Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

writing

Why We Need to Cultivate Harmonious Passion in Our Work

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Photo by Noah Johnson

I haven’t always been a writer. I wasn’t the kind of kid who scribbled stories or penned poems or daydreamed fantastical narratives in my head. I didn’t dream about “becoming a writer” someday.

When I went off to college I majored in English mainly because I loved to read and could craft a well-structured, articulate research paper. After I graduated I worked for more than a decade in both the corporate and the non-profit worlds, where I wrote annual reports and brochures, ad copy and marketing content, case statements and fundraising letters.

It wasn’t until I was in my late 30s that the process of excavating my spiritual and religious background ultimately led me to write my first book – and then three more books after that.

What I am realizing now, more than a year after publishing my last book and nearly a year since I stepped out of the publishing arena, is that I have always written to produce a particular outcome. In my corporate and non-profit jobs, I wrote to produce marketing and fundraising content. And as an author, I wrote for the purpose of publishing books. I even began blogging in 2009, long before I had an agent or a book contract, solely to build a platform for what I hoped would be my first published book.

I enjoyed the work. Writing was invigorating and satisfying, and I was passionate about it. I believed it was my calling. But what I am beginning to understand now is that there is a difference between pure passion – engaging in your passion because you love it and because you can’t imagine not doing it and because it’s woven into who you are as a person – and passion driven by extrinsic rewards.

Psychologist Robert Vallerand calls these two types of passion “harmonious passion” and “obsessive passion.” And the difference between the two comes from how they are internalized in one’s identity.

According to Vallerand:

“Harmonious passion (HP) results from an autonomous internalization of the activity into the person’s identity. An autonomous internalization occurs when individuals have freely accepted the activity as important for them without any contingencies attached to it. Individuals are not compelled to do the activity but rather they freely choose to do so. With this type of passion, the activity occupies a significant but not overpowering space in the person’s identity and is in harmony with other aspects of the person’s life.” (my bold)

Obsessive passion (OP), on the other hand, “results from a controlled internalization of the activity into one’s identity. Such an internalization originates from intrapersonal and/or interpersonal pressure either because certain contingencies are attached to the activity such as feelings of social acceptance or self-esteem, or because the sense of excitement derived from activity engagement becomes uncontrollable. Thus, although individuals like the activity, they feel compelled to engage in it because of these internal contingencies that come to control them.” (my bold)

Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire summarize Vallerand’s hypothesis in their book Wired to Create, concluding this:

“Obsessive passion is an indicator that the activity has not been healthily integrated into a person’s overall sense of self. The ego feeds on high performance, and the person may find herself pushing too hard with little improvement, sometimes leading to mental and physical injury. In a nutshell: harmoniously passionate people are impelled to create, whereas obsessively passionate people are compelled to create by more extrinsic factors.”

In other words, it all comes down to how a person internalizes their passion. Does their passion become part of them because they love it and they would pursue it no matter what the outcome? Or does their passion become part of them because they have connected it to their sense of value and self-worth?

Oh boy. Lightbulb moment: I fall into the obsessive passion camp.

Obviously there are many authors who are both impelled and compelled to write. In other words, they are successful and probably at least somewhat motivated by extrinsic factors (books sales, best seller lists, etc.), but they also receive deep joy and satisfaction from the creative process. Their scale probably tips generously toward  harmonious passion.

My problem, it turns out, is that my scale tips heavily toward obsessive passion – always has. Yes, when I was writing books I desired to share stories that I hoped could help or at least resonate with others. Yes, I enjoy writing. But let’s cut straight to the chase: I was largely in it for the external rewards (publication, status, recognition, approval). And that, combined with the inevitable depletion that came from publishing four books in five years, thousands of blog posts and an infinite number of social media posts, led to a creative and professional breakdown of sorts (and perhaps a wee bit of a personal breakdown).

Which brings me to today. After a professional lifetime of writing for extrinsic reward, I am now learning how to write simply for the joy of it. As silly as it sounds, I am slowly teaching myself how to have harmonious passion for writing. I am learning how to pursue my passion without any contingencies attached to it.

