Hi Marye,

You ask...

"how do I distinguish whether I am dealing with a tightness/ego disguised as a pull or a genuine pull from the soul?

That's the priceless spiritual question for walking the path!

Now here's the thing, the ego mind tends to want an immediate answer to any question and goes into a spin if it can't get one. To encourage the soul, is to hold the question in an open space, without needing an answer.

I sense your paralysis is happening because you're used to the immediate answer and when one doesn't come, it kind of strangles the moment. Whereas the soul is wanting to just be open and vulnerable in the not knowing.

This reflects the constant dynamic that people will experience on the path: an authentic expression of the soul wanting to come through, which is then owned and suppressed or distorted by the ego.

So how to work with this?

Get used to identifying inner tightness. Which could be physical, emotional, fuzziness and frustration of the mind or even higher still - energetic tightness. When you can spot this, then you're touching the purpose of the moment - why you manifested the moment. The tightness is where you need to be.

Feel into it. Open out into it. If the pull is confronting you with this tightness, then you're in the right place.

If you can work into this, surrender and accept, then you can begin to unwind this tightness. Upon which you start to unleash the soul through you, felt as a sense of 'rightness' - "this is how to be now", "this is the way to go now."

So get used to holding questions like this but without needing an answer. Then feel into the disharmony inside. You'll begin to make a space for the soul to emerge - felt as this sense of 'rightness'.

Briefly I've outlined the Openhand Approach to walking the path here below...
http://www.openhandweb.org/contents/openhand_approach_openway

And you'll get a great deal more detail in the 5GATEWAYS book here...
http://www.openhandweb.org/5GATEWAYS_book

Namaste

Open