There are many ways to resist change throughout adult life…. Apart from the pathological effects of trauma and abuse, most resistance has to do with fantasies about how the world and others should treat us. It is rooted in ideals―for perfection, beauty, love, security―that turn into … suffering or negativity, when they are held to tightly or are too exaggerated and grandiose.
Great expectations, even our most humane visions for the future, can throw us off balance and become a barrier to development when we regard them as more important than what stands before us (Young-Eisendrath, p. 108).
sources: Pearson, C. (1991). Awakening the heroes within. New York: HarperCollins; Young-Eisendrath, E. (1996). The resilient spirit. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. With a bow to C.G. Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Reg Harris, among many.
