We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are
We’ve all been there. Cut off on the highway by another driver who, we are convinced, could only be rude and aggressive, not in a panicked hurry on their way to the emergency room. Feeling snubbed as the person you are waving at walks by, never considering that they might be oblivious to the world around them as they process the news they just received. Leaving a doctor’s appointment having heard mostly confirmation of your fears rather than the hope the doctor was offering.
“We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are,” wrote Anais Nin, in her pithy explanation of this most human of realities. In other words, what we experience in life is almost always colored by how we’re feeling when it happens.
This can be most notable when we’re already stressed or upset or out of sorts. In these moments our inner storm cloud of emotion – for example, the fear that we walked into the doctor’s office with – makes it really hard to see (or hear) reality clearly. We might hear every word that the doctor said, but, like a magnet paradoxically drawing like to like, our fear draws our mind back to the bits of information that confirm it. The weightiness of our inner state makes our experience – whatever it is – heavier than it needs to be.
It does happen the other way, though. Say you’re driving along, singing to a great song, smiling as you remember the happy thing that just happened. When the driver cuts you off, you might be more forgiving in your immediate response, perhaps wondering where they’re going in such a hurry. Or when your friend walks right past you, you might call out and say with a smile, “Hey! Didn’t you see me?” and have a lovely little chat. Your upbeat state of mind has made you more resilient and curious.
What is going on when this happens?
What is happening is that we are projecting our own state of mind, our own emotional state, onto everything we experience. So is everyone else around us. In his Yoga Sutras, Patanjali teaches that when our consciousness is disturbed, our mind tends to identify with the images it creates. (YS 1.4)[1]
What disturbs our consciousness? Patanjali calls these disturbances vritti. They are any thoughts, emotions, reactions, or even old patterns of behavior that affect the way that we experience the present moment. What are the created images that our mind tends to identify with instead of reality as it is? They are the little colorations and slants of meaning that we give to the events that happen to us. In our opening examples, the vritti could be the mood we’re in when the car cuts us off, or the fact that, when we were little, our sister used to give us the silent treatment when she was upset with us. Neither of these vritti has anything to do with what is actually happening now and everything to do with how we’re interpreting what is happening.
In these same opening examples, Patanjali’s “images” are the rudeness and aggressiveness that we perceive from the driver who cuts us off. They are the snub we perceive from the friend walking by us. They are our sense of having received all-bad medical news. It is important to remember that these images can limit our ability to be forgiving, curious, and comforted in the wake of the same events.
It is even more important to remember that the “images” created by our emotional and mental state feel very real. They feel true. So much so that our mind will often have an easier time accepting them than reality.
What can we do about this? Just call it what it is
This is why I have come to love saying to myself, “Whoops! I’m having a vritti!” This is a way for me to create a little separation from that which is coloring my view of what’s happening – be it negative or positive. This small separation allows me the space to at least consider that there might be another perspective.
It’s the ability to notice that you’re upset or cheerful or defensive or compassionate or hurt or curious that a mindfulness practice such as yoga offers us. This clarity frees us from the power of our vritti. Not in a way that leaves us vritti-free – that would be an awfully drab way to experience life. But free to consider a perspective greater than the small one created by our own ever-shifting state of mind. This freedom helps us to better navigate both our vritti and our lives.
So, the next time you get cut off, or ignored, or find yourself fixating on only part of a message, ask yourself if you might be having a vritti. Because you’re human, the answer will likely be, “Yes!” And because you’re now a human seeing clearly that you’re not seeing clearly, chances have just increased that you might soon be able to see what’s going on a little more clearly!
An old familiar song conveys the results of such a practice better than I ever could. Sing it with me (I’ve changed one word) – I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I can see all vritti that are in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) sun-shiny day. It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) sun-shiny day.
With practice you can have many more bright, bright sun-shiny days indeed!
[1] But when there is movement (vritti) in our consciousness (citta), the mind tends to identify with the images it creates. YS 1.4