I do believe harmonious passion can be learned, especially if a seed of it is there (however deeply buried it may be). And I know the seed of harmonious passion for writing is in me because of how I’ve often felt these past few months when I am writing. Whole hours slip by unnoticed when I am at my desk, fingers on the keyboard. I am relishing language – reveling in the simple but deeply fulfilling hunt for the perfect word or a gratifying turn of phrase. I am dipping my little toe into writing poetry, just because. And while I know journaling is, for me, a fruitful way to nurture self-awareness and growth, I also appreciate that writing in a public space helps me improve my craft and grow as a writer…which is why I am still writing here, rather than solely in the pages of my private journal.

That said, it’s not easy to break a lifelong habit. Writing for outcomes and extrinsic rewards is my default mode; it’s automatic. Which means every time I catch myself thinking about platform or “felt need” or whether a particular post will resonate with my audience, I have to gently redirect myself back to the reasons I write these days, which are all rather basic:

Because I like working with words.

Because it helps me figure out who I am and what I think about things.

Because it’s challenging but also (mostly) fun.

I haven’t ruled out the possibility of writing another book someday, though I can’t imagine doing so anytime soon. I do know this though: if I do step down the book-writing road again, the book I write will come from a deep place of harmonious passion in me.

What about you? Have you ever struggled with obsessive passion? 

To the Land I Will Show You

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I have always loved the start of a brand-new year. I relish swapping out the wrinkled, scribbled planner for a brand-new one chock-full of white pages and empty squares. I love to make resolutions, to list out goals, to dream and plan. I love that the dawning of a new year offers the perfect opportunity to reflect on what has passed and plan for what is to come.

I spent some time over the holidays thinking back on 2019. It was a year of big change and transition for me – both  professionally and personally – as I stepped out of the publishing arena, put book-writing on the back-back-back burner, turned my attention to my work at The Salvation Army and began to figure out who I am and who I want to be.

The year was not without sorrow. Case in point: I bawled my eyes out at the end of the new Little Women film, as Jo stood behind the plate-glass window and watched her novel being typeset, printed and bound. The joy and satisfaction on her face as she held her first book in her hands pricked a tender spot in me, and as I left the theater all glassy-eyed, still dabbing at my nose with a Kleenex, I couldn’t help but panic a little bit: “Why on earth did I quit? What have I done?!”

Still, when I look back at all of 2019, I feel solidly good. On one hand, not much happened – at least outwardly. But the transformation that has taken place within made it one of the most exhilarating years of my life. I’ve stripped a lot away; I’ve been pruned back to what feels like my pith. This past year marked the beginning of a journey toward reclaiming myself – a journey that will continue for as long as I am alive.

At the same time I am sensing a restlessness, a low-level agitation humming beneath the surface of these early January days. I feel like there is a “next thing” on the horizon – the problem is, I don’t yet know what that “next thing” is. I’m confident that writing will continue to be an important part of my personal story and my vocation, but I am still uncertain as to what shape it will take. A new creative project? A more substantial commitment to non-profit work? Blog writing? Something else altogether?  The role writing will play in my life going forward is still a shifting mirage in the far-off distance.

In the quiet early morning of New Year’s Eve, tucked into the corner of my brother- and sister-in-law’s sofa in Minnesota, eight inches of freshly fallen snow blanketing the back yard, I read the story in Genesis of Abram’s calling, specifically these words:

“The Lord said to Abram: ‘Go forth from your land, from your relatives and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.’” (12:1)

The distance between Haran – Abram and his wife Sarai’s current town of residence – to the new land God had for them in Canaan was about 400 miles. Abram didn’t know which land, exactly, God had for him. He didn’t know where it was, what it looked like or how long it would take to travel there. He couldn’t see Canaan from where he stood in Haran. And yet, with his wife, his nephew Lot, and his livestock and people, he set out for that unseen land. Abram simply trusted God at his word. He trusted God would tell him when he had arrived at the place God had for him.

Turns out, like Abram, I’m en route to the place God has for me. This place has not yet been revealed. I can’t yet see it from where I stand, and I don’t really have any idea what it will look like. It is, at this point, a matter of trust – trust that God will indeed show me not only the land I am traveling to, but also the way to get there.

