My Ex-Wife Told Me I Was Vacuuming Wrong. Years Later, I Recognized It Wasn’t About the Vacuum.
Growth begins where blame ends
“Projections change the world into the replica of one’s own unknown face.” — Carl Jung
“Here, hold it like this, and then move it around like that.”
She followed her instructions by taking control of the vacuum and demonstrating her ideal operation.
Standing next to her, I felt my shoulders tighten. My head dropped in resignation. A red-hot rage swelled in my chest. I exploded.
Once the tension dissipated, we talked it through and she explained that she “was only trying to help.” But I didn’t perceive it that way. At all.
Instead, from my vantage point, this was the millionth example, scattered across the landscape of our entire relationship, of feeling like I was falling short in one way or another—even when attempting the most mundane tasks, like vacuuming.
This inadequacy resulted in a repeated cycle of me seeking her approval, feeling resentful when she inevitably didn’t recognize my contributions, and then retaliating in some dysfunctional, anger-fueled way. And after decades of this exhausting, rinse-and-repeat dynamic, it played a key role in our eventual divorce.
But I’ve come to recognize that she wasn’t my enemy; she was simply my mirror.
Whether it was my repeated inaction when addressing my career dissatisfaction at the time, healing my traumatic relationship with my father, burying my difficult emotions in substance abuse, prolonging toxic friendships, acquiescing to buying a fixer-upper house that I hated, or a million other impasses, I projected onto her everything I was unable or unwilling to engage, and she just reflected them right back to me.
In other words, however flawed the execution, she was trying to provide me with exactly what I was subconsciously asking for: direction. But instead of recognizing that reflection, I placed all of my unhealed parts onto her, gave her permission to enable me to remain stuck in a place of always seeking but never achieving, and then retreated to anger when she continuously prodded me to stop escaping from myself.
But this dynamic didn’t only form the scaffolding that supported our relationship. It also buttressed my entire existence. So, when we parted ways a few years ago, my life completely collapsed. Divorce, living apart from my children for the first time, a death in the family, career dissolution, the ending of decades-long friendships, and a brief stint in a behavioral center, all in a matter of months.
And although I’d practiced for years, when The Universe flung me into this process of stripping away everything that no longer served me, I viewed mindfulness as a way to escape. To feel better. To pause the agony, the despair, and the self-loathing.
However, now that the dust has settled, I recognize it’s perhaps the most potent way to get my hands dirty. Make a mess. Deconstruct.
Only by leaning into my “negative” emotions, understanding the internal states that manifest them, and recognizing how they subsequently impact my external behaviors, could I rebuild an unshakeable foundation.
Because if I’ve learned nothing else, it’s that all I really “own” while I’m alive are my actions, and all that’ll remain of me when I’m gone are the manifestations of those actions. It’s the ultimate lesson of the importance of taking responsibility for my actions, and not placing that burden on others’ shoulders.
Therefore, if I want to move through the world with authenticity now and leave behind a legacy of genuine presence and emotional courage later, it’s of the utmost importance that I understand on a fundamental level what dictates how I show up in the world.
Granted, this isn’t an erasure of the real harm that people cause each other, including the harm I’ve caused while I walked in darkness.
However, it does allow me to own my responses to that pain and suffering on a much deeper, more intimate level. In this way, I understand how my actions are not necessarily about my relationships to others, but about my relationship to myself.
Ultimately, the vacuum was never really about the vacuum.
It was about whether I could finally stop running from the mess I’d left behind in every room I’d ever occupied.
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