to pull his or her fingers outward, but this only tightens the trap.
Resisting our experience has the same effect. We resist things or situations or people we perceive as hurtful, painful, or threatening to our safety, belonging, or mattering. As you learned in Chapter 2, without these three key emotional experiences, we can’t shift to our Smart State, and we can’t navigate our constantly changing landscape to reach self-actualization. Also, as you learned in Chapter 1, we are wired to resist what we believe will create a worse K, or worse feeling, for us.
Resistance isn’t necessarily bad. It’s often simply the first step of navigating change. The goal is to move forward rather than get stuck resisting. Resistance shows that someone is engaged to a degree, which is much better than being disengaged, after all! Don’t be surprised if resistance turns to mockery, as some people express their upset that way. As leaders, it’s essential to move our team through this stage by asking what they are resisting, or what’s annoying, dumb, or unreasonable about the particular change or initiative. Then we address what we can, with the agreement that they’ll try the new initiative or plan. Ultimately they’ll find some aspect of it to be useful; over time it will even become habitual, and then—voilà!—a new standard is established. Enjoy the afterglow . . . until the next change comes along.
The trouble with resistance is that it takes a tremendous amount of energy in the form of pushing back and rejecting. When we direct energy toward what we don’t want, it actually helps draw it toward us. For example, the more you try to pull your fingers out of the Chinese finger trap, the tighter it becomes.
You’ve likely heard the expression “What we resist persists.” Look at what you’ve resisted—did they stick around in your life longer than you would’ve liked? Resistance merely stabilizes your Present State and ensures that it continues, so the more you resist, the more you’re work against creating your Desired State!
TRANSFORMING RESISTANCE: LETTING YOURSELF GET WHAT YOU WANT
Now that we’re clear on what resistance is, let’s consider the alternatives. First let me state that it’s not acceptance. If your fingers are in the Chinese finger trap, accepting it isn’t useful. It doesn’t change anything. So what’s our choice if we neither want to resist nor tolerate it?
It’s consent. Consent doesn’t mean something is OK. Consent simply means something just is, and resisting it isn’t going to help. Better to put our energy where it can actually do some good.
The way to get out of the Chinese finger trap is to move your index fingers toward the middle of it, the narrow section. This enlarges the openings and frees the fingers. The solution is to work with it rather than against it.
Think of it as a spectrum. On one end is everything inside or outside of us that we are resisting in our Present State (PS). On the other end is everything we want in our Desired State (DS). The path that allows us to get from one end of the spectrum to the other is consent, where we cease to resist:
What we resist (PS)→ consent→ what we desire (DS)
To shift from Critter State to Smart State and give yourself more choice, we’ll need to start where you are and transform your current resistance. To transform resistance, we use the power of consent—which, again, isn’t saying something is OK but, rather, acknowledging reality and thereby destabilizing the Present State.
When we consent to our Present State, we can start to feel better. Then we can become more emotionally agile and have more choice to create our Desired State.
EMOTIONS HAVE ENERGY
We’ve all felt how draining fear-based emotions can be. Nothing saps our team’s life force more than panic, overreaction, and upset that is unfounded. Thanks to David Hawkins, MD, PhD, we have proof that emotions have measurable energy and can either foster or negate actual cell life.
Dr. Hawkins’s groundbreaking work, as explained in his book Power vs. Force, shows how a person’s log level (that is, the measurable energy level in his or her magnetic field) increases as that person experiences more positive emotions.
Hawkins’s most interesting finding was that cells actually died when the log level was below 200, where the emotions of scorn, hate, anxiety, shame, regret, despair, blame, and humiliation reside. This evidence provides us with further reason for us to regulate and manage our emotional state not just for our overall well-being (and that of those around us) but also for our physical health.
Tool: The Emotion Wheel
To consent to our emotions, we first need to know what they are. But only a select few of us can accurately identify our emotions as they occur. According to Travis Bradberry, author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0:
Our research shows that only 36 percent of people can do this, which is problematic because unlabeled emotions often go misunderstood, which leads to irrational choices and counterproductive actions.1
Wow. Only 36 percent of people really know how they feel at any given time. The remaining 64 percent do not. We see it in our training sessions and executive coaching sessions all the time. This is why the Emotion Wheel is so helpful (Figure 3.2).
