Push or Pull?
I’ve been praying a lot lately.
I’ve also been reading a lot lately.
And, at least for me, some pretty heavy stuff — stuff that is really challenging me and growing my faith.
A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson
Letting Go by David R. Hawkins
Power vs. Force by David R. Hawkins
Falling Upward by Richard Rohr
The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale
I can’t tell if the praying led to the reading, or the reading led to the praying.
Either way, the combination of the two is really stirring something inside of me that seems to be altering my thoughts and actions.
Yesterday morning, as I was driving to swimming listening to some classical music, I started thinking about pushing versus pulling.
Perhaps this was inspired by something that I was reading by Marianne Williamson yesterday morning in her book, A Return to Love.
Maybe it was this line:
“In A Movable Feast, Hemingway writes about writing. He describes the difference between his writing a story, and a story writing itself. When he finds himself writing the story, he knows it’s time to stop for the day.”
Or, maybe it was this line:
“There’s no more potent way to thank God for your gifts, or to increase them, than by sharing them.”
Or, maybe it was this line:
“We are to do what there is a deep psychological and emotional imperative for us to do.”
Or, maybe it was this line:
“If something makes your heart sing, that’s God’s way of telling you it’s a contribution He wants you to make. Sharing our gifts is what makes us happy. We’re most powerful, and God’s power is most apparent on the earth, when we’re happy.”
Pushing versus pulling.
Where is the push?
And, where is the pull?
What part is ego-driven and what part is guided by God?
The way I see it, in my infantile dive into faith, is that the push all comes from the ego.
The desire to run the show.
The desire to be in control.
When we’re pushing, we have the steering wheel.
The pull, on the other hand, seems to be something that is outside of us.
The inkling that I know this is what I should be doing.
It’s the deep feeling.
It’s the conviction.
It’s the part we can’t explain.
It’s as if we’re the passenger just taking in the views.
I do a lot of different things in my business around leadership and team development. I also spend a fair amount of time working with athletes around peak performance.
I thoroughly enjoy my work — I feel lucky to be able to do what I do.
But, nothing has a pull on me quite like writing.
For years — dating back to my time in undergraduate school — I’ve felt like I should write.
I have felt a deep calling to be a writer.
And, the voice doesn’t come from me — it’s a pull and a calling from something greater than me.
It’s God.
And, I guess that’s the whole point of writing this blog post.
As Marianne Williamson said, “If something makes your heart sing, that’s God’s way of telling you it’s a contribution He wants you to make. Sharing our gifts is what makes us happy. We’re most powerful, and God’s power is most apparent on the earth, when we’re happy.”
I’m happy.
And, I think that is possible for everyone out there.
Ask yourself: where am I pushing?
And then ask yourself: what’s been pulling at me?
Maybe the best way to start destroying the ego is to stop pushing and start paying better attention to what’s pulling you.
It takes a lot of courage.
Trust me, I know.