Hello dears,
Check, check, check. How often do we read articles, news, and books in a rush, automatically, without reflecting much? Or how often do we do things we like doing, like cooking or yoga, but we do them without fully enjoying them? It's all another task to be completed.
How is it that potentially pleasurable activities have become checkboxes, things we do to get done with?
Meet your Inner Pusher
We walk on Earth carrying multiple subpersonalities within us; the professional, the lover, the parent, the sister, the friend. The People Pleaser, the Playful Child, the Inner Critic, they are all present in every one of us, in different dosages.
According to Hal and Sidra Stone, two of these subpersonalities we have are the Pusher and the Hippie.
The Pusher is that part of us that is crazy about to-do lists (and checking them). His motto is productivity. He is the kind of character that even plans free time; its biggest enemy is not knowing what to do. In short, he gets things done, even if often without a clear understanding of why he is doing them.
Let’s be honest: it’s fairly easy to do a list with 20 things to do in one day that, once completed, doesn’t actually bring any transformation into our lives. No, we just stay where we are, and we are stressed. Despite our busyness, we often don’t take relevant steps forward towards our big life vision. What is even worse, we do many things in autopilot mode, without taking much of the potential pleasure they could give us.
Check the news, answer emails, go grocery shopping. Check, check, check. Yet we feel great when we check the boxes… but for what? That’s the nature of the Pusher, constantly active.
Unfortunately, as a doer, the Pusher doesn’t know how to relax and be. If that wasn’t enough, the more we socially recompensate this part of us, the more we silence his counterpart.
Every subpersonality has a counterbalance. Lying on a hammock on the other side of the spectrum is the Hippie, watching the ocean for hours without getting bored. His nature is to be present, here now. This is the part of us that has favorite songs and sings them excited innumerous times, full of joy every time. Trust me, we all have it.
If the Pusher does, the Hippie is.
The Hippie is the one who is fine not doing anything, just enjoying the beauty of life as it is.
When we neglect the Hippie we are at the mercy of the Pusher, and for that one, nothing is ever enough. These two forces within us need a balance. However, we live in a society that rewards the Pusher and therefore pushes us out of balance.
Knowing how to handle the Pusher well can surely support one’s journey to success, as the mainstream world defines it.
However, the Pusher normally doesn’t have on his to-do list “enjoy what you are doing without thinking of the next task”, “remember one day you are going to die, what is the point of what you are doing?”, “it’s ok to cancel things from your schedule with compassion when it is all too much”.
No, the Pusher is BFF with our Inner-Critic, and for them not finishing things equals self-flagellation. What’s worse, finishing things means there’s time to add new things to be done on the list, for these two have no clarity of what completion means.
When the Pusher within us overwhelms us, we tend to run to the Hippie. Our schedule might be full of meaningful things, but the stress that the Pusher puts on us is, at times, staggering. In these situations, we might as well break down and stay in bed, running to the Hippie. We need some of that self-love, that gesture of kindness to ourselves, that reminder that it is all good as it is, we are perfect as we are, there is nowhere to go.
The Pusher blinds us. In such situations, our busyness is covering up for the fact that we are not that sure about what we want, or we don’t think we are worthy of more pleasure and love; so we just keep busy, without questions. In these moments, bringing up the Hippie and its gentleness has the extra benefit of restoring what matters to us deeply.
What do we do about this?
Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying simple pleasures. If anything, we need more of them well integrated into our daily lives. The problem is when we don’t know how to get out of these extremes. We are constantly stressed or avoiding work.
Living in these extremes can be a sign of a lack of clarity and self-love. We let the Pusher take control with lists, become robots, and forget that the point of living is to live. Or we let the Hippie take control and be lazy, too comfortable to express himself fully and create anything.
The truth is, we need both sides. We are perfect as we are, and we also need to grow. We need integration of polarities, inner marriage, oneness — and not further polarization. But most importantly, the question is: who is steering the wheel?
The Hippie and the Pusher are subpersonalities of ours, but they should not be the ones controlling our being.
A big part of spiritual growth is to let go of personalities and find our essence — which means dropping inner voices that are not really us but social constructs. Another part of the process is accepting, and bringing together all parts of us that we truly are, for we are multi-conscious beings. This means being able to flow through these different facets of ourselves with ease and harmony, embracing them.
Less, but Better
A big part of redefining the Pusher comes from redefining the concept of work and productivity.
We have grown in a society that works with full-time jobs, often behind screens. A place where work is a burden and not a joyful expression of being. Does it really have to be like that? Isn’t there better ways to work, more pleasurable — and actually more effective?
In other words, the Pusher is the BFF of the rat-wheel.
The bottom line is to always ask ourselves what is the point of what we are engaging with. What is it that we want: workwise, relationship-wise, health-wise, life-wise. From that place of clarity, we can define what is needed for these things.
But here is the twist: most of the things we believe are needed are not, really. It’s an exercise in questioning ourselves, our own mental models of how we see things can be.
Expansion requires mental models of how things are to be or not to melt, over and over again. To create new connections in our brain, to grasp new possibilities, new ways.
We cannot create the new by doing the old. We create the new by creating space for the new.
The Pusher is not very used to this deep questioning; it just wants to keep doing, oftentimes as escapism. In this way, the Pusher makes us feel productive, even though we don’t expand in creativity, inspiration, and joy as much.
See, we can work alone behind a computer and perform 100 small tasks that do not take us closer to our purpose, or we can connect to our creativity to bring forth new ideas, meet new people that can bring mutative encounters, and create something much more impactful.
But to generate these, we need space, silence, to see new possibilities. The busyness of the Pusher prevents that from happening.
Practices
The best way to work with these two sides of us is to be conscious of the bigger questions of life:
What matters to me the most in my life?
What is my vision, what do I want?
How do I want to live?
What is the desired outcome of what I am doing today/this week/this month? Why am I doing these things for? Are they contributing to my life vision?
Use these questions to guide you throughout your life, and add a twist: ask yourself who is answering these questions for you. Let’s say I answer that reading news really matters to me. Why? Who is saying that? Is it the Pusher who is scared of being left out, is it my ego, or is it my heart saying that?
Don’t let your subpersonalities, social expectations, and fear trick you and take control.
More supporting practices:
Appreciate beauty when you see it. Be it a tree, a well-designed piece of furniture, a cup of coffee, appreciate it. Even if only for five seconds, be here in appreciation and joy.
Breathe between tasks. Don’t go from one thing straight to the other. Take one minute to realign with the purpose of what you are doing.
Do things with presence and joy, and not only to get “them done”. There is always going to be stuff to do, so we’d better appreciate the experience.
Learn to say a big fat conscious NO to things that don’t need to be done and don’t serve your vision.
Learn to do nothing. Not as in time to rest, but as in time to be with yourself, listen to your heart, and grasp new possibilities.
See you next week,
Aline
Ps: Confused about your next steps? Check out my online course: Set Your Intentions: What Do You Want?