Talking about Resolutions and Resistance

During this fun-size episode to get the ball rolling on our New Year, Paula discusses the cultural and personal pressures associated with resolutions and resistance towards them. She highlights the societal expectation to be productive, the intrinsic need to rest, explores the concept of resistance in therapy as well as the importance of understanding one's motivations.

In this episode, you will hear:

• resolutions and their cultural context
• concept of rest as resistance
• resistance in the therapeutic space
• alternatives to New Year’s resolutions
• cognitive restructuring for positive change

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Transcript

Paula McMillan-Perez: 0:00

Paula, Hey, y'all, Hey, welcome back to another episode of the why don't we talk about this podcast? I'm your host, Paula McMillan Perez, and I'm a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist. It is now 2025 y'all, some of us didn't think we were gonna make it to 2025 only because 2024 KICKED OUR booties. And when I say some of us, I'm talking about me, but some of you out there listening may be feeling like it was a hell of a year, and you're glad to kind of start fresh, but I gotta be real. Some of y'all do resolutions. New Year's resolutions have always been a thing that I heard about coming up, and it is not uncommon, especially like in American culture, to hear about it. Those of you who do resolutions, clearly, you already have them, since you're probably listening to this on January 7, 2025 or after, and I shared how I feel about resolutions on the podcast opener last year, 2024 so if you haven't had a chance to give that a Listen, please do. And hey, you know what you might have, but you forgot about it, so you could run that back as well. But I do think you should give it a listen because it's really relevant still. And I personally totally feel the same way that I did New Year, same p, no, New Year knew me, like, I don't do that over here. Those of you all know me in real life, this is what it is. But one of the things that, as I was thinking about, like, you know how to open up this year, was thinking about something that tends not to be talked about, are the roots of where the desires to get things done come from. It's kind of always there. And there are many of us who identify as women, though it's not just women that feel this way. We tend to feel the need to kind of like be productive and to forego rest over the holidays. In December, when I took some time off, I actually was reading rest is resistance. I haven't finished it. I am very grateful to say, though, that I actually did finish a whole book, like reading for leisure. Oh, my God, I've had the time. But I highly encourage rest is rest is resistance. It kind of activated a couple of things in me, and I had to do a little reflection about, like, why am I feeling some type of way right now? But it kind of speaks to the fact that, you know, we have these needs intrinsically, as well as culturally, as well as society that have been placed upon us in terms of, you know, why we need to be on, be doing things be productive. And many of us are fixated on time, not having enough of it, wishing that there was more, so, that we could accomplish more. And then, honestly, this is something that, like, I kind of felt some type of way about, but we feel that we have to keep track of something of all of the things, sometimes for not just ourselves, but for other people. So it's just like, Damn, I'm basically a tracker, and to be honest with you, I want to resist it, not just because I, you know, started reading this book, but because, like, the way that we are moving in the world, we don't necessarily always identify, what do we want to resolve and what do we want to resist? So I just thought this was an interesting thing to kind of explore a little bit, but also because I legit have always had resistance to resolutions. Because, you know, speaking about what I just said, like it's another thing to track, it's another thing to do, it's another thing that takes time, as another thing that makes some of us feel like we need to be productive in order to kind of elevate, get to the next level, level up, or, you know, whatever people are saying right now, because, you know, I'm old. Well, not old. I'm well seasoned. I'm gonna say that. So that's a piece of it. And we are not fed messages or taught into culturally, spiritually, societally, you know how to kind of resist things that don't resolve with us, which is part of the reason I don't really mess with resolutions, not knocking anybody who does, especially if it's identified for you, has panned out, has gotten you where you need it to be. I think that's great, but I've identified that it does not align with me. And if I'm being honest, if I go back to the definition so y'all could bust out, I don't even know who has a dictionary in their house anymore. So if you want to go to Google, you know, hit up Merriam Webster, or whoever that you use the definition. There are a few definitions for resistance, but the ones that I resonate most with are the refusal to accept or comply with something, the attempt to prevent something by action or argument, or the ability to not be affected by something, which is actually my preferred definition, because I want to be unbothered. It is something that you know, many of us work at. Some of us are intrinsically able to do this. For those of that you are that those of you rather that are, please feel free to reach out and teach a workshop to the rest of us to be not affected. But then I think about my work as a mental health provider, resistance as it pertains to therapy. It is rooted in this definition, but it looks a little different, because it basically kind of speaks to a client's conscious or unconscious, because sometimes we're not always aware of it, but the unwillingness to change or grow within the therapeutic process, and y'all have heard me say this before, the therapeutic process is not linear. We want to get from point A to point B and be done at point C, and it unfortunately, it's not that cut and dry, it is not that clean. It is really messy, but so worth it, speaking from experience as a client, not as a clinician, but also I can say that as a clinician, but the way that this looks in that realm is basically manifesting behaviors that just ain't setting you up for success, like they'll hinder your progress, and they can look different ways. And these are things that we don't always just do in therapy, we do in other aspects of our lives. But again, you're talking to a social worker. You're listening to a social work podcast. We don't gotta slide them in there. So you could have clients or even other people in your life that might just be avoiding certain topics because they're like, Nah, we not going down that road. Could be missing