Life ebbs and flows. We can really only surf the waves of today, and every day, in each moment, of each day. The practices of yoga, meditation, and related offer options we may have never discovered previously. We learn that leaving old identities and attachments behind, the many labels and titles, is simply OK. Those labels and titles, at their roots, are simply something for the ego to identify with… something to which one can answer the question at parties, “What do you do?"
When we become more interested in who we ARE rather than what we DO, the truth unfolds and we can begin a path to inner and outer freedom. Might be fun. Might meet some challenges along the way.
Much like we avoid the yoga poses that we don’t like, often they are the ones we need to spend more time with to get to the root of the struggle, become strong and supple in both mind and body, access, understand, and “pose” even in the midst of a fiery asana practice. Taking that grounded and expanded “pose” off of the mat into real life, we are then able to have the difficult conversation with a coworker, take an absolute 111% honest look at oneself, truly hold space for another’s vulnerability and transparency, or what’s become an overused analogy, stay sane in Los Angeles traffic.
But the only way to release the old and walk into the new is to first access and then gain an understanding around those darker shadows of our psyche, where the mind goes in the midst of not only challenge, but one’s own realized and unrealized truths, in order to step into the lighter more playful side of life. Yep. Surfing today, every dang day.
Next time someone asks, "What do you do?"
Consider turning that question around, asking yourself, “Who are you?”
Who are “you", when it’s just you. No kids, no parents, no siblings, no personal life partner, no professional partners, no titles, just “you".
Plenty of content out in the world on this with far too many masters to credit.
But earlier this year, a friend turned me onto Eckhart Tolle’s book "A New Earth” which is an incredible revisit to this question, "What Do You Do?", and many more.
If you’re a podcast person, drop into his New Earth series with Oprah HERE.