This is a question I ask every day at Yoga with Nitya Summer Camp for Kids and Teens – Who are you? It’s a deep question to ask someone who is 6 or 9 or 14 years old. Even adults will answer, though, in a similar way. We answer with our name, that we are a boy or a girl, what we do for a living or what grade we are in at what school, and we may say where we live and something about our family. This tells me nothing about who you are.
Who you are is far more interesting.
How you discover that person inside of you, is through daily meditation, journaling, and hatha yoga. Naturally, when you begin such a practice you begin to connect more and more to your true self.
I just finished re-reading the last 16 years of my personal journals. I feel blessed that I have chronicled my life since the age of 10.I have had a pretty clear sense of my self all of my life and I attribute my relationship to myself to my journals allowing me the freedom of self expression, self analysis, self inquiry. Re-reading gives me a measure of how far I have come, how much I have learned, how much I have grown. I can see how life has a rhythm of opposites from celebrations and tragedies, depression and doubt to optimism and hope, births and deaths, beginnings and endings, victories and failures. The one constant is me.
We survive because we all yearn to thrive, to experience, to love, and to hold onto that which we covet most dear.
Meditation calms my mind, forces me to be still and listen within. Hatha yoga allows me to move slowly, easefully in a way that I feel breath and body in union. Journaling is an extention of my self laid bare as I continue to understand my journey and the roles I play and the people riding along with me.
We never stop answering or asking the question, “Who are you?”
We have no beginning or an end, we cycle through life’s journey ever discovering new aspects about ourselves.
For me, all of my life is made more rich with the path of living my Faith. I do not cling or prescribe to one, for they all are a mandala held together by the thread of love.
I am as much a Yogi as a Taoist or an Astrologer or a Mother of the Earth. They all inspire me to do good and be good in service to all.
Who are You?
Please Comment!