How to change the subtle forces that govern your life
Vasanas, karma and perpetuating cycles
How often do you dream of dramatically changing the direction of your life?
How much do you wish that the changes you make are drastic, work fast, and last long?
And how often do these changes actually happen?
My guess is that the answer to the first two questions is always, and the answer to the last one is never.
The reason behind this is best described with an analogy.
The cargo ship mind
Your mind is like a cargo ship: it’s loaded with baggage that weighs you down. It gets pulled in conflicting directions in stormy seas. And all you have to control it is a tiny propeller and rudder, which means that drastic, fast changes are just not possible.
A cargo ship simply can’t dart around like a jet ski.
In this analogy, there are 2 main things you can do to improve your chances.
First, you could try to increase the size of your engine and rudders. In terms of the mind, this is like using more sheer willpower to force a change in direction. But it also means burning through lots more fuel, which is unsustainable.
Second, you could try and offload your cargo ship, or make it smaller and more nimble. In terms of the mind, this is like dumping the baggage that holds you down, and deconstructing the [toxic preconditions] and limiting beliefs that keep you stuck in the same place. The best way to do this is meditation. But again, this takes time. Years.
But there may be a third way. A way to at least start making small, almost imperceptible changes that transform the direction of your life whilst you work on the first 2 ways in the background.
This third way requires only a small amount of two qualities: observation and surrender.
The foundation: surrender and observation
Think of surrender and observation as the conditions that make transformation possible. They are the ground work from which sustainable and positive change grows - the quiet forces that eventually enable you to move from negative cycles that keep you stuck, to positive cycles that move you forward.
Surrender
It requires you to surrender to the fact that for now at least, your life is governed by forces more powerful than you can understand or control.
You have, and are subject to, subconscious drives, motives, cyclic behaviours that dictate your life more than you think.
In Vedic spirituality, these drives are called vasanas, and they arise as a result of the accumulation of past actions and behaviours (karma). They are the unseen tides beneath the surface of the mind - moving us when we think we’re the one’s steering.
Observation
Once you’ve surrendered to the fact that you have these vasanas, the next step is to observe them. To see how subtle they are, how intricately connected they are, and how they govern your life.
Here’s a simple example of how the subtle forces of vasanas can play out.
It’s a Monday morning and you get a problematic email from work.
You feel emotionally challenged by it and subconsciously, your mind ruminates on the problem.
Thrown off kilter, you get less work done, and take the stress with you to sleep.
You sleep for only a few hours, and without thinking you reach for caffeine to get you through the day. In an instantaneous moment your mind also subconsciously rationalises that you don’t have time to meditate or work out, because you’re too busy and too tired.
You end the day feeling wired, with no outluet to dissipate the stored up stress and restlessness.
As the week continues, your mind becomes increasingly restless and unfocused, culminating in being frazzled by Friday.
You promise next week will be different, but it never is.
Here, it’s clear how small, subtly habitual reactions to situations (vasanas) snowball into an uncontrolled spiral.
Negative perpetuating cycles
What I’ve just described is something I like to call a negative perpetuating cycle (NPC). NPCs make it more likely that the next action you take is suboptimal. Things keep spiralling in the NPC until you feel like the only thing that can fix you is a drastic change.
But we’ve seen why that never works with your cargo-ship mind.
In truth, the only way you can control the spiral of an NPC is with a spiral of a postive perpetuating cycle (PPC).
Fight the compounding with compounding. Fight exponential with exponential.
Positive perpetuating cycles
PPCs are the exact opposite of NPCs. On the surface, they might just seem like tiny habits or small steps that all the other productivity gurus talk about.
But the difference is subtle. Instead of asking “What small action can I take to improve my life”, you ask:
What positive action can I take now that will make other positive actions more likely in the future?
That question changes everything. It sets you up for compounding in the direction of peace, steadiness and alignment. And ultimately, the compounding can match your NPCs, and tip the balance in favour of positive changes.
Here are some examples of actions that feed into PPCS
Even a small amount of exercise or movement will help you dissipate pent up energy, making restful sleep more likely.
More restful sleep brings more emotionally stable the following day.
More emotional stability means you’re more likely to be able to handle adversity in healthy ways, and not escape ito vices like comfort eating, or doom scrolling
Meditating even for 10 minutes can help you notice that you are able to sit with negative emotions without trying to avoid them or make them go away
This makes it more likely that you will be able to handle the negative emotions that might arise when you need to do important work to change your life (fear, uncertainty, the pain of doing non-pleasant but necessary things)
You start to take the small but necessary steps to make your life better
You notice that accomplishing these small steps feels good.
You go to sleep with some sense of progress and accomplishment, which reduces the likelihood of a stressful, sleepless night.
… and the cycle continues
How to break negative perpetuating cycles and foster positive perpetual cycles
Over my time experimenting with this, I’ve found that the best place to break NPCs and implement a PPC is where the small PPC action is the exact opposite of the action you take in the NPC.
For example, I noticed that I had a tendency to reach for cheap dopamine at the end of my work day - doomscrolling, Netflix, comfort eating - all of which left me feeling worse and made it harder to sleep.
Instead, the small action of going for a 10 minute walk to soak in a new environment felt like a small reset that I needed after work. It shifted my state just enough to improve the chances of choosing more nourishing activities to fill my evenings, and feel more ready for a good night’s sleep.
This is just one example, but the beauty is that there are probably 10-20 obvious places where you could implement similar tiny changes.
Over time, you’ll tip the balance of likelihoods in your favour - and the changes you want to make become inevitable.
In the end
As a final point, the most important thing here is to surrender, observe, experiment, and iterate. The ship doesn’t turn with force. It turns with delicate awareness, patience, and steady adjustments of the rudder.
Surrender, observe, experiment iterate. 🙌
The fact that it makes logical sense really gives it more value to me. Thanks!