Conversations with my therapist- Expression of the self.
My home help was on leave. I did everything that I usually do, give the kids a bath, get them ready for school, take my dog for a walk and so on. These are things that I do even when my home help is around; they get done before she comes to work for the day. I did not do anything extra that day. My wife did 150% to compensate for the home help’s absence and by the end of the day, she was irritable as hell. When she snapped at me for something , I asked- ‘why did you not ask me for help. I would have washed the vessels if you had asked me, instead of doing all the work by yourself.’
‘Is this not your house? Is this not your family? Why should I ask? You know that all of this anyway have to be done when we don’t have our home help. Why could you not have proactively helped?’, my wife asked. It was a straightforward honest question. I was like- hmm, that’s pretty obvious isn’t it? Why the hell did she have to ask me? Why could I not have taken responsibility?
This is a pattern I have at work as well. I don’t proactively take things up. I prefer being asked to do something and I then do it well of course. I might proactively volunteer, but I don’t feel the same level of ownership as I would when I’m officially assigned something. This has obviously slowed down my career growth.
I explained this to my therapist. I told him I wanted to understand how I can break out of this pattern.
My therapist (MT): What activities do you do proactively? Activities for which you don’t need any prodding.
Me: (after thinking for a bit) I can’t think of anything.
MT: What about walking your dog?
Me: I do it without any prodding. However, if I could find a dog walker, I would gladly offload it.
MT: What about your writing? You’ve started writing. Do you do it without anyone prodding you to do it? Do you enjoy it? Do you write because you want to, as an expression of your ‘self’?
While I had started writing after a lot of prodding by my wife and my therapist, it’s not that they’ve been asking me to write every post. I recollected the previous article that I had written. One of my office calls had been cancelled. My wife and kids were not at home. Typically, I would have scrolled through YouTube or Instagram aimlessly, or would have read a book (which is much better than scrolling through YouTube of course). However, I just took my phone out and started writing; wrote non-stop for 30 minutes.
Probably writing was an expression of my self? The self that I’m referring to here is not the socially-conditioned ‘me’. It is the my inner self that I’ve forgotten. The inner self from where intuition arises. The inner self that is trying to guide me and all I have to do is listen. Of course, it’s not easy to separate mind’s clutter from your inner voice, but you somehow know. You feel your inner voice, while with mind’s clutter, it’s all about thoughts and thinking. I think I’m tapping into my self more as I write. As I thought more about this, it struck me that there have been hints in the past about my connection with my self. I’m not much of a poetry guy. I haven’t read a lot of poetry and I had never written one until recently. One fine day, as I was putting my son back to sleep, a poem came to my mind, in my local language, my mother tongue. It was just a couple lines, but I’d never had an experience like that before. It was early in the morning. I quickly took out a notebook and wrote the first two lines down, and the rest of the lines just flowed spontaneously. I had a similar experience another morning when I was looking at a flower on a tree that’s visible from my balcony. I wrote it down immediately. Again, it was just the first one or two lines, and as I picked up my pen, the rest just flowed. I wrote a couple more later in English as well, but those were more about my state of mind at that time. I will cover these poems in a separate post, but these were probably hints to indicate that writing might be a form of my self expressing itself.
My therapist though had a broader question. Can you do everything with the same feeling you have when you write? Can anything you do be an expression of your ‘self’? Even if you are washing vessels, can you do it as an expression of your ‘self’, he asked.
I wasn’t sure. I asked him what he meant.
MT: Do you believe that your inner self is a manifestation of the universal self (the universal force, nature, god; however you want to call it, if you believe in it. I do)
Me: Yes.
MT: If you genuinely believe that you are the universal self, how will anything that you do be?
Me: Excellent?
MT: Yes. Whatever you do, connect with your body (which is an exercise I typically do to ensure that I am in the present moment and not lost in my thoughts), remember that you are the universal self and give it your best. Whatever you do will turn out great.
It sounded great.
MT: The idea is that if you are connected with the present moment completely, and you do any activity as an expression of your ‘self’, it will no longer feel like drudgery. Yes, there will be resistance to start an activity that you don’t like, but once you start, you will forget the resistance. The more you stay connected with your body, to the present moment, to your ‘self’, your patterns will dissolve.
I wake up every morning and remind myself that the universal energy also flows through me. I am unable to stay in the present moment always, but even the brief durations I’m connected to the present moment feels like a great improvement.
One of the exercises my therapist has been asking me to do, is to do everything consciously. When I’m walking, be conscious that I’m walking, when I’m eating, be conscious that I’m eating. Remind myself that I’m in place A doing activity B; I’m now standing in my kitchen making coffee; I’m now pouring it into a mug; I’m now hearing something that my wife is telling me; I’m now responding to her. Feels mad? Yes it is, and almost impossible to do continuously. However, that’s fine. It’s natural to forget, but even if you remember to do it five times a day, five will become 10, 10 will become 100, and it will become more natural to be in the present moment. If you do this continuously, in a few weeks most of your patterns will lose strength. I’ve not crossed the 5 times a day mark yet, but I’ve also not made a determined attempt. I had originally stopped writing this post with the previous paragraph, but I felt like I had to write about this. It just came to my mind and I opened the post again to write this paragraph. Probably that’s my self telling me that it’s time to make a determined effort to stay in the present.
PS: The featured image is a painting that I did for this post. It means ‘universal energy flows through me’. Watercolour on paper.