Your Repeated Actions
(Samskaras)
I have a bad habit of running late. I am a very early riser, but it seems that no matter how much time I have, I am always trying to beat the clock. It is both intentional and unintentional. “You’re doing it again, Melissa,” I chide myself as I insist on putting on lotion when I have to be out of the house in five minutes. “Why do you always do this to yourself?” I wonder as I thrust myself and my bags into my car and struggle to drive the speed limit, hoping that my first client may be running a bit late too. I cannot say that I have ever seriously tried to change this habit. It suits me somehow. My lifestyle has adjusted to this pattern and the habit reinforces these accommodations. Fitting that essential one last thing in is has become “just who I am,” thank you very much.
Yoga theory has a term for power of habit in shaping who we are—samskaras. Samskaras are grooves in the body-mind that are created over time through repeated actions. This concept, psychologically speaking, reshapes and deepens our understanding of our habits from being merely pesky behavioral patterns that we should have the willpower to change, to a powerful force that has impact on us at material, energetic, and even a spiritual level. In other words, samskaras shed light on the apparent insanity of individuals who repeat self-destructive behavior over and over again, sometimes to the point of bringing about their own demise.
You Are What You Repeatedly Do
Samskaras create material and energetic conditions that strongly influence your current and future patterns of thoughts and behavior. On a material level, let’s think about this in relation to the brain. You may have heard the phrase “Neurons that fire together wire together.” Essentially, this means that through your repeated thoughts and behaviors, you create interstates in your brain—pathways that are paved and easily traveled due to your repeated use of them. You pave these highways, so to speak, by the repetition of certain thoughts and behaviors. The physical aspect of these highways is seen in your brain’s increased myelination and neuronal growth in highly traveled pathways. A positive example of this is a musician who by virtue of repeated practice can allow the music to just flow through her effortlessly. With regard to eating habits, if you were raised in a home where you learned to eat reasonable portions of healthful food, this tendency will be so natural to you that it will be fairly easy for you to maintain this pattern for life. You may get derailed now and then, like gaining the “freshman 15” when you first leave home, but you will likely be able to interrupt the momentum of these bad habits relatively quickly. If, however, you have eaten larger and larger quantities of food over time and grown into a habit of binge eating, this pattern will be recorded in the wiring of your brain and the accommodations your body has made in response to this behavior. In both cases, your past behavior is written in your body and will have an influence on your present and future choices. The energetic field of these patterns, though less tangible, is equally, if not more important, than the material representation. The energetic field has to do with the thoughts and feelings, of which you are often not even aware, that drive and reinforce your behavioral pattern. Inarticulate longings for comfort, the strain of internal tension, and the unbearable weight of shame, fall into the less tangible, energetic field surrounding binge eating.
There are many useful metaphors for understanding samskaras. Sowing seeds in a garden is commonly used. Another metaphor is the image of a vehicle in a field driving in a circular path over and over and over again. The tire tracks would get pretty deep, making each subsequent lap easier. However, a different vehicle coming along with the intention of creating a new track would be hard-pressed to do so—breaking out of the ruts to create a new path on new terrain would take a lot of energy and intention. And this new path would feel unnatural and take a lot more energy to stay on. This is why habit change is so difficult. The grooves in your body and in your consciousness are deep. Staying within these grooves is comfortable, even when you know that the habits are detrimental to your health and well-being. In Iyengar’s words: “In the end, we may accept the situation and just say, ‘It’s the way I am,’ ‘Life always lets me down,’ ‘Things just make me so angry,’ or, ‘I have an addictive personality.’” I phrase it this way: “We collapse into a heap of relief comingled with resigned despair. Maybe next time … ” The problem is, with every collapse, “next time” is all the harder because you have just added to the groove of resignation.
Showing the Samskaras in Action
When I was caught in the samskara of a diet-binge cycle, I remember being desperate to stop my pattern of binge eating. This would be most acute after a binge, when I was suffused in a wake of hopelessness and shame wrought from my behavior. Periodically, I would muster up the resolve to go on a diet, determined this time not to “blow it” by giving in to the urge to binge. I would usually make it two or three days on a calorie-restricted diet. Then doubts in the form of vague whispers that had no words would start to edge in around my consciousness. I would push these whispers away, determined to be strong. Then something would happen. Either the press of hunger would become too much or I would experience something painful in my life that would push me over the edge. My drive to binge would be so strong and intense that I literally felt that I could not stop it. Even at the time, when I desperately wanted to be able to withstand the pull of the habit/samskara, I just could not do it. Relief and despair comingled in my frenzied awareness when I finally gave myself over to the sweetness of consumption.
