A relatively new business partner of mine named Dominic came to town from Charlottesville VA. We spent a couple of days working on a path forward for our new business venture called Here’s My Story. On the second day I picked you up from school and brought you home where we hung out with Dominic while I cooked and grilled us salmon for dinner. You seemed to like Dominic and you played with him in the way that you do, making him daddy (your husband, I was grandpa), making him hold the baby, asking him questions, making him spin you around in my office chair, etc. I was pretty quiet and let you run with him. I was somewhat pre-occupied thinking about our business conversations and at one point you were talking to me and I noticed that my interactions with you were kind of stiff. Like I was aware that daddy hank was under observation. Not that I think Dominic was really observing anything but I just sort of noticed, if only for a moment, that I wasn’t my loose and goofy self. No big deal. We were having fun and I didn’t think any more about it.
We sat down at the dinner table and began eating and talking and such. I did my usual “you need to eat, Evelyn” that I always have to do at this stage of your life, and right in the middle of some stream of something you were saying you blurted out “your’e acting different daddy!”. I stared at you for a second and then looked at Dominic and we both busted out laughing. He said “Oh… are we revealing something here?” and we laughed some more. I asked what you meant and you just repeated it. Because it was a hit (laughter) you said it a couple more times and then it went away.
The truth is, the very moment you said it I felt like I had been caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. As I mentioned above I had already felt I was acting different but of course, it was just in my head. A passing thought of little consequence. But the moment you said it I felt exposed and you crystalized it into reality. I WAS acting differently. I don’t really know why exactly, and I don’t think it was much of anything really, but you saw it and because we’re so intimate you just said it out loud. For only a couple of seconds I was like a deer in the headlights because I knew somehow that the moment of awareness for you was a pretty big deal to me. It was a grownup moment.
Samskara and the Vrittis
I’ve told you that in order to be really good at something you have to repeat it over and over again. This is practice. You hear me say these words, and you say them back to me, but you haven’t really incorporated it as a power yet. There are things you do repeatedly because they’re fairly natural to you, playing family, “work” at Montessori, things you do when you socialize like complement or asking someone’s name. But when it comes to deciding you want to be something and then becoming it, you’re not there yet. You like to say that you’re an author and an illustrator and an artist and a musician, but you don’t “practice” those things in such a way that they become true. This will come, you’re just not there yet.
When something is “practiced” so that it “becomes you”, this is how we make ourselves who we want to be. It’s obvious when it comes to something like practicing piano to become a pianist. But we generally fail to recognize that this is true of EVERYTHING we do. If you practice jealousy you will become a jealous person. If you practice bossiness, you will become a bossy person. The Sanskrit term for this is samskara. It’s often described as “ruts” that you dig in your brain. If you drive down a dirt road in the same place every time, your tires will create ruts in the road. Pretty soon, you can’t drive anywhere but in the ruts because your car will be pulled into them whether you like it or not. It would require great effort and concentration to stay out of the ruts. This is what happens when we “practice” something. If you want to play the piano without even having to think about it, this is good. If you DON’T want to do damage to friendships because of jealousy or envy, but you’ve practiced those things, then this is bad. It will be hard for you NOT to feel jealous even when you don’t want to.
To take this further, YOU are not just one person. You’re many different versions of yourself. A collection of ruts make up a state of mind, and these states of mind are triggered by certain things. We’ll refer to them as “triggers”. For example, smelling a flower in a park can trigger the “contemplative self” or the “content self”. Seeing someone you know being very popular might trigger the “insecure self”. All of the ruts associated with you feeling insecure because people aren’t responding to you like they respond to someone else is a pattern that gets triggered when it becomes “top of mind”. The Sankskrit term for this is vrittis. They are your different selves. They are why you feel on top of the world one minute and crappy the next. The outside world is triggering your different selves and you often don’t even know why. You just feel out of control.
… and back to me
In my life previous to you, I relentlessly pursued my desire to manifest in the real world the things that lived in my head. I lived and breathed to “create” and to get credit for my creations. I discovered the power of “practice” when I was very young and I practiced my way into everything I wanted to be recognized for. Often at the expense of those around me. Throughout my life I’ve neglected others for this pursuit and as a result, have damaged a lot of important relationships. Your mother being one of them. When you were born, I recognized instantly that I couldn’t do that anymore. That I would mess YOU up. For that reason I quit my corporate job and removed myself from the people I wanted to prove myself to. Those people that drove me to compete. I cook dinner, I do the dishes, I limit the work I do to things that don’t “trigger” my obsessive self, the one that locks onto a goal with a death grip and spares no expense. I’ve worked hard to retrain myself, to make YOU my creative outlet. To help YOU manifest into the real world.
I don’t know exactly why I was different yesterday, I don’t know exactly what you saw, but it was a wake-up call for me. Here’s My Story has the potential to be something of great creative value. Something I have a strong vision for and the pull to bring it to life is strong. There is a pending risk that I will sink into my own head and not pay close enough attention to the details that are you. As you get older, I know I have to walk a fine line. I know I have to return to myself to some degree. I have to make more money so I can help you with your future and I have to do it in a way that I’m proud of so I can set a good example. All of this while making the most of every moment I have with you.
When you said “you’re acting different daddy”, you triggered daddy. You brought me back almost instantly. YOU are a trigger for me and don’t ever forget that. So far I’ve been the one triggering your different vrittis. Training you to practice healthy habits. You’ve trained me but without really knowing it. Yesterday I feel like something just blurted out into the open air. Some new level of awareness. I feel like we just jumped up a level. I’m excited to see what’s next.
Recent Comments