Navigating the New Landscape of You

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A few years ago I dramatically pruned the shrubbery in my backyard. For two days I went at it with the loppers, chopping off clumps of foliage, clipping dead twigs, sculpting and reshaping the remaining branches. When I was done, the landscape was transformed.

Noah, our resident Tree Lover, was not pleased – he disdainfully called me Paul Bunyan for weeks afterward – but I loved it. I could see more of the sky and the neighbor’s house across the street. Light streamed into spots that had previously been dank and dark. Though it was still the same size it had always been, the backyard suddenly felt much more spacious – open, airy and inviting.

Still, for about a week after the dramatic pruning, every time I glanced out the sunroom windows into the backyard, I did a double take. The landscape was so different, so unfamiliar – I hardly recognized it. Even though I loved the openness and was glad I’d pruned the shrubbery, my new backyard took some getting used to; I had to reacquaint myself with it.

::

A few weeks ago, my friend Kimberly read my blog post about whitewashing the reality of poverty and Voxed me with an idea. It was a good, strong piece, she said, and she suggested I might want to rework it a bit and pitch it to Christianity Today. It was a timely topic, she noted – something she thought would resonate with a broader audience.

I immediately set to work researching other online articles on global poverty and mission work, reviewing Christianity Today’s submissions guidelines and considering how I would reshape the post into an article that might resonate with CT’s audience.

In the middle of that process, though, I became aware of the slightest bit of a pit in my stomach, which in turn prompted me to ask myself a question: Do I actually want to revise this blog post and pitch it as an article to Christianity Today? Do I want to do this work?

At first, in spite of the stomach pit (note to future self: the pit tells the truth!), the answer was not readily apparent, and so I held out the question – Do I want to do this work? – and examined it further. I turned the question around and around and gave myself the space for my true desire to make itself known. I allowed myself to figure out how I actually felt about pursuing this opportunity.

In the end, I realized I did not want to revise my blog post into an article to pitch to Christianity Today. I realized it was, in fact, the very last thing I wanted to do.

Turns out, striving is still my default mode. After a lifetime of pushing to make progress and striving for measurable results, it’s easy, almost mindless, for me to fall into my old habits and rhythms. Striving is familiar terrain for me (and just to be clear: striving to achieve a goal or make progress is not inherently a bad thing; in fact, it can be a very good, very positive thing. But it’s not the thing I want to do right now). On the other hand, this new place I’m now navigating – this place of writing solely for creative pleasure, of writing toward no particular outcome – is still largely unknown and unfamiliar, which makes it equal parts exhilarating and unnerving.

I am discovering that it takes intentionality to learn to live and thrive in a new landscape. I’m learning to slow down rather than steamroll ahead, to look inward at my own needs and desires rather than capitulate to what I think I should do or what I assume is expected of me. I’m learning to ask myself probing questions and then allow the time and space to listen for and hear the answers that come from my soul.

I’ve done some dramatic pruning in my life over these past several months, and while it’s been a fruitful, space-making, life-giving process, and I generally like the results, it’s also taken some getting used to. I am, in many ways, getting reacquainted with myself. I am still navigating this new landscape of me.

 

Why Your Passion Doesn’t Have to Be Your Job

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This morning on the way to school, my son Noah, who is a senior and deep into the college application process, mentioned he might want to attend the University of Nebraska here in Lincoln. “That way,” he said, “even if I live on campus, I can still come home to take care of my plants.”

I bit my tongue to keep from blurting, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!” I mean, really — who selects a college based on its proximity to their houseplants?

Well, the answer is: Noah does. Because plants are Noah’s passion.

Noah started collecting plants almost before he could speak in complete sentences. This is the kid who, when he was a preschooler, sat on Santa’s lap at the mall and asked for the book Designing with Succulents for Christmas. I’ve never seen a Santa Claus look so utterly baffled as I shouted out from behind the velvet rope, “It’s a gardening book!”