Fast-forward a few years. I had gone through a lot of growth, having broken the symbiotic tie with my mother by spending a year at boarding school (“I can survive without her!”). I had stopped dieting for an extended period, which allowed me to regain some degree of normalcy in my eating habits. In addition, I had received some psychotherapy and gone on antidepressants. After all this, I had managed to lose about thirty-five pounds and now I was determined to keep it off. I was also determined not to stay on medication, as it threatened to put me in too close proximity to my father, who struggled with significant depression. I had slowly weaned from the medication and was on Thanksgiving break from boarding school, visiting my father in his condo, a community that was largely inhabited by college students. My father’s unit was furnished with furniture from our past life in a country farmhouse, remnants of another world now lost to me. All the symbols of loss stored in this little condo were not in my conscious awareness. Food, however, all that it promised and all that was forbidden, was very present for me. We had gone for Thanksgiving dinner at some woman’s house, one of my father’s many “girlfriends” since the divorce. Her name was Carol. After dinner, my father and Carol went for a walk and I was left alone. I had exerted moderate control during the meal and was both sated and guilty, after all, it was more than usual. I felt drawn toward the refrigerator. I wanted to go and didn’t want to go. There was a promise in there. Something exciting. It was chocolate crème pie that drew me. It is hard to describe both the lust and the pain that marks these moments of self-destruction. After all I had done, after not bingeing
for over six months, after losing thirty-five pounds, the feeling was so strong that it felt like it was a force from outside of me. I was compelled. I got so far as digging the spoon into the cool creaminess of the pie, thrusting the spoon into my mouth, the energy of the binge was pulling me in with a strong, magnetic force. “NO!” An internal thrust gathered and broke through my mind into my body. “No!” I wrenched myself away from the refrigerator and outside into the air. I was full of pain, but also full of victory, because I knew that I had faced and broken the grip of an energy that was both me and not me. I continued to struggle with periodic binges for years after this, but this experience etched itself in my mind, giving me a deep understanding of both the power of samskaras, as well as the possibility of change. Because if you can do it once—break the grip of the samskara, that is—you will more able to do it twice, and then three times, and so on. Once you know you can break the grip, you are also able to right yourself more quickly after a relapse. Please note that my ability to make this break from the samskara did not come out of the blue. I had done a lot of work (therapy, medication, personal growth) that gave me enough strength to dare to pull away from the enticement of its pull. I knew that there was something on the other side of the binge and that I could survive outside the bizarre comfort of the self-destructive samskara.
It is very easy to foreclose in the change process. Rather than seize the moment to effect change, simply solidifying who you are (“addictive,” or “fat”) or blaming the world is comfortably familiar—and much easier than following through. I like to think of these times when you do manage to hold steady as small, invisible moments of tremendous courage. It’s a true victory when through a combination of will, strength, and blind faith, you are able to hold firm in the face of resignation into the old, habitual patterns you have reinforced over a lifetime. As Iyengar states: “Then you build up banks of good nature, bonhomie, openness, nonsmoking, or whatever you want. These form a good character and make our lives much easier.”
The concept of samskaras works in both positive and negative directions. Positive actions are self-reinforcing and open up new possibilities for growth and change. Conversely, every limit that is challenged, or defied, in the negative sense opens up new realms of destructive behavior. When I first started bingeing, I remember being surprised that I had eaten seven pieces of toast. Pushing my limits like this triggered a certain giddiness because, on some level, I knew it was “wrong,” not in a moral sense, but in the sense of defying an invisible law. The giddiness had to do with the need to stand out or make an imprint, a misguided method of self-assertion. Perhaps it was a “you can’t stop me” feeling that egged (and toasted) me on. Then I remember at some later date thinking to myself, “Remember when I thought eating seven pieces of toast was a lot?” Clearly my behavior had escalated. I had habituated to seven pieces, which opened the door to eight, nine, and ten. The same principle applies to any pathological behavior, including drug and alcohol use, sexual addiction, and even violence toward others. We flirt with the boundaries of acceptable/unacceptable behavior and, once titillated, we move forward, even at our own peril.
On the positive side of this equation, when I first started running, I remember being very proud of myself when I completed a mile downhill. I was at a country boarding school and in the evening would run and walk from the main campus to my dorm that was about a mile down a tree-lined dirt road. I didn’t think I was capable of running a mile, but after a few months, I did it! This was a very pleasurable and, at the time, a deeply private accomplishment. It became private after a male acquaintance had scoffed at my efforts, “You think that will do anything for you?” he demanded, secure in his buff physique. This underlines the need for self-validation, to know what is right for you even when others disagree, or even ridicule. Several months later, I completed three miles and I’ll tell you, I was blown away. You’d have thought I had won the Olympics! Years later, running five miles a day was normal, and I could do up to fifteen. So, by stretching my capacities, my sense of who I was, and what I was capable of, grew. My body and its latent abilities and strength led the way.
