PUSH & PULL

I’m in the middle of what I can safely say is the most challenging separation of my life (being separated from my mother at birth was probably the most challenging, but I haven’t been able to remember that experience consciously). It has sent me to a place of self-doubt and confusion that I haven’t known in a very long time. It has sent me into deep reflection of my life and the people I see around me trying to figure out where the hell I went wrong. How could I lose the woman of my dreams, the first woman I have ever wanted to create a life and family with?

When I look around at humans in the world, I notice that there are those who are either mostly pull or mostly push. This is not about defining their being, rather where they’re at in a given moment or phase.

There are those who bulldoze and there are those who keep their head down thinking they can’t, or they aren’t good enough, or they need to wait for permission.

The modern culture system does a really good job of creating pull people - those who were beaten so deeply into fear by school, TV, parents, religion, etc. that they rather just be told what to do. They are the machines that keep the system running. The ones who wake up, go to work, go shopping, watch TV, go to bed, and do it again.

Some of these people become alcoholics, partiers, drug addicts, gamblers, whatever is needed to forget about what life could really be like.

This was me in my 20s, too scared to do anything for myself - thinking I was living because I went out all the time and traveled to NYC and LA to party with people there.

And then something shifted. I had this experience of finding something important to tell the world that was much greater than myself. I woke up to a new set of options. I beat the unconscious fear. Through many new practices, I slayed the dragon, awakening deeper connection to my own power to choose from more than what was offered on the menu.

Or so I thought.

What has started to become clear to me now is that in my life lately, it’s mostly push. I come up with plans, I don’t check with anyone about them, and I don’t want to wait for anyone to approve. I just have a big GO for whatever I come up with. For the past 4yrs I’ve been telling myself this story that this is what sovereignty means. In an American mind, that all sounds great. It’s exactly what capitalism is all about - do more, create more, GO, GO, GO!

What I thought was me breaking out of the system was just me playing a different position on the same team - like going from a lineman to a quarterback.

Then, an exercise came into my life that finally showed me what was going on. 

In a training space, I stood face-to-face with a man about my same height and weight. The exercise was about conscious anger. We were instructed to put our hands on each other’s shoulders. The only instruction we were given was to use our anger energy to push against each other. I thought to myself, “I’ll finally get the chance to express all of this anger I’ve been feeling about the terrible break up I’m going through”. 

The trainers gave us the GO and I fucking went! I pushed this man all the way to the end of the room. I had so much RAGE in me that I was basically horizontal as I pushed. Eventually they yelled STOP and asked, “why are you fighting with your partner? They are your partner. If you push this hard, your partner will withdraw, and you will fall.”

I collapsed to my knees. I finally saw it. I wept deeply as this new realization entered every cell of my being.

I’ve been pushing so hard on the world that if anyone withdraws, I’ll just fall on my face. And somebody did withdraw. Not just anyone, the most important person in my life - the greatest love of my life. She left because I was too much push. I landed flat on my face. For over a month I’ve been devastated, defeated, confused, lost.

Now, I can see that I gave my center completely away to her. I relied on her. I was pushing all of me on her, which required her to push back in order for us to remain standing.

A useful push must come from your center. To go for something without being centered will end up in a personal disaster. Ironically, the process of learning that required a few face plants to really get it.

Face planting sent me back into a pull energy for a while. For the past month, I was seriously doubting myself again. I lost so much confidence. I’d been questioning everything.

Now, I am still on the ground, but my face is no longer in the mud. I’m not over what happened, but I’m able to see what I need more clearly and to communicate it in a different way. I’ve moved out of the doubt. I’m now on my knees regaining my structure and reestablishing my center.