Growing Through Resistance

How discomfort is not a sign to stop, but a sacred signal of expansion

Before we dive in, I want to share something tender with you:
I turn 46 years old on April 14, and this season of life is showing me just how many times I almost stopped… right at the edge of my becoming.

So to honor the journey—and to walk alongside yours—I’m offering 46% off a full year of Liberation Education through April 14.
You can also gift a subscription to someone who’s ready to grow through resistance with love and intention. And as always, if cost is a barrier, you can email scholarships@desireebstephens.com for supported access.

✨ Now let’s breathe into the sacred discomfort together.

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Grounding Invitation

Take a moment.
Place both feet flat on the ground if you can.
Unclench your jaw. Soften your shoulders. Let the world hush for a breath.

Breathe in through your nose…
Hold.
Exhale slowly through your mouth.

Feel into the space around you.
Feel your body held by the earth or the floor beneath you.
Feel the presence of your ancestors at your back—steadying you, guiding you.
Feel the dream of your future self rising up to greet you from within.

You are here.
Whole.
Worthy.
Welcome.

Let’s begin.

The Threshold of Becoming

There’s a moment that comes just before the bloom—
a stretching, a cracking, a tension so uncomfortable that everything in you wants to retreat.

We don’t talk about that part enough.

Because in this world of quick fixes and soft landings, we’re taught that discomfort means danger. That if it hurts, it’s wrong. That if it’s heavy, it’s not meant for us.

But liberation work teaches us something deeper:
Discomfort is not the enemy.
Discomfort is the door.

The work of growth, healing, and decolonizing ourselves often feels like friction. Like failure. Like grief.
But what if that tightness in your chest isn’t a “no”?
What if it’s your soul expanding to make space for your next becoming?

Discomfort is sacred data.
Resistance is your body’s way of asking, “Are we safe to change?”
And growth… growth is what happens when we answer: “Yes. Even now.”

This is your invitation to not stop at the sting.
To trust the stretching.
To keep going—not because it’s easy, but because it’s aligned.

The Sacred Stretch: What the Crone Has Taught Me

I am in a sacred season. As I stated at the start I will be 46 in just a few days. I have entered the crone stage, after traversing maiden, and mother, I’ve made it here.
A stage of life that the world often tells women to fear, to dread, to Botox, and bury.

But I don’t feel small here. I feel vast.
I feel like the earth cracking open in spring—raw, soaked in lessons, and full of rooted knowing.

This crone stage of my life is not about shrinking or fading.
It’s about becoming more whole than I’ve ever been.
More honest.
More tender.
More liberated in my no and my yes.
More at home in the parts of myself I used to resist.

There was something so freeing—revolutionary, even—about knowing that I wouldn’t house another human inside this body again.
That this temple, this vessel, this sovereign skin of mine is now here to serve me.
Not to nourish others, carry others, make space for others—but to finally, fully, be in service to my own becoming.

My body is mine. Entirely. Sacredly. Sovereign.

And I wonder—
What if we taught all bodies that truth from the very beginning?
What might our resistance look like then? What might our liberation feel like?

Now, as I move through the work of honoring my body again—shedding what no longer fits, reclaiming mobility, tending to this vessel not from punishment but from profound presence—I can feel the stretch.
The ache of becoming.
The sacred tension of healing.

And so, when resistance shows up in my body now, I don’t run.
I don’t shame it.
I sit beside it like an old friend who speaks in riddles.

Because what I’ve learned is this:

Resistance isn’t a stop sign.
It’s a sacred signal.
It’s your body asking:
Can I trust this growth? Can I hold this change? Will I still be loved if I step into more of myself?

Discomfort vs. Harm: Learning to Discern the Difference

Let’s be clear—this work isn’t about glorifying pain.
Liberation is not martyrdom. Growth is not about suffering for its own sake.

So let’s talk about the difference between sacred discomfort and harm.

Because yes—healing can hurt.
Yes—growth can stretch us beyond what we thought we could hold.
But harm is not a requirement for transformation.

Discomfort is the tension of expansion.
It’s the resistance of your body and spirit stretching into new capacity.
It asks: Can we make space for more truth, more freedom, more joy?

Harm, however, collapses us.
It disconnects us from our bodies, our safety, our voice.
It asks: Is it safe to be me at all?

And so, part of growing through resistance is cultivating the discernment to know the difference.

Your body knows.
Your breath knows.
Your inner yes and your sacred no both have wisdom.

As we decolonize our healing and redefine what expansion looks like, we reclaim the right to move slowly.
To honor what is too much.
To step forward only when it’s safe to do so—without shame.

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Ritual for Meeting Resistance with Love

If you’re feeling the friction today—if you’re standing on your own threshold of becoming—try this:

🕯️ Light a candle. (if that feels aligned)
Place one hand over your heart, and the other on your belly.
Feel your breath. Feel your weight. Feel your pulse.

