Day 12: Seeing Things Through Two Lenses
Reflections on The Five Vrittis and "We see things are we are, not as they are."
There is a quote by Anais Nin: “We see things as we are, not as they are.” I included this quote in Sober Yoga Girl. Yesterday, I was reminded of its depth —when I read the manuscript my ex-husband wrote about our time in Kuwait. Essentially, it’s the same story I wrote in my book, but told through his lens. The experience of reading it was powerful and emotional. It reminded me of how deeply perception shapes our realities.
When I read his book, I was struck by the parallels between our stories after we split up. We have had such similar experiences. What shocked me was at one point, he also quoted Anais Nin: “We see things as we are, not as they are.” That one line, woven into both our narratives, felt like an anchor connecting our stories, even as our stories differed in significant ways.
For example, many times when he described me, he wrote about sadness in my eyes —something I don’t remember. Or maybe I do, when I look back at old photos. He wrote about the ways I was distant in our relationship. Was I really like that? I told a friend, “I don’t remember behaving that way. But I suppose we all tell ourselves stories to make sense of what happened. I must have crafted a narrative that made me feel better about my actions.”
My friend reminded me that two people can have vastly different experiences of the same relationship. Maybe he genuinely felt I was his “robotic girlfriend,” and maybe I felt it was romantic love at the time. Both can be true. “We see things as we are, not as they are.”
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras offer insights into the nature of perception. Sutra 4.15 states:
Vastusāmye citta-bhedāt tayor vibhaktaḥ panthāḥ
The same thing perceived by different minds will have different appearances.
Our perceptions are shaped by our citta (mind), which filters the world through our individual experiences, memories, and emotions. This sutra emphasizes that no two people see the same reality. We don’t just view the world as it is. We project onto it the contents of our own minds.
Reading my ex-husband’s story of our relationship brought this truth into sharp focus. It was so long ago that I don’t even remember some details clearly. But I know he was right about certain things. I was often dissociated, caught up in my own struggles. Most of the time, I wasn’t fully present in the relationship.
I had written him an email immediately after reading the book, but I struggled to sleep last night. I felt so many mixed emotions and feelings, and this morning after waking up I had trouble writing. I went and taught my class (which felt like a terrible class.) And then, I sent him this email while sitting in a cafe, in the rain, which made me tear up:
One more thing—this kept me awake last night. I didn’t say it in my earlier email because I thought it was implied, but I feel like I should explicitly say it:
I’m really sorry.
Yoga philosophy teaches us that the mind is like the sky, and our thoughts are like the weather. These fluctuations of the mind (citta vrittis) are important to understanding ourselves - something that I feel is missing in modern therapy, and something we’ll go into depth in in my Yoga Sutra Study class. I am sure that therapists said stuff like this to me over the years, but no one ever gave me a framework for it, that I could apply myself. And that’s what the Sutras did for me. Patanjali outlines five types of thought waves:
Pramana (Right Knowledge): The truth. This is based on experience, inference, or testimony.
Viparyaya (Wrong Knowledge): Mispercetions or false assumptions.
Vikalpa (Imagination): Fantasy that is not grounded in reality.
Smriti (Memory): Memories that reinforce our beliefs about ourselves.
Nidra (Sleep): Thoughts processed during dreams.
Reading his manuscript triggered four of the thought waves. (It might have also triggered Nidra, but I don’t remember what my dreams were last night.)
Pramana: The manuscript exists; I read his words.
Viparyaya: I told myself, “I was a terrible partner; I’ll never have a successful relationship.” This was a distorted, overly harsh judgment.
Vikalpa: I imagined scenarios where I’d never heal from the trauma of our relationship or be capable of a healthy one.
Smriti: Memories surfaced of moments when I was disconnected and distant. These memories threatened to reinforce a narrative of “I’m a bad person.”
In both relationships and self-reflection, yoga philosophy offers tools to help us navigate difficult emotions.
Ahimsa is the practice of self compassion. I reminded myself, “It’s ok to make mistakes. I’m growing and healing and committed to becoming better.”
Svadhyaya is the practice of self reflection. Understanding patterns, journalling about them, is the way to gain clarity.
Ishvarapraidhana is having faith, and believing that everything that’s happened is a necessary step on the journey of life.
This morning, I hadn’t yet processed all my thoughts around this - and I know that I carried that sadness into my teaching. I wasn’t the same as I was yesterday or the day before. I felt unworthy and disconnected. In this state of mind, I made the mistake of checking Google reviews for the yoga studio where I teach (just don’t do it! Not worth it!) Among a lot of great reviews, I got this review for my class last week:
“Nightclub music”
“No assists”
“Teacher was telling stories I didn’t care about”
“No respect for the profession”
It was a one-star review. My immediate reaction was to spiral: “Everyone hates my classes. I don’t belong here. I’m not a good teacher.” I am well aware that this is an absolutely ridiculous spiral to be in, having sold out yoga retreats around the world this year and graduated many teachers from yoga teacher trainings. But this is where the spiral took me today. I knew enough to do my afternoon meditation, and try to break up the thoughts. I sat in my afternoon meditation long enough to step out of the narrative. Yoga philosophy helped me reframe the situation.
