Resistance is Futile

“Resistance is futile.” Pardon my inner geek as I appropriate this “Borg” catch-phrase from TV’s Star Trek, but I just couldn’t resist. Some could argue that no truer words have ever been spoken. In his book, A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle talks about the detrimental effects of resisting change versus yielding to it, and we’ve talked a bit about that on the two-part podcast episode that we wrapped up today. In our discussion, we mentioned Tolle’s belief that there are only two options for coping with change, trauma, grief, and other life-altering events; you can resist, and thus remain stuck in the negativity that comes with it, or you can yield and pass through it, which can actually make you stronger in the long run.

Resistance requires energy. Resistance consumes resources. You can’t keep fighting without exerting tremendous amounts of energy and burning through resources. Think about an army that needs manpower, food, weapons, armor, and the money to buy those things. A successful army needs morale. So, too, does resistance to change…to grief, to trauma, to progress. The more a person fights these changes, the more energy and emotional resources they expend on it, the more angry, exhausted, and negative that person becomes. All that negativity takes its toll (no pun intended). Negativity rebounds as anger, stress, physical ailments, isolation, blame, and what some might call bad luck or karma.

But what does it mean to yield? The New Oxford American Dictionary has several definitions that apply. In the first sense, to yield is to produce or provide a product, generate a (financial) gain, or to deliver a result or gain. This is certainly true of many kinds of change when you look at the bigger picture. What do I have to gain from this? What message does this teach me? What positive outcomes have occurred because of this? In another sense, to yield is to give way to arguments, demands or pressure, to relinquish possession, to give something up, to cease to argue about, or to give something (as in traffic) the right of way. In this form, yielding is the act of going through the trauma or the change and coming out the other side, much in the same sense as Christen described going through the Swamps of Sadness in the Neverending Story without becoming part of the swamp. 

It should be noted that to yield often has a temporary connotation. When we yield to traffic, we give up our right of way until it is safe to proceed. It is not the same as giving up or giving in, which is what happened to Artax when he and Atreyu went through the Swamps of Sadness. When making that distinction, I like to think about quicksand. It is common knowledge that panicked flailing (resistance)  in quicksand can rapidly make the situation much worse, but the answer isn’t to give up either, because then you’ll just sink and suffocate. The answer is to move slowly and deliberately. Toss away anything you can to make yourself lighter. Keep your hands above the sand as much as possible. Reach carefully, for a branch or a helping hand, and pull yourself to safety. By accepting and adapting to the situation, you can move through it and come out the other side. Life is the same way.

Last month, I got a little first-hand experience in yielding. I’ve talked about my love for Christmas and holiday traditions of all kinds. I have some pretty well-defined notions of what that is supposed to look like, and because of the upheaval of the last few years, I’ve taken it upon myself to try and make those holiday experiences as normal as possible, which hasn’t been easy. My Christmas merry-making starts the day after Thanksgiving when my husband sets up the Christmas tree and gets all the decorations out of the shed. In recent years, Christen, her daughter, Reyna, and I spend that Saturday listening to Christmas carols and adorning our family tree. It’s part of the ritual and it helps set the holiday mood.

Unfortunately, this year, we were in the midst of home renovations that were supposed to be completed before Thanksgiving, but actually didn’t even get going full-swing until mid-December. We dutifully cleared out half of our belongings in preparation, and thinking the project would resume any day, we were reluctant to put up the tree or start any decorating for fear we’d have to take it all down. They finally finished the flooring on December 22nd, and they informed us they would not be back until after the 1st of the year to finish the rest (yes, they are still working on it as I write). So here we sat, on December 22 with no tree, no stockings, and I really didn’t even feel much like celebrating Christmas at all. My niece, Ashley, kept telling me she was going to print a photo of a tree and pin it to my wall if I didn’t do something. I wanted my Christmas to look a certain way, and if I couldn’t have it the way I wanted it, well then, I just wasn’t going to have it at all. I was resisting the change, and I was making myself miserable in the process. To make matters worse, my bah-humbug attitude wasn’t just affecting me…it was felt by everyone in the house.

Ashley's cute little tree.