Exploring Your Body/Food Samskaras
The way you inhabit your body day to day is a habit of Being. How you breathe, how you walk, and how you feed yourself are habits of Being (samskaras) that invisibly reinforce one another. Changing these ingrained rhythms of self-relationship is possible, but it is gradual. A large portion of your identity, how you define yourself, is wrapped up in how you feed and take care of your body. Self-assessments such as, “I have no willpower,” “I am lazy,” “I hate exercise,” “I’m big boned,” are all examples of how you can solidify yourself into a static entity with fixed properties, rather than experiencing yourself as ongoing, unfolding energy that is actually always changing. Aristotle himself put it this way, “We are what we repeatedly do.” This is a radical thought because it means that none of us are fixed entities. Although we are products of our past behaviors and thoughts and it is easy to continue to live out these patterns/samskaras, we are also always unfolding and can begin repeating new behavioral patterns. It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? The seeming simplicity of this is what motivates you to start a new diet or self-improvement plan—“I’ll just do these new things and become new.” And we all know how well that works. It is important to have a great deal of respect for the power of samskaras—they go deep. And as mentioned above, patterns of feeding and caring for your body are particularly ingrained. As unhealthy as your patterns might be, you may still feel possessive and have a strong desire to cling to them. “I’m big boned, dammit!” “I have a big appetite!” “But I love food!” Assessing your core beliefs and behavioral patterns around food and your body is an important initial step in the change process. You must make your core beliefs accessible to your conscious scrutiny so you can challenge those that are dysfunctional. This gives you the power to make more conscious choices and opens up the possibility for change.
I am focusing more on common samskaras for women who struggle with feeling too large and out of control with food. The other side of the coin, which is equally painful and destructive, is being overly controlled and restrictive with food. This might sound like, “I don’t NEED what others do.” “I’m stronger than that.” “Carbohydrates are for sissies.” In our society, women with this brand of samskara are often admired for their “enviable” self-control and discipline. Underneath the tracks of this samskaras is deep alienation from the flow of life. The need to keep strict controls on her body may look natural from the outside, however, it takes constant vigilance that becomes exhausting over time.
Your body samskaras have physiological, mental (thought patterns), emotional, and behavioral components to them. For example, binge eating has a physiological track in your system—perhaps a larger body, less sensitivity to leptin (a hormone signaling satiety), insulin resistance, or a damaged intestinal tract. It has a mental/cognitive aspect having to do with your belief system, such as, “I have no self-control” or “My body is inferior/ shameful.” The emotional component has to do with patterns of helplessness or shame, for example, collapsing into “depression” as a way to foreclose coping responsibly with a problem. The behavioral aspect might be related to patterns of eating alone, hoarding food, planning binges, and alternatively starving and gorging. It is always possible to create new positive samskaras, however, to do so you must first increase your awareness of your existing samskaras and their self-reinforcing components.
Reflections on Your Samskaras
- Think about the physical samskaras that you have created in your body. Imagine how your habits might manifest in your biology. Reflect on your eating habits, your breathing habits, and your movement habits. Patterns of restricted breathing and movement often manifest in an overreliance on food for self-soothing.
- Can you relate to the energetic aspect of samskaras? If you have a problem with bingeing or feeling out of control with food, reflect upon the energetic aspect of this. Do you ever feel like it’s a force that is outside your direct control? Get curious about your experience before overeating: How does it rise in your body? When does it peak? What’s it like to fall into the wave? On the other side, if you tend to restrict food, reflect on your associations to hunger and fullness. When do you feel safe and secure in your body?
- What are some positive samskaras that you have created in your life, either in relation to self-care or something else, like your work or relationships?
- Reflect on some positive habits/samskaras you would like to develop in relations to self-care.
There is a karmic barrier that you need to break through in the process of change. “Karmic barrier?” This may sound a bit grandiose, but it certainly is relevant to my own experience. There is an energetic field around you that defines who you are and what is possible. It is very easy to stay within the safe confines of this force field (think of the tire tracks in the mud). You feel strong resistance to breaking out of your familiar energetic/behavioral patterns. You resist it because it is feels awkward, unsafe, and uncomfortable … “This isn’t right for me,” you say to yourself. To which I reply, “Get over yourself!” “Huh?” you might be saying right now, “that doesn’t sound very compassionate.” But it is, in the sense that I am empathizing with your stuckness and reminding you that the Self you are getting over is just a familiar pattern of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that you have gotten comfortable with. Yes, these intangibles are also mirrored in the tangible stuff of your body, but this too is amenable to change. In fact, my friend, this is exactly where you need to start off, by addressing the realm of the material, the “stuff” you are made of.