Figure 3.2 The Emotion Wheel
You can use the Emotion Wheel from the inside out to identify your primary emotions first and then move outward. Or you can move from the outside in if your specific emotion seems clear and you want to iden-tify the primary emotion beneath it. Or you can simply pop around as you explore and identify how you feel.
Generally, we’ve found that people experiencing intense emotion will first identify with the main emotions in the inner “pie” slices, whereas those experiencing less intensity will often identify emotions on the very outer rim. Either way, when we can name how we feel, we become more present to our current situation. And we must be present before we can shift it. There are, of course, many emotions not on the wheel. Use this tool as a way to “prime the pump” so that you can then identify the emotion you are currently experiencing.
Here’s a quick exercise to help you experience the energy of both resistance and consent, using the Emotion Wheel. Let’s assume you’re learning something new and you’re a little bit confused. You now have a choice:
Confusion→ resistance and/or rejection→ frustration→ anger→ dismissal→ reject learning
or:
Confusion→ consent→curiosity→ inquiry→ open-mindedness and/or new perspective→ embrace learning
Which path do you default to?
Which path would you like to default to?
To flex your ability to resist and then to consent, try the following exercise. Make sure to have the Emotion Wheel handy:
• Walk around and identify 10 things in your life or in the world you don’t want or like. Make sure they are things you can see in your physical space (tacky wallpaper in your kitchen, a few extra pounds on your tummy). To each one, say out loud, “I do not consent to you.” (By this you mean, it’s not OK that they are there.)
• See how saying that feels in your body. Feel free to use the Emotion Wheel.
• Break this emotional state by shaking your body out or jumping up and down for a few seconds.
• Look at the 10 things again. They still exist even though you didn’t consent to them! Hmmm. Now say to each of the 10 things, “I consent to you.” (Heck, they are there anyway, so there’s not much point in resisting the fact. Consent isn’t approval. It’s just acknowledgment.)
• See how that feels in your body, using the Emotion Wheel as needed.
• Reflect on the feelings associated with not consenting and/or resistance to what is versus consenting to and/or acknowledging what is. It’s OK if things aren’t OK with you. Notice what it’s like to let them not be OK and acknowledge that they are there without energetically resisting them.
Excellent. This exercise was actually a warm-up to using one of my favorite tools to shift from resistance to consent all the way to full appreciation: Maneuvers of Consciousness.
MANEUVERS OF CONSCIOUSNESS: FROM RESISTANCE TO CONSENT TO APPRECIATION
Remember, whatever we focus on, we fuel. When we resist an emotion, we make it stronger. But if we consent, we shift our relationship to the experience and loosen up our emotional experience. Once that is achieved, we are free to move to a different part of the Emotion Wheel. We have added more options to our menu of emotional choices.
We can maneuver, or change, our consciousness (that is, our current conscious emotional experience) quite easily. Human beings are inherently resilient; it’s just that some of us haven’t realized it yet. You will notice how your emotions regarding a given experience can shift from painful and “low log level” per Hawkins’s research to higher log level and more empowering. All in a mere 15 minutes.
Tool: Maneuvers of Consciousness
First, think of something you are resisting. This time, pick something meaty, like a painful belief; a belittling, angry, or unpleasant person; or a situation you really don’t want in your life. Be sure to have your Emotion Wheel and a timer handy because you’ll be doing four segments of three minutes in a row. Ideally, you’ll do this exercise with a buddy who will sit silently with you to ensure you use all three minutes for each step below:
Step 1. Negative Evaluation State
Have your buddy set the timer for three minutes. During those three minutes, say out loud all the things you don’t like about what you’re resisting: what’s bad about it, what you can’t stand about it, how painful it is, how it makes you feel, why it’s wrong. Really trash it. As soon as the three minutes are up, look at the Emotion Wheel and identify your key emotions in this state of Negative Evaluation. Then have your buddy break your state. He or she can invite you to shake your body out, or he or she can ask you a non sequitur question involving a number, such as “How many stripes does a zebra have?” or he or she can ask you to count backward from 10 to 1.
Step 2. Curiosity State
Have your buddy set the timer for three minutes. Now get really curious about this situation. How did it come to be? What is interesting about it? What is familiar about it? What good things come from it? As soon as the three minutes are up, look at the Emotion Wheel and identify your key emotions in this state of Curiosity. Then, have your buddy break your state. He or she can invite you to shake your body out, or he or she can ask you a non sequitur question involving a number, such as “How many spots does a cheetah have?” or he or she can ask you to count backward from 10 to 1.