Ashley was the one who had the answer that turned it all around. She wasn’t asking for my tree…she just wanted a tree. And so a tree we gave her. I had a small tree that I usually set up in my kitchen, and I put Ashley in charge of decorating it. I found some fairy lights I had bought for my craft room. One set was broken and didn’t work, so we cut off the battery pack and used the wire-strung bobbles as a garland on the tree. The other set was so long it covered the tree twice. Rather than pull out my fragile ornaments for this wobbly little pine, we used another goodie from my craft room – a pile of pompoms I had been making for a garland. Ashley tied them all over the tree. It was very cute in its own Charlie Brown sort of way.

Creamy pumpkin soup in fine china on the patio.

I don’t tell you this to brag about how cute this sad little tree came out, but rather, to illustrate the point of yielding. In the end, we wound up decorating my back porch with lights, setting up a few folding tables with pretty tablecloths and my fine china to enjoy a fantastic dinner with family and friends. I won’t say it was all smooth sailing; I definitely had a little meltdown when I got frustrated with my husband, Mark, for not doing what I asked. It wasn’t the Christmas I imagined, but it was good. The weather was perfect (we were in the ’80s here), it looked nothing like my traditional Christmas feast, and it just felt right for this time in our lives. 

Stockings hung on the banister instead of their usual place.

The lesson I learned is that resisting the change only made me (and everyone else around me) miserable. When I embraced the change, found a way to work through it, not by insisting on doing it exactly as we’ve always done (resistance), nor by giving up (staying miserable by refusing to yield to the change), but by really embracing the singularity and uniqueness of the situation, we all found a happy place within the change. We found happiness in what is…in “now”. 

Acceptance – yielding to what is – is not a form of defeat. In fact, it is the only way to win. A battle is not won on defensive maneuvers alone. Winning requires acknowledging our circumstances, accepting our situation, and adapting to it. To make the most of what we have, and to keep moving forward…to remember the objective. To not give in or give up, and certainly not to keep struggling to make things happen on our terms. A good general knows this. The Borg know this. 

So the next time you are in an untenable situation, the next time life throws you a curveball, step back, take stock, and ask yourself, “How can I move through this? How can I yield? How can I turn this to my advantage?” Because to fight it, to resist, will only make you (and those around you) miserable. Remember, resistance is futile.

The tree with gifts for scale.

Christmas lights strung between the trees
made this very pretty after dark. 

A Different Take on Holiday Cards

This week on our podcast we talked about Christmas cards. I just want to start off by saying that I am a bad card giver. I like the idea of Christmas cards and every year I make the quintessential Facebook post where I ask people to give me their addresses (even if I already have them) if they want a Christmas card.

After I collect these addresses (and they are usually from the same hopeful people that still believe in me), I go out and try to find the wittiest Christmas card that I can find. I feel like I can’t just send a regular card, I have to send a funny card. Last year, I bought Christmas Vacation cards with a smiling Chevy Chase on the front. Every year, I go through the motions of writing out my Christmas cards and packaging them. I address my Christmas cards and then I sometimes even go as far as putting a stamp on them. If it’s a lucky year, the cards even get mailed -- usually in January. However, until I moved earlier this year, I had a box of un-mailed Christmas cards spanning back for as long as seven years. We have already talked about how weird the last few years have been for me anyway. I figured the cards were past sending and when I moved to my new place, I tossed them.

This year, I asked again for addresses. However, I’ve decided to do something different for Christmas cards this year. I’m going to send my favorite holiday recipes to my small address fanbase instead of a generic message in a generic Christmas card. 

They say all of the great ideas are stolen and I decided to steal my idea from a post I saw floating around on Facebook. The post said, “for Christmas, I would love to receive Christmas cards. Will you write your favorite recipe inside of the card? Even if we hardly talk, message me for my address if you don’t have it. I would gladly send you one also if you’d like!” So, I shared the post along with this picture and I was flooded with addresses.

As the post became more well-known, I saw other friends sharing the message as well so I sent them my address and they sent me theirs. So far, I have twenty cards to fill out. I’m hoping for more and to get some recipes in return. I would also like to share my recipes with my readers as well. Christen and Cindy will also be participating in this recipe exchange. We have each picked our favorite recipes to share with our readers. Please send us your address by joining our mailing list using this secure form and we will each send you a recipe.

The Magic of Words

Hey, this is Amber and I want to ask you one question: How can one word impact your year? As an English teacher and a writer, words are, in a sense, my life. Words can be a powerful thing. They can lift a person up or they can bring them down. Words can be magical and they can be detrimental. Choosing one word to motivate you can have a lasting impact that will set the tone for your year.

