Doesn’t “Piece de resistance” conjure up images of a fancy Frenchman talking passionately using his hands to talk and raising his right hand as if conducting a symphony to say “piece de resistance”  va! va!! va!!! vaaaaa!!!!

For those so interested Piece de resistance : is a French term (circa 1839), translated into English literally as “piece of (or for) resistance,” referring to the best part or feature of something (as in a meal), a showpiece, or highlight. It can be thought of as the portion of a creation which defies (i.e. “resists”) orthodox or common conventions and practices, thereby making the whole of the creation unique and special. The phrase gives the sense that the referred-to element is the most outstanding, notable, or defining of the collection.

But really the kind of resistance I felt inspired to write about tonight is not this kind it’s the other kind.  The “War of Art” kind.  In the beginning of Steven Pressfield’s book there is one page that has smudge marks from me returning to it again and again when I find myself ONCE AGAIN resisting a writing project. That page says this:

“Look in your own heart.  Unless I’m crazy, right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you as it has ten thousand times, the calling that is yours and yours alone.  You know it. No one has to tell you. And unless I’m crazy, you’re no closer to taking action on it than you were yesterday or will be tomorrow.  You think Resistance isn’t real? Resistance will bury you.

You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist.  At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture.  Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.”

Ooooh I so relate to this page. Not that I’m Hitler, but I have been known to accomplish great projects during avoidance.  Steven Pressfield so understands what it is like to not do the work that is calling from our soul.  I’ve been resisting getting going on my writing project lately.  It is my eBook about Energy Surfing which will entail digging into past communications and creating a structure to put them in and then write around and about them.  In the meantime, a very good friend of mine gave me a book that a good friend of hers (Donna Johnson) wrote called, “The Holy Ghost Girl” which is a memoir about Donna growing up in a tent revival family.  I loved the book and have it on my “keeper” book shelf, but boy did I allow it to add ammunition to my inner critic for resisting beginning my own book.

I won’t even let the tension of resistance enter into trying to define why I’m not creating a structure for my eBook right this minute because at least I’m writing about it now.  I’ve put off writing for 48 hours which I knew was going to get me into trouble and keep me from writing anything, much less moving forward on my eBook project.  What I will do tomorrow is keep “the War of Art” out on my desk as a talisman to remind me of what I am dealing with inside.  And perhaps I will begin ever so slowly putting together the remnants of communications and words even though I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.   At least I will have you, my reader friends, as witnesses to this process because I know that at least of a few of you have the same word-calling as I do.

Fight on my friends so that what we resist today will become our “Piece de la resistance” tomorrow!

What is your first step as you face the winds of doubt?