Step 3. Amazement State
Have your buddy set the timer for three minutes, and now become amazed that this situation came to be. Wow! This is fascinating! What’s amazing about it? How do you feel about it? As soon as the three minutes are up, look at the Emotion Wheel and identify your key emotions in this state of Amazement. Then, have your buddy break your state. He or she can invite you to shake your body out, or he or she can ask you a non sequitur question involving a number, such as “How many grains of sand are on perfect beach?” or he or she can ask you to count backward from 10 to 1.
Step 4. Full Appreciation State
Have your buddy set the timer for three minutes. Ahhhh . . . now honor everything about this situation: “Yes! This has been so very helpful in bringing me to the next level. Wow.” So much gratitude and appreciation. How do you feel about it as you’re honoring it? As soon as the three minutes are up, look at the Emotion Wheel and identify your key emotions in this state of Full Appreciation. Then have your buddy break your state. He or she can invite you to shake your body out, or he or she can ask you a non sequitur question involving a number, such as “What’s your favorite number?” or he or she can ask you to count backward from 10 to 1.
Tool: Outcome Frame
Now to ground this new emotional state, let’s do a short Outcome Frame. In an Outcome Frame, you create a clear vision of your Desired State (DS) and then bask in it—really see, hear, and feel yourself in your DS—for at least 15 minutes.
We need a clear DS because once you release resistance, you need a new trajectory to move toward. Remember, human beings always choose the best available feeling on their menu. Using the Outcome Frame to ground the DS is a way to add more choices to the menu. We’ll do a deep dive on this tool in Chapter 6, but for now, answer the following questions to create an Outcome Frame to point the energy you’ve released from resistance in the right direction:
1. What would you like? Name something you alone can create and maintain, something reasonable you can create in a future that isn’t too far away, such as more alone time.
2. What will having that do for you? What benefits will you receive? How will you feel? Maybe more relaxed, happier, healthier.
3. How will you know when you have it? What criteria will prove that you got it? How will your world specifically be improved once you have it? For example, you’ll have two hours alone outdoors in nature each Saturday and 30 minutes of reading each night.
4. When, where, and with whom would you like it? What is the scope and timing? Do you want it at home, at work, or both?
5. What of value might you risk or lose? Get present to the risk. What might change? What side effects may occur? Is it OK to risk or lose these things? Perhaps you’ll have to say no to your family or set healthy boundaries or risk people being disappointed.
6. What are your next steps? Now get into action. What would you put on your to-do list to turn this outcome into reality? You might put recurring time in your calendar and then discuss this with your family and ask for their support.
7. How do you feel now? Grab your Emotion Wheel and notice the experience you are having. What was it like to maneuver intentionally from resisting to consenting to desiring? Notice how your experience is what you say it is. Your experience is what you decide it is. That’s how powerful our beliefs are. That’s how powerful you are.
Now that we understand the role of resistance, the energy of emotions, and how easy it is to change our emotions by maneuvering our consciousness, let’s learn how to live more consistently in the emotional state we want.
1. Resisting your experience is like having your fingers stuck in a Chinese finger trap. The initial reaction of the victim is to resist and pull his or her fingers outward, but this only tightens the trap.
2. To release resistance, we must consent to our Present State (PS) experience. Consent doesn’t mean agreeing, accepting, approving, condoning, surrendering, or any other synonyms. It just means to be present with, without any other emotion or judgment attached.
3. You can’t release resistance if you are not present to the experience you are currently having. With the Emotion Wheel, you can identify your emotions and release resistance to what you are experiencing.
4. Once you release resistance to your experience, you can use the Maneuvers of Consciousness tool and the Outcome Frame tool to move toward what you desire. To ground your Desired State (DS) and add more choices to your situation, spend at least 15 minutes using the Outcome Frame tool.
• We resist things, situations, or people that we perceive as hurtful, painful, or threatening to our safety, belonging, or mattering.
• To transform resistance, we use the power of consent. That isn’t saying something is OK. It is simply acknowledging reality.
• When we are aware of our emotions, we can transform them.
• Whatever we focus on, we fuel. When we resist the emotion, we make it stronger.
• Your experience is what you say it is, what you decide it is. That’s how powerful our beliefs are. That’s how powerful you are.
See this chapter’s section on www.PowerYourTribe.com for the following:
• Chapter Quick Summary video
• Outcome Frame video
• Organizational Change Path: Understand What’s Happening During Change