Then say aloud, or whisper to your own soul:

I am allowed to change.
I am safe to expand.
I will not abandon myself in the stretching.
I am becoming what I was always meant to be.

Take three slow, intentional breaths.

Let the exhale be your release.
Let the inhale be your return.

You are not failing.
You are not broken.
You are blooming.

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What Nature Knows About Resistance

Nature is one of our greatest teachers in how to move through resistance with grace, wisdom, and timing.

The earth does not rush the bloom.
She knows that pressure without readiness leads to breakage, not blossoming.
She stretches with the seasons, with pause, with purpose. She waits, she sheds, she rises again.

Trees do not fight the wind—they bend.
Snakes do not fear shedding skin—they let go.
Seeds do not resist the dark—they break open to root themselves in it.

What if we saw our discomfort the way the seed feels the pressure of soil—not as punishment, but as preparation?

Nature teaches us that expansion is rhythmic.
That becoming is not linear.
That rest is resistance.
That grief and decay are not ends, but invitations to compost what no longer serves.

We are not machines.
We are ecosystems.
And the more we honor our becoming as natural, sacred, and cyclical, the more we reclaim what supremacy culture has tried to steal from us: our rhythm, our rest, our right to grow slowly.

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Disrupting the 15 Pillars of Supremacy Culture Through Sacred Resistance

When we honor resistance, when we choose to stretch instead of shut down, we directly disrupt the systems and beliefs that keep supremacy culture intact.

Here’s how:

• Perfectionism dissolves when we allow growth to be messy, nonlinear, and full of learning.

• Sense of Urgency is interrupted when we slow down, breathe, and trust divine timing.

• Defensiveness is softened by sitting with discomfort instead of avoiding accountability.

• Worship of the Written Word is challenged when we trust the wisdom of the body, the land, and ancestral knowing.

• Paternalism breaks down when we listen to our own intuition and others’ lived experience instead of assuming control.

• Right to Comfort is disrupted when we lean into tension instead of protecting the status quo.

• Power Hoarding is dismantled when we share space, truth, and vulnerability in our resistance stories.

• Fear of Open Conflict is released when we meet discomfort as a portal, not a problem.

• Individualism unravels when we remember that becoming is not a solo journey.

• Progress is Bigger, More fades when we prioritize depth, rest, and healing over endless growth.

• Objectivity crumbles when we center emotion, spirit, and embodied truth.

• Quantity over Quality is undone when we value process over productivity.

• Only One Right Way is replaced with a multiplicity of paths, practices, and truths.

• Either/Or Thinking is transformed by complexity, nuance, and the space to hold both/and.

• I’m the Only One begins to heal when we ask for help, and trust the power of collective care.

Sacred resistance is not just personal growth—it is collective liberation.
It’s how we compost supremacy culture, root into new ways of being, and become more human with every stretch.

Coming Home to the Stretch

If you take nothing else from this offering, let it be this:

Discomfort is not your enemy.
It is your invitation.
A sacred signal that something in you is preparing to grow beyond what you've known.

It does not mean stop. It does not mean you’re broken. It does not mean you’re failing. It means you are becoming.

Becoming more whole.
Becoming more rooted.
Becoming more of who your ancestors dreamed you would be—and more of who your future self is waiting to meet.

This season of my life—this 46th turn around the sun—is teaching me that resistance doesn’t mean stop.
It means listen.
It means honor what’s moving through you.
It means trust the slow becoming.

Discomfort is what growth feels like when your spirit is expanding faster than your fear. It’s the stretch of a truth that no longer fits staying small. It’s the ache of reclaiming what supremacy culture told you to silence.

So if you’re in a moment where it hurts… where it feels like everything is stretching beyond what you thought you could hold… remember this:

The discomfort is not your undoing.
It’s the invitation into your next liberation.
And you are already becoming. Even now.

Let’s stop mistaking discomfort for misalignment.
Let’s stop retreating from the sacred ache of expansion.
Let’s keep going—not because it’s easy, but because it’s right.

And the sacred path through it?

✨ Is breath.
✨ Is slowness.
✨ Is choosing to stay—lovingly, bravely, imperfectly—with yourself.

So next time the tension rises, the old stories scream, or your heart beats fast at the edge of something new…
Don’t retreat.

Return.
To the breath.
To your body.
To the knowing that you are safe to grow.

Because this resistance is not punishment.
It’s preparation.
And your becoming is already in motion.

In solidarity and liberation,
Desireé B. Stephens, CPS-P
Educator | Counselor | Community Builder
Founder, Make Shi(f)t Happen

Want more support in this journey?
Download your free infographic + eBook:
“Dismantling Supremacy Culture: Understanding and Overcoming Its 15 Pillars”