Years ago, when I first started teaching, I was looking for an enlightenment exercise to do with my students in January. Later, I will talk about the goal-setting exercises that I do with my students in January, but in the process of teaching my students goal-setting, I ran across a book by Jon Gordon called “One Word that Will Change Your Life” (linked below).

Jon Gordon’s idea came as an alternative to the endless New Year’s resolutions that people make every year. Instead of making resolutions, you pick one word to drive your year. The word is meant to be a motivational power word to impact all the dimensions of your life: mental, physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, and financial.

So, I challenge my students to come up with ONE word to drive their year every January. Afterward, we do activities and writing assignments that incorporate our words. One thing that Gordon talks about is making a sort of vision board or painting with his word and hanging it in his house to remind him of his yearly motivation. One of the activities that I do with my students incorporates their words and I add them to the classroom word wall. Students have to make a small poster/vision board incorporating their words. They cut out or print pictures that inspired or had to do with their word. After implementing this in my classroom, I also choose a word and make a vision board of my own for the classroom. We will be talking about Vision Boards in an upcoming “Goals, Girl!” episode as well.

My word for 2021 was “forward” indicating that I am always moving forward in my life. After a long, few years of moving backward, I decided that I never wanted to move back again and always move forward.

My word for 2022 will be “inspire” because I want to inspire people by sharing my past experiences on this blog and our podcast.

I look forward to hearing from you. What is your one little word?

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One Word - 365 Days of Change

 One little word. Sometimes one little word is all it takes to change the course of history. Yes. No. Maybe. Stop. Go. Attack. Retreat. Or change an attitude. Live. Laugh. Love. Dream. Be. One little word can even change your life. Forgive. Believe. Learn. Begin. Heal. So much is carried in those words. Such power. Such potential for change. I’ve witnessed the power of words in many ways, and have seen the results – in myself and others.

My personal experience using a power word started with a 365 art journaling project inspired by a crafty friend. You can read more about it on my Crafty Neighbor Blog. Christen and I decided to try a word of the year project, but turn it into a 365 project to work in our art journals. 365. I’ll let you think about that for a moment. We wanted to do an art journal project EVERY DAY for 365 days. We came up with 365 prompts, then started making pages that tied our word of the year to those prompts. It was hard work, and I can bet you already know how it turned out. I made it through about May, or maybe June, and then it just fizzled. 

Was it a failure? Oh, heck no! I feel like it was a great success. My word for that year was heal and through daily art journaling, I did a lot of healing. And even though I wasn’t working on that project every day, I was still working on it – I am still working on it, and will continue to do so. I’ve tried to keep up with posting the pages from that art journal on my Flickr.com account. Feel free to browse the album, or check out the CraftyNeighbor365 group to see what others have done with this project.

Over the years, I’ve picked other words, done other projects, and found ways to incorporate the word into my life. I chose words like organize, simplify, and heal (I’ve used that one several times over). The words helped me focus on what I wanted to create in my life, where I wanted my focus to be. Mostly I just worked on my own. I found projects that were symbolic of the word or that helped me through the process of living that word. Then a friend introduced me to Ali Edwards and her “One Little Word” project, and the real magic started to happen.

Yes, I know I’m starting to sound like a total fan-girl for all things Ali Edwards, but sometimes a designer just speaks your language, and Ali surely speaks to me. The video introduction on the One Little Word page is powerful, and says far more eloquently what this project means to me each year. It is profound, complicated, and intense, and it has brought me so much acceptance and peace. 

I do the project a little differently each year. Some years I buy the class, some years I buy the kit, sometimes I’m in a 6” x 8” album, or (this year) the softcover journal. The process is part art and part journaling, but there are really no hard and fast rules about how to do it. You could approach it from a completely photo-journalistic perspective, a serious written journal, or all art and collage. My work tends to be a combination of all three. Is it good art? Good writing? Good photography? Does it have to be? NO! This is a project for me and really no one else. This is for my growth, my benefit, and no one else’s.

If you'd like to see a flip-through video of my 2020 One Little Word project, visit my YouTube account here. So whether you take on a 365 project, join Ali’s “One Little Word” workshop, chant your word in a unity circle, or use it in some other imaginative and resourceful way, consider what your word might be. What word could take you from where you are now to the person you want to become – the person you are meant to be? What word could propel you, sustain you, and empower you? What is your “one little word”, and what will you do with it next? Leave us a comment…we’d like to know!