The shelves in Noah’s room are lined with succulents and cactus. A rubber tree is staked near the window, and a dracaena marginata sits adjacent to his nightstand. In the early mornings, a fuchsia glow seeps from the crack beneath his bedroom door, light from the “grow lamp” he bought for his candelabra cactus. When I went to Honduras this summer, I texted him photos of giant agave clinging to the rocky hillside. I know my son; he prefers pictures of plants over people.

I thought about all this in the car this morning after Noah made his declaration about choosing a college that’s close to his houseplants. “That’s fine; I get that,” I finally said (diplomatically). “But you know,” I added, “I’m surprised, given how much you’ve always loved plants, that you don’t want to major in botany or horticulture. Plants are your passion, so why wouldn’t you want to major in something that would lead to a career working with plants?”

Noah has told us that he wants to pursue a major in the humanities. He’s mentioned English, German and history as possibilities; he insists he’s not interested in science, in spite of his obvious proclivity toward plants, the environment and nature.

“What about botany? What about forestry? What about environmental studies?” my husband and I ask from time to time. We’ve always expected, assumed, Noah would pursue something planty, something sciencey. Which is why I asked him this morning, “Why? Why wouldn’t you pursue something that is so obviously your passion?”

Noah shrugged. “Your passion doesn’t always have to be your job,” he answered.

Photo credit: Curt Brinkmann

Photo credit: Curt Brinkmann

I wrote my first book, Spiritual Misfit, 12 years ago (it was published in 2014, but it was written long before that). It took me two years to write the first draft of that book, during which time I would awaken before dawn, pull on my red fleece robe and a warm pair of socks and traipse down to the basement, where I hunched over the keyboard for an hour or two while my preschooler and toddler slept.

During those early mornings, tapping out words on the basement computer, I lost all track of time. The world did not exist during those hours. Time did not exist. My responsibilities and the demands of my daily life did not exist.

There was no blog (that came later). I didn’t have a Facebook account, Twitter hadn’t gone mainstream and Instagram didn’t yet exist. I didn’t know what a “platform” was. I wasn’t thinking about “felt need” or audience. I didn’t know anything about proposals or querying or agents. Sure, I had dreamy hopes that maybe someday I would publish whatever it was I was writing, but that all seemed very vague and very distant.

Mostly I wrote because both the process itself and what it revealed was intriguing to me. I wrote because through the process of writing, I discovered important things about myself, and I was curious to uncover more. I wrote because writing revealed myself to me. And because it was fun. Writing the first draft of Spiritual Misfit was a pure, undiluted pursuit of passion.

“Creative fields make crap for careers, but creative living can be an amazing vocation,” writes Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic.

This may not be true for everyone. I’m sure there are plenty of people, Gilbert herself included, who are able to successfully meld their passion and their career into one fulfilling, delightful pursuit. I have learned, though, that I am not one of these people.

Over the last ten years, writing morphed from my play and passion into my profession. It was a slow change, so slow I didn’t even recognize what was happening. I think maybe for a little while I was able to have it both ways — a passion that was also my profession. But over time, the demands of my profession — platform-building, meeting a “felt need,” mainaining social media, growing an audience, tracking sales, speaking, attending conferences, managing launch teams, writing book proposals and articles — edged out my passion bit by bit, until finally, like the moon covering the sun in a total solar eclipse, it obliterated it entirely.

Today I find myself in a different place. I have a job that I like and find fulfilling but is not my passion. The professional demands that strangled my passion for writing have fallen away. I am not building a platform or writing for a particular audience or striving to address a “felt need.” I do not feel the need to be productive with my writing. I’m not thinking about branding or messaging. I deleted my professional Facebook page, and I post on Instagram when I feel like it. I’m writing what I want to write about — and when I hear myself saying, “That’s selfish,” I tell myself, gently, “No, it’s not.”

Once again, I am remembering why I like to write. I am remembering that writing is fun and helps me feel more deeply alive. Most of all, I am remembering what I knew 12 years ago when I wrote the first draft of Spiritual Misfit in my basement, which is exactly what Noah clarified for me in the car on the way to school this morning.

I am remembering that my passion doesn’t have to be my job.

