Pavlov's Person

One of the most challenging, and rewarding, practices of yoga is self-observation (Svadhyaya in sanskrit; what we call "self-study").  Having the compassion, patience and discipline to honestly watch - without judgment - my own habits, reactions, tendencies (all samskaras.  Remember those?) can be painful, but it is also eye- and heart-opening.

In the spirit of sharing a personal example of the work of self-study, I offer the following anecdote:

The other day, whilst preparing the dog's dinner, I realized how trained I am to respond to beeps/rings/alarms/buzzes.  There I am, chopping up meat and vegetables, spooning up the cottage cheese.  The Buddy's drooling, poor guy, as I carefully go about the business of preparing his meal.  I'm almost done, in fact I'm at the point of portioning out the next morning's meal (after which point he'll get to eat what's left in his bowl for his evening meal), when I hear the buzz buzz buzzing of the dryer.

Immediately my mind goes "Oh!  The dryer!  I should run downstairs real quick and get those clothes out of the dryer."  Finishing what I'm doing will only take another minute, at most, but in my mind the buzzing has created a reaction of "Ack!  A buzzer!  Hurry!  Hurry!  Hurry!  It must be important!".  At the moment my brain registered the buzz, the dryer took priority over the hungry dog.  Thankfully, as soon as I recognized that immediate (and ridiculous) reaction, the part of me that is bigger than my mind gently said "Stop.  Take a moment to see what you're doing.  Do you really want to live at the mercy of buzzers?"

My answer was swift and easy.  The dog was fed and later, when I eventually tended to the clothes, I proceeded to turn the dryer's buzzer off...permanently.  :-)

Comments

[Katie]

Yay for turning off buzzers. I turned mine off as soon as I got the machine. It's also the reason I won't wear a watch, etc. I hate being tied to things that beep, buzz, ring, jingle, or anything else. Good for you!!

[andrea]

"the part of me that is bigger than my mind"

I'm finding that it is harder than I thought to open this part of myself. Of course I am reading your blog because I'm just plain interested in what's going on in your world, but I was more hoping to find some insights on this subject specifically.