What's Running You?

Are you pushing to make things happen in your life right now? Are you feeling backed up against the wall? And what’s the wall for you? Time, money, a relationship? It can be difficult to find your peaceful center when you feel you have to try so hard to make things happen. The question is what is driving you?rnIf your quick response is about success, paying the bills, making quota, buying some new thing to add to your “stuffology” collection, you might want to dig a little deeper. Have you ever contemplated having those things without working so hard? Pushing hard for things can come from deep-seated beliefs about being inadequate, needing to work hard to feel valuable, and needing to work hard for money, to name a few.rnFor example, if somewhere in your psyche is an imprint picked up long ago that you’re not enough, you will run yourself ragged trying to be enough. Maybe getting lots of credentials so others will “see” you and what you have to offer. Or perhaps working incessantly, never taking a vacation or spending time with family and friends, and still never feeling like you’re doing enough.rnIf this is you, you have to stop the madness! Take a personal inventory of your deepest held beliefs about the things you give most of your attention to. Are they serving you or are they running you ragged? Are you feeling uplifted and peaceful as you write and review the list, or are you feeling sad, angry, frustrated? If it’s the latter, those emotions are telling you something you need to listen to. You can choose differently at any point. In this case, the change will do you a world of good!rnAre You Impatiently Awaiting Your Good?rnIt can sometimes be difficult to trust and allow our good to come to us. We wait patiently at first, but then we get anxious, wondering if we’ve done enough, prayed enough, believed enough, affirmed enough. In fact, we probably have. What we haven’t done enough is released attachment to the timing of the outcome. We’re still trying to be in control and impatiently demanding that it happen when we believe it should happen. This poem by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (May 1, 1881 - April 10, 1955), French philosopher and Jesuit priest, might help you rest more patiently for that which is coming your way:rnAbove all, trust in the slow work of Godrn We are quite naturally impatient in everythingrn to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to somethingrn unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progressrn that it is made by passing throughrn some stages of instability - and that it may take a very long time.rnAnd so I think it is with you, your ideas mature gradually—let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what timern (that is to say, grace and circumstancesrn acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.rnOnly God could say what this new spiritrn gradually forming within you will be. Give God the benefit of believingrn that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourselfrn in suspense and incomplete.