I had a day from hell on the 11-11-11-11, (1) all caused by triggered vasanas, one after the other after the other.
For that reason, the subject of vasanas (or core issues) has been very much on my mind. I’d like to look at one in particular today.
I recall so many times over my short life (2) thinking that I’m not brave enough to confront the social tradition that says “you made me mad.”
In my eyes, the biggest untruth among our collective coping skills is that phrase.
Why is that? Well, you’d have to slow the camera down and increase its depth to see why. If you slowed it down, you’d see that what you said reminded me of something.
To see what it reminded me of, you’d now have to increase the camera’s depth.
There in the past, you’d see a child at the moment when something was done to them. They fell off a cliff; they got kicked by a horse; they spilled coffee over their brand new computer.
That moment in time is frozen. That moment in time will never be forgotten. Je me souviens. (3) Lest we forget. (4) These are our attempts to fix and freeze memories of social trauma and heroism in our memories. These lie over top of social vasanas.
OK, maybe 5% of our upset was over what “they” said to us. But 95% is over our memory of the earlier similar and painful incident, whose memory is being triggered.
When a vasana is triggered it really does feel as if we’re back in the situation again. We respond as if we’re there. When a projector in a planetarium began to smoke, I, whose mother died in a housefire, found myself up and out of my seat and walking towards the door before I heard someone say “Sit down!” I did not even know I’d got up and was walking. It was as if I awoke to him shouting at me to sit down. So automatic is a vasana.
But back to our triggering statement.
You made me mad. You made me go there, we think. You did this to me.
And of course they didn’t. It’s our memory of the earlier, similar incident that triggered us.
So, by the power vested in me by almighty God to state my opinion, I’d like to see “you made me mad” banished from the lexicon … forever! Send it to another planet that needs the educational value of waking up.
There. I’ve discharged my duty. I’m done.
I’ve compensated for decades of refusing to face the issue head on. I’ve redeemed my sense of what needs to be done. I make me mad. No one else has the power.
Footnotes
(1) In numerology, I’m convinced that a 2 reduces to an 11 and a 4 to a 22 if the individual is srong enough to anchor those vibrations. hence Nov. 11, 2020 becomes 11-11-11-11. But I’m no expert in Numerology.
(2) Well, it seems short: “Is that it?” I keep saying to myself.
(3) Symbolizing French-Canadians remembering the time when they were independent and undefeated; French colonial forces were defeated by the British on the Plains of Abraham, outside Quebec, Sept. 13, 1759.
(4) Remembering our war dead and their sacrifice.