A short powerful video has lit up every single cell in my mind, body and spirit.

It is one minute and 37 seconds that changed my day.

Maybe my life.

Who am I?

As a writer, yogi and spiritual seeker it’s a question I’ve bumped up against and pondered deeply many times throughout my life.

Every time the answer is different.

I still don’t know the answer.

It is ever changing.

Evolving.

Just like I am.

I do know that I am beyond the roles I inhabit of wife, mother, daughter, sister, cousin, aunt, friend, teacher, yogi, writer, reader, woman and human.

I am beyond this body that I inhabit sometimes with resentment.

Sometimes with (a grudging) acceptance.

Sometimes with gratitude and joy.

I am more than the words I write on a given day, in a given moment because once those words are expressed I have changed.

Words change me. Stories change me.

The stories I choose to keep.

The ones I choose to let go of.

I agree with Muriel Rukeyser who said,

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open.” 

My world splits open with every word I write, every word I read, every breath I allow deep into this body of mine.

It splits open with every yoga pose where I am present to exactly who I am in this moment.

Even if who I am is comparing myself to others, judging myself harshly for falling out of headstand or crying on my mat.

Because compassion also splits open my world.

Compassion for who I am in any given moment.

Compassion for who I was then.

For who I may be in the future.

For who I am now, in this one spectacular moment where this one tiny video has split open my world.

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Editor: Travis May

Photo: Christy Fairchild Anderson/Pixoto