Resistance. Old Wounds. A Reader’s Group That Changed Everything.

There’s a specific kind of quiet that descends just before a leap. Not the physical kind, but the emotional one. It's the moment just before you undertake something you’ve been avoiding—something your heart knows you’re meant to do, even if your mind has clothed it in fear, memory, or self-protection.

Resistance.

That was me and Facebook.

It may sound almost laughable, I know. A social media platform. A login screen. However, resistance seldom appears in dramatic form; it presents itself cloaked in logic, history, and a sensation you haven’t felt in years yet somehow still recall how to flinch from.

Mine was rooted in 2009. A betrayal. A wound that played out in a space that was, back then, far more public than I was prepared to handle. It shook me  and my marriage to the core. I did what many of us do when the ground feels like it’s caving in—I left. I closed the door on the platform, the betrayal, and locked it behind me. I told myself it was self-preservation. And maybe, at the time, it was.

But time passed. I divorced. Life shifted in extraordinary ways. The people in my life changed. My world expanded with stories and readers and characters who felt more like soulmates than figments. But that old resistance—quiet, dusty, unnoticed—was still standing in the corner, arms crossed, saying Never again.

And I let it.

For over a decade, I let a ghost from a former life dictate how I showed up in the one I live now. A memory shaped by pain and heartbreak was still holding the reins on something that, ironically, could offer connection, warmth, and the kind of magic I now crave in both my personal life and creative work.

Looking back now, it feels ridiculous. My life today bears no resemblance to that chapter. The people involved are no longer part of my orbit. Yet, some deeply embedded part of me—still aching from that old wound—whispered, Don’t go back there. Not ever.

But the problem with resistance is that it never comes alone. It brings loneliness. It brings limitations. It builds walls around places that are meant to be doors. And I was tired of walls.

So I logged on, tentatively at first, like stepping onto a stage after years in the wings. But then—I created something new. A reader’s group. A space not anchored in the past but in possibility. A velvet seat at a round table where readers could gather, gush, and dive deep into the characters we all love.

And what I found there wasn’t pain.

It was home.

And hope. 

Conversations that made my heart feel full. Posts that reminded me why I write in the first place. Encouragement from people who had never heard that old story of betrayal because it had nothing to do with them—or with the woman I am now.

What I had been avoiding for twelve years is turning out to be one of the most rewarding parts of my creative life. And all that time, I’d been standing outside, clutching the key, convinced the door would still creak with ghosts ready to haunt me once again.

But It didn’t.

It opened into something beautiful.

Here’s what I’ve learned: Resistance isn’t the enemy. It’s the signal. It’s the point in your life where transformation is waiting—often disguised as a social media app, a blank page, a new beginning, or an overdue conversation.

The life you desire? The connection you seek? The partner you envision? The career or promotion you hesitate to pursue or request? It’s just beyond the point that makes your stomach knot.

So whatever it is for you—Facebook, vulnerability, starting over, beginning again, or daring to be seen—take the leap. Who knows? You might just achieve what you have been wishing for or perhaps receive something even better than you could have imagined.

To quote Nike: Just Do It!

We’re all here, waiting for you!

PS. Here’s my new reader group if you’d like to join! https://www.facebook.com/groups/authorgigimeier