In this podcast excerpt, host Speaker A and guest Christopher Michael explore the concept of "dropping resistance" as an intentional, conscious choice to allow new possibilities into one’s life. They discuss how resistance often stems from dualistic thinking—seeing the world in "me vs them" terms such as Republican vs Democrat or gay vs straight—creating a vicious cycle of opposition. The conversation then shifts to personal habits, using smoking as a primary example to illustrate how behaviors become identity labels (smoker vs non‑smoker). This identity attachment makes quitting harder because the "non‑" label still references the original habit. Christopher and the host critique the prevalence of "non‑" terminology (non‑smoker, non‑drinker, gluten‑free, dairy‑free) and argue for more positive, forward‑looking language that frames change as a new identity rather than a negation of the old. Throughout, they emphasize the importance of choosing where to let change in, moving beyond resistance, and reframing language to support personal transformation.
Chapters
I'm sitting over here for people who are only listening and not seeing. I'm sitting here with a big grin and kind of giggling to myself. Because when we're talking about dropping resistance, it's no surprise to me that the words that Christopher is using is exactly the words that I've been using specifically today with my earlier sessions before my lunchtime interview with him. Nothing about that surprises me. And that's what we're talking about when we're talking about dropping resistance, so that like-minded things that are proof that you're on the right path with the right people and the right things showing up in your life can consciously and unconsciously be allowed in.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, you just have to choose it. So I guess the question is, where are you willing to let it in? And where are you resisting allowing it to be part of your life? Because the resistance, the more we lean into resistance, and we see this everywhere in the world, right? You keep sort of pointing to it. But Everywhere. I mean, we have— there's this duality is another way to look at it, right? Like it's me or them. Why can't it be me and them? Why does it have to be Republican or Democrat? Why can't it be Republicans and Democrats? Why? Why does that have to be gay or straight? Why can't it be gay and straight? Right. Why can't we— we all do exist. But the conversation sort of presumes that one of us shouldn't at any given point. Right. And so now we have this resistance and the resistance, the more you resist it, and then I'm resisting your resistance. And then we're just like, we're just like that vicious cycle. Yeah.
Yeah. I love the example of what do you call a person who's never smoked before?
A person who has never smoked before. Right.
But we have the people who smoke and people who are non-smokers, non-smokers. But think about dominant discourse because until 20 years ago, the normative, socially accepted thing, at least here in America, was you got on a plane in the '50s and '60s, you smoked, you went into the office, right? Mad Men, think of that whole area.
I was just gonna say Mad Men. Yeah.
So, right, so, right, that was the dominant, right, baseline normative. So to not smoke was not normative. So when you— if you didn't do it, or you stopped doing it, you became not that. And therefore, when someone is quitting, or deciding to no longer be a lung polluter, right, they're not going from, you know, from lung polluter to clean air breather, they're going from a smoker to a nonsmoker. So there's still their relationship of their own identity, which I think makes it much more difficult to quit, is because they still have an identity in relationship to the thing that they no longer want to be in their life. And they're always calling up the relationship to that. And the theme about that and the word, right? Smoking is still a constant dominant word. Non-smoking, non-smoker, right? So non-drinker, non-user, non— right? Whatever this possible substance can be, right? I no longer eat sugar. Oh, okay. So what about, you know, what, right? Oh, no, no, I'm avoiding, right? Like, I'm gluten-free, right? Okay, well then what's a better— again, like the positive version of a term for that maybe might be more strategic for that versus, right? Whatever. We've gotta come up with a good cool terminology for that instead of being gluten-free, dairy-free, you know.
