Knowing When to Push and When to Pull

 It has happened to us all...we get to a door and stand there pushing with all our might while the door stays closed.  Then it dawns on us, maybe I should try pulling instead.  A gentle pull back and voila, the door magically opens for us.  Lately I feel like this dance between pushing and pulling has been playing itself out in my life.

I have been focusing a lot in the past few months on patterns of behaviour that have been manifesting themselves in my life.  I felt that the time had finally come for me to understand the root causes so I could make adjustments that would lead to healthier ways of being and living.  From that angle, the work has been very beneficial and I feel proud of what I have been able to discover and now have awareness around.  Of course there is a shadow side to everything and where that comes into play here is the way in which I went about the work.  Unrelenting.  Unkind.  With a lens of self reflection that turned to self judgement.  In the end, I actually spent so much time writing that I strained tendons in my thumb and needed to wear a brace with a thumb splint to allow it to heal!  Yes, I sustained a journalling injury!!!  If that isn't a red flag around pursuing things with perhaps too much intensity, I am not sure what is.  Unless also getting sick counts.  I did that too.  For the past week and a bit I have been battling what feels like a crummy sinus cold/flu.  It knocked me off of my feet I will admit.  Exhaustion and lack of desire to do much other than sleep, watch Netflix and blow my nose.  

So where does the push and pull come in?  Well I am a pro at the push.  I have lived most of my life in push mode I would say.  Not one to dawdle in the past it has always been a push to the future...to the next thing, the next goal the next adventure...the next the next the next.  I have not often spent a lot of time reflecting on the present to check in and see where I am at, to listen to how I am feeling, or to ask what I need.  Instead it has been that drive to be in constant motion forward, for fear of becoming stuck or stagnant.  If I stop now and think about it, I honestly don't even know sometimes what it really is that I am trying to accomplish...something or other, but what exactly I have no clear idea.  Maybe just the idea of being in motion to outrun the fear of not being busy.  Of being seen as lazy, or self satisfied (Godess forbid!) or unmotivated.  

Being sick this past week and now finding out that my eldest son has tested positive for COVID (asymptomatic, which is a relief as he is not fighting for his life on a ventilator, but scary because how many people are walking around in the same boat right now??) has definitely put the need to pull in capital letters on my radar.  I saw him before his exposure and my getting sick could just be coincidental, however I am going for a test to put my mind at ease.  And while I wait for the test and then results I am isolating to ensure that I am being a responsible human being.  I hate to admit that it has taken this to actually make me pull back on things in my life...but I would by lying if I said otherwise.  And this will not be the first or last time that something major has needed to (or will need to) come along to give my shoulders a shake and get me to slow the hell down.  I find that the push creeps up on me slowly.  I start off with best intentions to be present and mindful and to lessen my focus on future events.  And I usually do well with that.  I feel a sense of peace and satisfaction in being able to ease my foot off the gas for a bit and not coast but also not drive full speed ahead to a destination without knowing where I am headed.  As my cycling friends and I often say on rides, I have learned to "pump the brakes, sister!"  But these feelings of peace and satisfaction start to give way over time and as I start to feel more centred and at home in my body I start to notice that I feel stronger and more certain about myself and maybe it is this sense of self awareness that begins the transition into more of a push.

Please believe me, I absolutely feel like we all need to have goals and to plant seeds for future accomplishments to give us those signposts to aim for.  I could not imagine life any other way.  As a friend pointed out to me, there is a big difference between striving for things and allowing perfectionism to take the reigns.  Striving is based on reaching goals that feel important to you and are meaningful to you, where perfectionism has its dark roots in trying to reach goals to prove things to others or to yourself where you are left in a constant struggle to do everything to a self prescribed and often unattainable level.  

Where I want to place my focus is on how to create a better flow between these states of push and pull.  Listening to myself around when I am ready and want to push and then also listening for the cues that will tell me that it is once again time to pull back a bit and evaluate and reassess.  When I close my eyes I see it taking place like the tides on a beach or long grass in the wind or being on a swing.  Developing that ease between push and pull will take some time and I am sure there are more big reset moments that will need to happen and that is okay.  As long as I can keep coming back to those images I know that I will add this tool to my toolbox in due time.