The stories we tell (about) ourselves:

As I was updating my website, I decided to archive my old blog posts so I could re-upload them on the new site, and in doing this I came across my first blogpost - it was an introduction to myself, and as I began reading over what I had written (only a year and a half ago!) I started to cringe a little. 

It’s not that I’ve changed massively as a person in that time (although I do believe our identities are ever-evolving and I’ve certainly learnt a lot since then), it’s just that I felt this wave of internal discomfort at the parts of my story I chose to tell, and by extension, the parts I left out. The things I thought were relevant or that I thought you should know. The things I thought you wanted to hear. 

We tend to skim around the uncomfortable stuff, and present what we hope is a likeable version of ourselves, because we have this intense desire to be liked. That tends to mean we share the surface layers of ourselves, rather than the source of who we are. I'm not so sure that’s the right thing to do any more, sharing a careful composite of myself to the internet. And that’s not to say I’m here to unload all of my flaws here either.

Truth is, we’re all complex human beings, and we have this tendency to cling on to the stories that we use to define ourselves. These stories form themselves around, and are informed by: our memories, our trauma (we all have it in some form or another), pain, fears, secrets, dreams and desires.

And sure, all of this shapes who we are in a sense; these deeper layers (the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, but that we are more reluctant to share with others) are intimately tied to the surface layer of stories we tell about ourselves; the things we define ourselves as: name, age, gender, occupation, relationship status, religious/spiritual beliefs, where you’re from and where you live, achievements you’ve made, the things you’ve overcome and what you’ve done. 

Although these are the things we use to tell people about ourselves, these stories don’t actually tell us all that much about a ourselves, rather, they reinforce the idea of who we think we are. Relying on our past to create a sense of identity tends to reproduce the same old thought patterns, habits and behaviours, and when we do this, we become stagnant. Living in the past means you can’t move forwards. I’m far more interested in our potential as human beings than our past. Who we are right now and how we show up in each moment is what defines our potential, not our past experiences and the markers of our surface layers.

So I suppose my question is this: Does my story matter to you? It shouldn’t really. What matters in this context anyway, is that I can share with you what I have learnt, and am still learning, through the practice and study of yoga. Surely my movement background and my experiences during and after University are kind of irrelevant in this space?

Part of the inner-work of yoga, svadhyaya, or self-study, involves stripping away the layers of our identity in order to discover our true nature, beneath all these layers. This is about seeing behind the veil of maya, the illusion that leads us to perceive reality as chaotic and separate, to discover the truth about who we are; part of an intricately connected collective consciousness, at one with everything.

The dissonance!! What I’m trying to teach you (that you are not defined by the stories you tell about yourself) is at complete odds with the very first post I chose to share on my blog, a story about myself.

What I’m trying to say is that this is not about me. It shouldn’t be about me. This doesn’t mean I want to hide or conceal anything from you, I will share from my experience when it is relevant in sharing a lesson or something that can be of value to you, but I am doing myself, and you, a disservice if I decide to pick and choose the parts of me I want to present, give you an idea of who I am and let you believe this is me. Because it’s not. I am not my stories or my experiences, and neither are you.

Let’s be open to the possibility that we are not static. That we are not a set of fixed circumstances that create a predictable future. We are limitless beings, brimming with infinite potential just waiting to be discovered and harnessed.

So let’s turn this around. Who are you? Without the stories you tell (about) yourself? Behind the layers of identity?