Photo credit: Curt Brinkmann, Life’s A Story Photography

What I’ve Learned in the Six Months Since I Left Publishing

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A friend recently asked me what I’d wished I’d known before I published my first book. She may have been asking what I’d wished I’d known about the industry or the culture of publishing, but my answer went in a different direction. “I wish I’d known how deep my desire for approval and recognition was,” I told her. “I wish I’d known myself well enough to recognize that a career in publishing wouldn’t be the very best fit for me, for who I am.”

I knew I was Type A. I knew I was an overachiever with a deep desire to be successful. But I didn’t know how deep my desire was to be validated, recognized and known.

Turns out I had to learn that the hard way.

I would have much rather learned about my shadow side from a distance – who wouldn’t, right? But it doesn’t often work that way. We learn who we are not by holding ourselves – our good parts and our flawed parts – at arm’s length, but through real, lived experience, which more often than not includes struggle, pain, tumult, disappointment and failure.

My shadow side was only fully revealed when I was deep into my vocation as a publishing writer. And I was only able to recognize, acknowledge and ultimately confront this part of myself after it had fully emerged – and then only after I realized I couldn’t subdue it or overcome it through my own best efforts.

They say of all the nine Enneagram types, Enneagram Threes know themselves the least well. Apparently this is because we are so busy performing and producing, so busy trying to live up to who we think others think we are, or who we think we should be, we don’t acknowledge or even recognize who, in fact, we really are.

I can’t speak for other Enneagram Threes, but I can say, for myself, this assessment is spot on. When I page through the journal entries I wrote as I was moving toward my decision to step away from publishing, I see the same words repeated again and again. “Fragmented.” “Disintegrated.” “Fractured.”

It’s obvious to me now. Of course I felt fragmented. Of course I felt disintegrated and fractured. I’d spent so many years trying to be someone other than myself, I’d segmented myself into a million disparate pieces.

I realize this all sounds overly dramatic and more than a little psycho-babbly, but here’s the long and short of it; here’s what I have learned that I hope might be relevant for you too:

When we know ourselves, we are able to recognize and move toward the environments in which we thrive. And, at the same time, when we know ourselves, we are able to recognize and move away from the environments in which we fail to thrive.

Some of us – maybe most of us – will become better at knowing ourselves through trial and error. Some of us will learn more quickly than others where and how we thrive and where and how we fail to thrive.

Some of us will be stubborn. We will try to make ourselves fit into a space or a place that is not right. We will try to change ourselves to fit our circumstances. Ultimately we will fail at this. And ultimately, in failing, we will come closer to knowing our true selves.

Turns out, publishing was too big an arena for me. The public nature of the publishing industry fed my voracious shadow side like gasoline feeds a fire. The more I looked to the publishing world for approval and recognition and the more I pushed myself to be successful and admired and known, the more my ego demanded and the more distant I became from my true self, from the person God created me to be.

My shadow side has not vanished simply because I’ve stepped out of the publishing arena. My desires for validation, recognition and success are still there. The difference is, these desires are not being fueled in the same way and to the same degree. I’m still a Type A overachiever, and this is not inherently a flaw. I still strive to be successful in my work as a writer for The Salvation Army, and I still enjoy the validation I receive from my boss or my colleagues for work well-done. But because my work is not public in the same way, and the arena in which I am working is much, much smaller, my ego stays in check.

Over these last six months I’ve come to realize that there’s nothing I could have done that would have better equipped me to succeed as a published author while at the same time keeping my self whole and intact. I didn’t “do it wrong.” Nor is the publishing industry “bad.” Like a couple with irreconcilable differences, we – the publishing world and I – were simply not good together.

Still, I have no regrets. I haven’t for a moment regretted my decision to leave publishing, nor do I regret the fact that I entered in. The fact is, as Parker Palmer so astutely says, “There are no shortcuts to wholeness.” I learned a lot about myself through the ups and downs of that journey. I am closer to knowing who I am. And still I am learning, learning to recognize and embrace the whole of me – shadows and light, flaws and gifts. I am learning where I fit best – where I thrive and where I don’t. I am learning to live as my best self, the person God created me to be.