appointments. Could be becoming defensive in places and spaces where you don't necessarily think that it's wanted. And honestly, yes, it does show up in different places, and it does come from different places from the person. One of the things that I often see in my own experience is that it's usually fear or other emotions that usually have a negative connotation when being confronted. So that's where the conflict comes up. Like some of y'all have probably heard many mental health providers say, conflict is healthy. It is it don't feel like it in the moment, because nobody doesn't want to be dealing with confrontation. And we're like, I don't know, but some people love it. So if it's difficult and it comes up that way, there is a level of resistance that can be coming up and again, like, yeah, that's what resistance and therapy looks like. But resistance in other aspects of life looks the same way. And whether you resist in life or in one aspect of it, for this podcast, I'm, you know, talking about therapy, because, again, I talk about what I know. So one of the things that kind of comes up when I'm thinking about this, because, again, it's not something we talk about, is like, why are we even feeling this way? Like, what came up for you that you were like you suck your teeth, you rolled your eyes, if you're like me, you do not even recognize the sensation of rolling your eyes anymore. And someone has to tell you, and it gets awkward, but that's a conversation for another podcast. Why are you feeling like this? Why are you resisting? Yeah, no, I'm about to go right back to the neurobiology our brains. They are wired to initially resist a perceived threat. If you remember, back to our series from inside out too a perceived threat isn't real. It's not really happening, but your brain thinks it's real, so we can identify that it's still a threat. It's just not something that's going to come and bite you in the moment. But the thing about it is our brains are creatures have habit. So anything that's going to change the norm is going to be looked at as a perceived threat by the brain, and it likes things to say the same, keep the same routine going, not have no surprises. Have everything be predictable. So when we have that perception that something is going wrong, we might have an increase in our heart rate. We might feel the hair stand up on the back of our neck. Usually people are talking about that stuff either, because the first time I felt some of those sensations, I was really little, yeah, I kind of felt a little uncomfortable. But I didn't resolve, see where I went with that resolutions and all that. I didn't resolve to figure out, why is this happening and make sure it's not happening again, because it's a physiological response. The brain controls so many functions, pretty much every function in our body, so that's a big part of it. So we have to also retrain our brain and use different techniques to identify is this something that we want to resolve, or is this something we want to resist, and why? Personally, I resist New Year's resolutions because they feel like they're too restrictive. I got out of my plate. I do a lot in a day. And again, with that whole tracking piece, that time piece, I don't want to add additional things on. But that doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't things that I want to work on over the course of the week, the month, the year. So tends to be that they're associated with the new year, you know, starting fresh, starting over. But we can start over or start fresh anytime we want, over the course of a day, over the course of a week, next week, depending on, you know, the way your life is set up, depending on the way that you Perez. Receive time or view it, or even the level of accessibility that you have. So I think that you can develop something, and you will call it whatever it is that you want, when you want when you're ready, because it's basically coming from you, not from other external or outside factors. Hopefully you feel comfortable enough, and you have someone in your support system, your team, your tribe, you know, whatever you call them, that you can bounce thoughts and ideas off of, maybe have an accountability partner. There was a term I heard a while ago, accountability buddy. Thought it was really corny, but it stuck in my head. So you might find an accountability buddy. It's kind of like do this with so you're not alone. Now I can change how I feel about resolutions. And a great example is something that you know gets utilized a lot in therapeutic spaces, cognitive restructuring, and that's basically just a fancy mental health term for identifying challenging or stressful thoughts and replacing them with more balanced ones, and seeing how you feel about making those changes. Because if how you're feeling is crappy and you're having thoughts that make you feel crappy, you're going to continue to feel crappy. So if you're on a seesaw, the crap you Your butt is on the ground like we not. We're not feeling great about that, but how about if we got our butt in the air a little bit, we were balanced. We were more even. How does your brain feel? How does your body feel? And the questions that you can ask yourselves to kind of like, reflect on that that is something that you can even Google like, there are some standard ones where you can kind of come up with your own y'all know, I call my anxiety Annie. So I have a few different specific things that I use when I'm talking about and talking to Annie, in terms of cognitive restructuring. But for me, if I'm thinking honestly, and, you know, just to give some additional examples, because I don't really mess with resolutions. I mess with attentions, because that's something that I feel is more realistic and more aligned to who I am. So again, if you missed the podcast episode last year and you want to know more about us and intentions, that is a great example for you to kind of like springboard. So in a nutshell, how you have decided to start 2025 does it necessarily mean that you have to continue it this way or finish this way? Resolutions can be a great tool for you, or let's be real. You may cringe when you hear the word, but you may also resist the idea that this is something that you need, but you could also think, you know what, let's be real. Resistance has worked out for me so far. So I like why changed it up. Now, professionally, I have a lot of opinions about that, but that is my opinion, and we know how people feel about opinions, but I do want us to be in a place where things can be a little bit easier, a little bit brighter and a little bit more worthwhile for us this year. So I definitely encourage you to think about what can be an opportunity for growth in your life, no matter what you want to call it. So I'm leaving you with a little food for thought as we get this 2025 ball rolling until next time we're.