Pramana: The review exists. One person disliked my class.
Viparyaya: “Everyone must feel this way but isn’t telling me.” This is a false assumption. People would not sign up for my retreats if they felt this way.
Vikalpa: “No one will come to my classes again.” An imagined worst-case scenario.
Smriti: Memories of an old negative review resurfaced, amplifying my self-doubt.
Instead of letting the review define me, I practiced grounding myself in right knowledge, pranama, the truth. One review doesn’t erase 10 years of positive feedback - or disconnect me from my love of teaching yoga.
I immediately reached out to two of my yoga teacher friends because I wanted them to stroke my ego and make me feel better. One did, but one I didn’t hear back from for a few hours. As I sat there, I thought a bit about the nature of needing someone to externally give me feedback to fix my self confidence. Maybe this is the issue. I’m letting all these outside influences impact how I feel about myself, and forgetting to just seek it within myself.
Jennifer Pastiloff, in her book On Being Human, shares a story of learning to stop seeking external validation. After one dissatisfied retreat guest leaves her retreat, she changes her whole teaching method in response to that women’s complaint - forgetting that there were fifty other people there on the retreat, who liked her style of teaching. (And besides, the one person who didn’t like it had already left!) She seeks external validation by getting drunk that night and gossiping about it to other guests on the retreat. When one of the guests doesn’t pat her on the back the way she wants them to, she has an epiphany.
“No one is going to give me a fucking medal.
I have to give myself one.”
“There it was. My whole life I had been waiting for permission, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be acknowledged, chosen, given permission to take up space. All my life I had been waiting for someone to tell me I was enough.”
She then writes,
“If the woman who left my retreat that time is reading this book, I want to say: If you come back, I hope you’ll stay. I am working on staying, too. It’s hard for me to stay in my body. Staying is hard. Not looking away is hard. And if you don’t come back, I won’t make it mean anything about me. I’ll try not to. I might because I’m human.”
And that’s the humanness about all of this. That woman leaving her retreat wasn’t about her teaching style. It wasn’t personal. The book my ex wrote isn’t meant to hurt me, it’s about him and his healing journey (in the same way the book that I wrote isn’t meant to hurt him, it’s about me and my healing journey). The review written by that person who came to my class last week doesn’t mean that I’m a terrible person and teacher, it just means that my teaching style wasn’t a match for her practice. Perhaps she had a bad day. Or maybe she just didn’t connect with my stories. And that’s okay. I’m a storyteller. I don’t want to stop telling stories just because someone didn’t like them.
I teach the thoughts and the brain and the structure in my Yoga Sutra Study courses, which I’ve been teaching now for many years. And the irony is that I still am over here personalizing things when they’re not about me at all. (And that’s the human experience).
We see things as we are, not as they are.
Patanjali’s teachings remind us that every experience—no matter how painful—is a lesson in the university of life. The regret I felt while reading my ex-husband’s manuscript, reading a harsh review, and the stories my mind spiralled into are all part of my journey. I have to be in continuous practice of remembering that all of this is Prakriti - the material world - and it’s all an experience for me to learn from. Sutra 2.21 touches on this. Tadartha eva drsyasya-atma. The purpose of the known is only for the soul to see. (Or simply - Everything that exists is just for us to learn).
By embracing these moments as opportunities for growth, I have an opportunity to honor my past, and the space I have left to grow.
The practice of yoga helps me come back to the truth.
“Because happiness is an inside job; worldly success is an inside job; and peace of mind is an inside job. Love is an inside job, too. At the end of the day, we all live inside our own heads, in our own bodies, in our own hearts. If we’re not happy within ourselves, life can be pretty miserable.” - BJ Gallagher
Alex, this reminds me a lot of when I went to therapy during my divorce, the therapist use Cognitive Behavioural Therapy with me which when reading about the Sutras here seems similar to that. Yet I find it much more relatable hearing how you’ve explained it than how my therapist at the time did, which was very clinical and analytical, not helpful for my brain. And you relating this to life stories helps me process this much easier and I believe it’s time for me to delve into this thought pattern thinking. Thanks for sharing!
Wow Alex, your authenticity and vulnerability sat in my heart for a while. However, your wisdom shone through your writing, and this wisdom can benefit all who read it, all who engage with you, all who meet you. My learning on your sutra course is helping me with two of the most important relationships in my life, the one with my husband, and the one with myself. Thank you. Your humanity and compassion will continue to shine bright in this world, and if your light dims slightly on some days that is perfectly fine. If it was not so, who would you be, and how could we ever aspire to follow your lead? With gratitude, your friend and student, Carolyn