Self Help Books And BSFF Applications

Reviewed by Kit Furey, JD, Cht, CEHP for applications of BSFF 

"Thwarted by the Sneakiness of Resistance? A BSFF Journey Through Steven Pressfield's The War of Art - Break Through the Inner Creative Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles"  by Kit Furey, JD, CHt, CEHP

 Do you still come across bumps on your inner path, once in a while, and feel like you're in conflict with yourself?  Are you looking for even more areas and ways to dissolve problems and issues that thwart you in your everyday tasks?  

The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield, has been mentioned lately in a few "entrepreneurial" newsletters I read, and the facilitator of the mastermind I belong to sent a copy to each of us in the mastermind.  There's a buzz going on about it. So I'm pulling out some pearls to share with you.  (This book isn't to be confused with Sun Tzu's Art of War.) 

The book's a fun read because what we know in Be Set Free Fast as a "problems" or "issues," the author personifies as Resistance.  He defines Resistance through a multitude of examples, and he builds us up by pointing out that we are, after all, professionals, not amateurs, in the way we offer our work and our blessings to the world.

So, if you're game for a quick spot check, an inner tune up, to notice places where you can shift to free yourself up, to do and be "more" with less effort, to find opportunities for laying waste to Resistance in your inner world, then come skip with me through highlights of The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. . .

Just remember that what we who use Be Set Free Fast call "problems" or "issues", Pressfield calls Resistance. This short 162 page book offers a multitude of examples of how this wily Resistance lurks and preys upon the artist, thwarting, distracting and pulling the artist away from what the artist is called to do in the world.

As a writer, the author is such an artist, and each of us who uses BSFF is also an artist as well, offering our blessing in the world in a unique way - even if we share that blessing only with ourself.  

The premise of the book is that the artist is someone who's able to embrace freedom, yet still must tame freedom. How? By overcoming Resistance.  The short book is divided into 3 parts:  Defining Resistance, Combatting Resistance (the amateur vs. the professional) and Beyond Resistance (the higher realm of angels and muses.)

So if you're game to go on a hunt for ways this slippery culprit, Resistance, may be playing with you, batting you about, the way a cat plays with a mouse, then ponder how Pressfield's observations offer you a chance to apply BSFF.  

Here we go, skipping through some highlights of the first 2 sections of The War of Art - Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.  

For the each of the quotes that follow,  just notice, intend to dissolve and apply the BSFF protocol for anything that emerges into your awareness that you want to dissolve.  If you need a quick review of what to do, feel free to contact a BSFF practitioner for the "how to": 

"Most of us have two lives.  The life we live, and the unlived life within us.  Between the two stands Resistance."  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to reflect on any contrast between your "today" and your "dreams for today."  Then notice and cue to your heart's content.

On the following list, as Pressfield says, "in no particular order," are the activities that most commonly elicit Resistance.  I invite you to breathe into each activity on the list and take your time pondering.  This is a quick trip through highlights of the book, but you're free to percolate, noticing what your True Self offers you in the way of clues and guidance for combatting Resistance.  Allow anything that you can free yourself of, anything that it serves you to dissolve in service of taming Resistance, to emerge into your awareness.  

According to Pressfield, Resistance is likely to make an appearance when we're engaged in any of the following:

1. The pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or any creative art, however marginal or unconventional.

2. The launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise, for profit or otherwise.

3. Any diet or health regimen.

4. Any program of spiritual advancement.

5. Any activity whose aim is tighter abdominals.

6. Any course or program designed to overcome an unwholesome habit or addiction.

7. Education of every kind.

8. Any act of political, moral, or ethical courage, including the decision to change for the better some unworthy patter of thought or conduct in ourselves.

9. The undertaking of any enterprise or endeavor whose aim is to help others.

10. Any act that entails commitment of the heart.  The decision to get married, to have a child, to weather a rocky path in a relationship.

11. The taking of any principled stand in the face of adversity.

"In other words, (Resistance will likely appear while you're engaged in ) any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity.  Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower...."

The following are highlights from pages in the first two sections of the book.  Again, just notice if the statements have gifts to offer you in the way of problems or issues you intend to dissolve:

"Rule of thumb:  The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it..Henry Fonda was still throwing up before each stage performance, even when he was seventy-five...."

"The danger (of Resistance) is greatest when the finish line is in sight...at this point Resistance knows we're about to beat it.  It hits the panic button.  It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it' got...."

"Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance."

"Who am I?  Why am I here?  What is the meaning of my life?...."

"If you find yourself criticizing other people, you're probably doing it out of Resistance...."

"Paralyzed with fear....?"

"Rationalization is Resistance's right-hand man.  Its job is to keep us from feeling the shame we would feel if we truly faced what cowards we are for not doing our work..."

"Rationalization is Resistance's spin doctor.  It's Resistance's way of hiding the Big Stick behind its back.  Instead of showing us our fear (which might shame us and impel us to do our work), Resistance presents us with a series of plausible, rational justifications for why we shouldn't do our work..."

"What's particularly insidious about the rationalizations that Resistance presents to us is that a lot of them are true.  They're legitimate.  Our wife may really be in her eighth month of pregnancy; she may in truth need us at home.  Our department may really be instituting a changeover that will eat up hours of our time...What Resistance leaves out, of course, is that all this means diddly.  Tolstoy had thirteen kids and wrote War and Peace.  Lance Armstrong had cancer and won the Tour de France three years and counting...."

Pressfield makes the case that we combat Resistance when we turn from amateur to professional...What, exactly, are the qualities that define us as professionals?

1. "We show up every day.  We might do it only because we have to, to keep from getting fired.  But we do it.  We show up every day.

2. We show up no matter what.  In sickness and in health, come hell or high water, we stagger in to the factory...

3. We stay on the job all day.  Our minds may wander, but our bodies remain at the wheel...

4. We are committed over the long haul...

5. The stakes for us are high and real...

6. We accept remuneration for our labor.  We're not here for fun.  We work for money.

7. We do not over-identify with our jobs...

8. We master the technique of our jobs...

9. We have a sense of humor about our jobs...

10. We receive praise or blame in the real world...."

In service of sharing clues or ways in which you can beat back resistance with the Big Stick that Be Set Free Fast affords us, I've pulled out points from Pressfield's book.  Believe me, the highlights are just that...highlights.  

And I didn't even dive into the third section of the book.  In my opinion,  it's worth getting a copy of the book and keeping it around as a catalyst to spiral inward.  It's likely you will often think, "I already knew that!"  Yet it is the seeming simplicity of the book that brings the gift of lessons in how and when to dance with Resistance.  Then you can use your cue and dissolve this wily issue.

Kit Furey, JD, Cht, CEHP, helps people get out of their own way so they can get ahead in business and life - and do it instantly.  

She's an authorized international trainer of Be Set Free Fast and is passionate about helping you learn and apply this extraordinary tool developed by Dr. Larry Nims.  Feel free to apply for the opportunity to have a complimentary Instant Belief Change Strategy Session to explore your greatest obstacle to stepping into being, doing and having the life of your dreams - and doing it instantly.  

Go to www.WholeMindMastery.com/Strategy and complete the short application.

Or Kit can be reached at KitFurey@WholeMindMastery.com,  208.345.8103.