What is Resistance Asking of You?

Apr 21

Written By Janet Hutchens

The Lesson of Two Lenses

“Pause before you push.
There is wisdom in what resistance is asking you to see.”

-Janet Hutchens

Is Resistance Red… or Really Yellow?

Resistance has been showing up in my life lately, and I would be lying if I said it has not gotten under my skin.

Not because I believe resistance is bad. I fully understand that it is part of my growth, but because it has shown up in places where I care deeply, where I know my craft, and where I can clearly see what might help move something forward, it’s been stinging.

So often, when resistance appears, we treat it like a stop sign. We assume something is wrong. We assume we need to explain more, prove more, do more, or somehow manage the outcome more carefully. Resistance is not a stop sign. It is more like the yellow blinking light, asking us to pause for a moment, pay attention, and refine our choices.

That feels especially true when resistance shows up in the places where we care deeply.

- In our work
- In our purpose
- In our leadership
- In the way we hold space for healing, insight, and transformation
- In the intuitive nudges we feel so clearly and see possibility, even when others are not quite ready to see it, trust it, or step into it

That pause matters. Pausing gives us space to refine our choices. It creates room between the trigger and the response. It helps us step out of frustration, self-questioning, or urgency and come back to ourselves.

Resistance is not here to stop us– it is here to refine us.

And that has led me to a different question: What is this resistance asking of me?

Two Lenses: Self-Awareness and Discernment

When resistance shows up, there are really two lenses to consider.

Resistance asks for self-awareness and discernment — the inner lens of what is being stirred up in us, and the outer lens of what the other person may be revealing about where they are in their own path.

When you have experience, insight, and a genuine desire to help, it can be hard to watch someone hesitate, question, or resist the very thing that could support them. It is easy in those moments to feel pulled toward doing more, carrying more, or taking someone else’s process more personally than it deserves.

Yet as I sat with this, I realized there was a second lesson to look through. Their resistance was also stirring something up in me. It was showing me where I still feel responsible for outcomes that are not mine to manage and where I still want to protect people from unnecessary detours. Ahhh… Hello, that’s my Nurturer showing herself!

Brilliance, Leadership, and Giving Room

That is an important thing to notice, especially as women who lead and care deeply. We can be intuitive. We can sense what is ready to shift. We can often see possibility before someone else is ready to see it for themselves. Rising in our brilliance, our new identity, and our leadership is not about fixing and doing for others. And doing so actually holds us back.

- It is about shining a light on possibility.
- It is about offering roots and wings.
- It is about releasing the need to control the outcome.

The image that keeps coming to me now is a sprout pressing up through the soil toward light. We cannot force it open. We cannot pull it upward before it is ready. What we can do is offer the conditions that support its becoming — light, water, nourishment, and space. The growth still belongs to the sprout. It must stretch, strengthen, and rise in its own timing.

Leadership is often much the same.

Not rescuing.
Not controlling.
Not forcing.

But offering perspective, support, and space while trusting another person’s path enough not to grip the outcome.

Resistance is part of ‘Our Becoming’. It gives us the opportunity to refine and strengthen what is being asked of us next — more discernment, more steadiness, more trust, and more grounded leadership.

Choosing Leadership Over Blame

Resistance can become especially charged when it turns into projection or blame. And when blame is coming toward us, it can be tempting to meet it there. To defend. To counter. To prove who was right.

These moments are calling us higher.

Consider the energy of these actions:

Blame pulls downward.
Leadership rises upward.
Solutions create movement.

That does not mean we abandon our truth. It means we rise into leadership and solution energy rather than lowering ourselves into blame.

Leadership is solving the problem calmly while refusing to absorb the panic around it. It’s staying rooted in your clarity while allowing another person to be in their own energy.

- Mine to hold: my clarity, my response, my next step.
- Mine to release: their fear, their delay, their projection.
- Mine to trust: leadership does not need blame to stand in truth.

Your Money Patterns Reveal How You Meet Resistance

Resistance also has a way of lighting up our money personalities. The Nurturer may want to jump in and rescue. The Accumulator may want more certainty, reassurance, and control before trusting the process. The Maverick may want to push harder or make something happen through sheer will.

None of those responses are wrong. They simply reveal the lens through which we are meeting discomfort. But deeper leadership asks something more of us.

Support without rescuing.
Trust without controlling.
Lead without forcing.

This is where our money personality becomes such a powerful mirror. It shows us not only how we tend to react when resistance appears, but what deeper growth is being asked of us next.

Once we see the pattern, we have a choice—the power to grow beyond the pattern.

We can stay inside the familiar response, or we can strengthen the part of us that meets resistance with more steadiness, discernment, and trust.

The Practice: Pause, Discern, Redirect

Resistance is a refiner. It reveals where our leadership needs to become steadier and where our trust in ourselves is being asked to grow.

When resistance stirs frustration, self-questioning, or the urge to rescue, prove, or control, it helps to have a simple way to clear and redirect the energy.

THE PRACTICE:

Put both feet on the floor. Take a slow breath. Place a hand on your heart and another on your belly.

Then ask yourself: ‘What here is mine to hold, and what here is mine to release?’

That question can shift so much. It brings you back to your body, your discernment, and your leadership. From there, you can choose your next step from clarity rather than frustration.

Pause - Come back to your body before you react.

Discern - Ask: ‘What is mine to hold, and what is mine to release?’

Redirect - Choose one grounded next step instead of spiraling, proving, rescuing, or controlling.

The Deeper Invitation

For me, that has become the deeper invitation inside all of this: not Why is there resistance? but:

‘What is this resistance asking me to strengthen?’

Because resistance is not a stop sign.

It is the yellow blinking light.
It is the pause before clearer choice.
It is refinement.

Mantra:
I lead with light.
I offer roots and wings.
I release the outcome and trust what is becoming.

With clarity and refinement,
- Janet

“Believe in your wisdom, elevate your worth, and watch your wealth rise.”

PS: ‍ ‍Resistance can stir our money personalities too.

the Nurturer may want to rescue
the Accumulator may want more certainty and control
the Maverick may want to push harder and make something happen

If you are curious which patterns tend to rise up most for you, take my free Money Personality Quiz.

“Moments of resistance are not invitations to doubt your brilliance.
They are invitations to deepen it.”