Prana Flow Yoga

Last week, I asked my students to ponder the question: “Who am I?”  I asked them to dive beyond the obvious, beyond their names or the names of the cities where they reside or the states they originally came from, into the layers beneath the surface of their identities.  Of course I didn’t want them to answer me verbally, but I wanted to give them the opportunity to reflect on themselves.

What happened for me was much more unexpected…

I never give my students information or a reflection that I would not also take seriously, so I too have been reflecting on the question: “Who am I?”  What I found myself doing was listing paths to an end, such as scientist, school teacher, yoga teacher, mother, and wife.  First, I got frustrated with my inability to dive deeper when I asked myself: “Who am I?”  But then I realized that I needed to figure out why I could not release my mind from these “positions” of myself.  What I decided was that I have been defining myself by what society dictates as acceptable social practice.  For example, when you meet someone new at a party of many unfamiliar people what is usually the first question you engage someone with?  Hmm…could it be “what do you do for a living?”  (I can see you all nodding in agreement right now, maybe even picturing yourself in this situation.)  Knowing this, I finally figured out why I kept answering my own question of who I was with career positions, like scientist, teacher, etc; it was because in social settings everyone defines themselves by what they do, not who they actually are!

Okay, let’s put the ego aside for a moment, and dive beneath the layers.  Who are you…as a person, deep inside your soul?  Can you be more than what society dictates (or judges) you should be?  This contemplation is NOT about what society says you should be, but actually who you are?

I sat for periods of time thinking to myself who am I underneath all these layers of skin and bones, I searched my soul to define myself.  I am not a scientist, but I am a living breathing soul that is curious about the world in which I live.  I like to ask questions like “why” and “how.”  I am not a school teacher; rather I am empathetic to those people needing help.  I am not a yoga teacher; instead I find myself part of a collective of minds who likes to search deeper into our beings where not even philosophy can satisfy its own desires.  I am not a wife or a mother; rather I am someone who can fall ever so deeply in love with the creation of life.

Instead of defining myself by asking “Who am I?,”

I unraveled the mysteries of what is means to BE – my un-defining self.