Left on red? Brake for horses? And what in the world is a “sharrow”?  All these frustrating exclamations and questions were actually a cover for my true question:

It seems such a simple task, and one that should be done (per state regulations) within a certain period.  Yet, I dragged my feet.

You know that feeling when you don’t want to do something?  A heavy feeling, which is so uncomfortable you must get up and DO SOMETHING/ANYTHING to avoid the feeling…yet it doesn’t go away.  To temporarily bury the feelings, you do things like laundry, or exercise, or make dinner or disappear into social media.  Hello eating too many snacks (emotional eating anyone??).  Or maybe that extra glass of wine at happy hour.  Some (many?) dip into the chaotic political news to distract from internal agitation.  Do you do these things?  And then I find myself yelling at me inside, criticizing me for feeling discomfort over such an easy-peasy thing like getting a new license.

Resistance and Anxiety

On my computer, I brought up the driver’s manual to look over, as a step to help me with my anxiety.  At first look I thought my resistance was being nervous about learning new laws, over-confidence due to decades of driving experience, and dealing with fears around becoming older (will I remember all the details to answer the questions on the test?).  When I was younger, I had big issues with being a perfectionist, and getting top grades often was very important.  Although I’ve done a lot of internal work to let go of the need to be perfect, with this level of discomfort (exacerbated by my recent life changes of selling my home and moving across the country) I felt compelled to retreat into an old shell.

Who am I?

On another level, getting a new license challenges my sense of identity.  The self-doubts about all the changes I’ve been making to follow my dream pop up.  A license is a form of identification.  It says where you are from, and often represents who you are!  In a weird way, giving up my old license feels like losing a strange sense of belonging.  One’s sense of self-perception feels much harder to change when we’ve lived with them so long.  I grew up in New England – and I will always see myself as a Bay Stater: a Red Sox fan; a lobster snob; a misplacer of “R” in certain words.  I lived in New York so long, that much of my own labels were created there: wife (then ex); house owner; mother; successful career woman; intrepid Manhattan explorer; close friend.  Who am I now?  Who is this person with a license from a state she hardly knows?

Inner Critic

While a certain amount of worry is natural and expected in a transition, anxiety makes the “voices in my head” (aka the critical inner voice) get too loud. You need to take steps to overcome the obstacles.  The inner critic can foster self-criticism, distrust, inwardness, self-denial and self-limiting behaviors.  As it did for me in this case, it created a generalized retreat from my goal. 

If this negative self-talk came from issues when I was a kid and in my early formative years, I had to take a look back.  I checked in with how memories of car accidents, getting my driver’s license the first time and even more recent dealings with the DMV make me feel.  Like when a doctor pokes you and asks “does this hurt?”  To help me get over my anxiety, I made sure to ask myself the questions of how these memories made me feel, especially connected to what I am facing now.  If this inner critical voice concept interests you, I highly recommend you follow your curiosity.  The self-awareness work I’ve done through this process has genuinely helped me – and helped me this time too!

I passed the test!

Addressing all my internal concerns, I pushed past the anxiety and went down to the DMV.  I put on make-up and decided it was a good hair day.  I reassured myself that 1) I don’t have to do it perfectly and 2) I know this stuff! When my number was called, I went up with all the paperwork and my soon-to-be old license.  I sat down to take the written exam.  With a deep breath and another self-reassurance, I dove in.  Admittedly, getting a few wrong still gave me the jitters – but I passed the test!

Of course, me being me – I asked the guy as he took my photo “what would happen if I had put down my hair color as blue?”  (Which, as you know, has been my hair color of choice for the past few years.).  He did not seem awkward (because bright hued hair color has become a regular sighting on any age person?) and responded “We would put ‘unknown’ in that spot, and honestly, it doesn’t really matter.”

7 Tips for helping you through your Resistance

Having an adventurous outlook takes time to create, and (as Sir Richard Branson says) “Adventure as a mindset allows you to see difficulties as challenges to be overcome, rather than obstacles to be failed.”

These are the concepts I used to help me get to the DMV! Here are a few ways to help you discover the underlying feelings if you are resisting doing something that you want to do:

• Keep asking yourself what is going on inside.  Awareness is the first step.

• Try naming the feelings.  Name them, not blame them.

• Sitting still, take a breath.  Then place your right hand over your heart and listen to the first thought that comes to you.  Usually that’s your heart (or “highest self”) speaking vs. your ego.

• Meditate.  Set the intention to allow the feelings to arise and just be aware.  (Here’s a meditation from my friend Kate that I like to listen to often.)

• Journal.  The physical act of writing allows thoughts and feelings to arise differently than letting thoughts rumble through your brain.

• Exercise.  A buried emotion lodges somewhere in your body.  Moving helps open up and gets the endorphins going.  Yoga combines meditation with movement, so this can be a soothing start to finding & naming feelings that lead to resistance.  I’ve started hula hooping, and when adding music, it becomes a “dance break.”

• Listen to what you tell yourself.  Do you have an inner critic?  Can you come up with positive responses to negative inner commentary?