WHAT YOU RESIST PERSISTS (AND MAY JUST BE WHAT YOU NEED)

“What you resist persists” can sound either deeply wise or suspiciously suitable for a decorative pillow. Yet beneath the slogan lies an important truth about the nervous system, the unconscious, and our peculiar ability to strengthen the very experiences we are trying to eliminate.

Howard Schubiner’s Unlearn Your Pain describes how, in some persistent pain conditions, the nervous system may continue sounding an alarm even after the original danger has passed. Pain is real and must never simply be dismissed as psychological. Yet when the brain interprets a sensation as threatening, attention narrows, muscles brace, vigilance rises, and we begin monitoring for evidence of danger. Resistance becomes attention; attention increases salience; fear gives the sensation meaning. The nervous system hires a full-time security guard to patrol the very experience we wanted evicted.

Often there is a first experience and then a second suffering layered around it: pain followed by fear of pain; anxiety followed by anxiety about anxiety; sadness followed by shame; wakefulness followed by panic about not sleeping. Thought suppression works similarly: trying not to think something requires the brain to keep checking whether the forbidden thought has appeared. The mental bouncer must carry a photograph of the prohibited guest (Wegner et al., 1987).

The alternative is not passivity but what I call Chosen Challenge. During a therapeutic massage, for example, pressure may hurt, yet trust, meaning, choice, and the ability to stop change the nervous system’s interpretation. The sensation says, “Intensity.” Choice says, “But not necessarily danger.” A manageable challenge can teach the body: I can experience intensity without converting it into emergency.

This is also the difference between Avoidah—my playful rendering of avodah, with “avoid” tucked inside—and genuine avodah, or inner work. Avoidance provides immediate relief, which teaches the brain: I escaped; therefore there must have been danger. Each retreat may make the feared experience larger next time. Exposure research similarly suggests that avoidance prevents new learning about safety (Craske et al., 2014).

Sometimes, moreover, what we resist contains something we need.

Jung’s shadow represents aspects of ourselves excluded from conscious identity. These may include anger, envy, dependency, or vulnerability—but also confidence, creativity, authority, ambition, and brilliance. Not everything banished into the shadow is dark. Some of it may simply have been too bright for the identity we were permitted to construct.

In Internal Family Systems language, an exile may carry shame, fear, abandonment, or helplessness, while protectors organize life around ensuring we never feel that pain again. Healing therefore cannot mean storming past our defenses. Like a skilled massage therapist approaching a guarded muscle, we proceed with consent, curiosity, and pacing: Can I approach this slowly? Can I feel only what is manageable?

Here the Torah principle of yeridah l’tzoreich aliyah—descent for the sake of ascent—holds the map together. We descend beneath the polished story not to remain in the psychological basement, but to retrieve something. We do not romanticize suffering; some descents are imposed, unjust, and traumatic. Yet even when we did not choose the pit, we may eventually choose whether and how to return for the part of ourselves left there.

Perhaps what persists is not merely tormenting us. Perhaps it is still carrying something necessary for wholeness.

What we resist remains in exile. What we approach with safety can become conscious. And what becomes conscious can enter our avodah.

Then the descent itself becomes the beginning of ascent.

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With Gratitude,

Rus Devorah

References
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Ashar, Y. K., et al. (2025). Five-year follow-up of pain reprocessing therapy for chronic back pain. JAMA Psychiatry, 82(10), 1049–1051.
Calabrese, E. J., & Mattson, M. P. (2017). How hormesis affects biology, toxicology, and medicine. npj Aging and Mechanisms of Disease, 3, 13.
Craske, M. G., et al. (2014). Maximizing exposure therapy through inhibitory learning. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 58, 10–23.
Jung, C. G. (1968). Aion: Researches into the phenomenology of the self. Princeton University Press.
Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2016). Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience. Psychological Review, 123(4), 349–367.
Schubiner, H. (2026). Unlearn your pain: The science of recovering from chronic pain, fatigue, anxiety, and depression. The Open Field.
Schwartz, R. C., & Sweezy, M. (2020). Internal family systems therapy (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Wegner, D. M., et al. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(1), 5–13.