Yesterday I was in the back seat of a car for a while. It can be hard to hear the conversation up front from back there, in this case especially because one of the people up there speaks in low tones and volumes. So I was, for the time I was in the back seat, not part of the conversation up front.
In the moment, I noticed that I was feeling left out, that my old “nobody pays attention to me” button was getting pushed and activated, but then I thought that’s a silly old thought that I don’t need to feed into. And besides, the people up front are friends of mine, and when we’re out of the car we will return to our normal three-way conversation. And in the meantime, if I wanted to, I could lean forward and involved myself in their conversation.
Instead, what I did was enjoy a little quiet time with myself to look out the window and notice the countryside, which was new to me anyway. And those “they are ignoring me” thoughts drifted off, the way thoughts tend to when we don’t attach to them.
In this case, though, I must admit that button is not entirely disconnected. While the rest of the day was perfectly lovely, and on the way back I switched seats with the non-driver so that I was literally involved in the conversation up front, the fact is that by that evening, long after I had gotten home, I found myself lost in fantasies of a completely different day, which had never actually happened.
In this imagined day, I was invited by one person to join a group, and the other members of the group either didn’t know I was coming, didn’t want me there, or both. They were dismissive, rude and downright toxic, to the point that I gave a grand speech – respectful but firm – announcing that I was leaving the group and going home, thus relieving all of us of each other’s company. It was quite the speech, I must say, and the person who had invited me actually followed me to apologize. In one version, the rude one said something to which I responded with a fine insult that I no longer recall, but which was eloquent and perfectly delivered.
As you can see, I invested quite a bit of energy into this bizarre little fantasy. But where did it all come from, and why did I get lost in it? I can only assume it came from that brief moment in the back seat when I felt “not a part of,” and even ignored – neither of which was true. But that button got pushed, and I have not really de-activated it, so that internal system kicked into action.
My friends didn’t push any buttons, of course. They just did their thing. And I did mine, which in this case was to activate some old machinery in my head, in response to an imagined sight, I assume so that I could retreat to some familiar victim space and feel both wronged and righteous – old strategies which helped me survive for a while but serve no constructive purpose now.
Ideally, we would disconnect these buttons. For now, it seems, the best I can do is try to let go of the initial response, which in this case meant just see that it was happening, then let it go and look out at the world going by. Later, when it came storming back, I got another chance to observe it, and to observe how attached I still was, that I was even making up situations so that I could go back into old behavior. Another thing to notice and let go of.
This morning, in my meditation, I noticed that when I lost track of my breaths, and I went back to 1 to start over, I had not been thinking about any of this.
So my buttons are not yet disconnected, and perhaps never will be. The progress is that I can still enjoy a day with friends and watch the world go by, even while being a little bit crazy.
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