View this post on Instagram

 

I lost myself trying to please everyone else. Now, I am losing everyone while I am finding myself.

I read these words, and they really struck a chord with me for a few reasons.

So many know me as a yogi, but what makes up this human? “Who is the human behind the yogi?” I ask myself.

At the deepest level, I came here online to heal, as the creative process is a healing one that arises from finding wholeness between the darkness and the light.

When you are the artist of your life, you are a healer. It is a wordless trust of the same mystery.

For me, sharing my teachings, my art, and being human are my art. A wound turned into hope, faith, and a better tomorrow by learning who I always was underneath the surface of all that is.

One of the things I struggle with online/offline is not being able to fully see each other. We see what we each share then change the narrative through our lens of view and our own perspectives.

I have been pleasing others for my entire life. I have been trying to explain myself. I have been feeling the need to apologize, smooth things over, and make it right. It is an endless, exhausting process. And lately, I have been so exhausted.

I have been watching my daughter grow, and her attitude has gone from a sweet eight-year-old to a 16- year-old trying to take over the world and thinking she knows everything.

My mom gave me some advice:

”Stop telling her what to do all the time and see what happens. Parents can be hopeless and believe that they know what is best and how things should be done. My mother used to do it to me all the time, and I would switch off to her voice as I believed I knew how to do it myself. You have to learn from your mistakes so let your daughter make them.”

I have also been trying to be friends with everyone, be understanding of those who do not like me and yet judge me, as well as giving to everyone I see struggling but have forgotten me. It has left me lost in translation and made me question, “Where am I?”

So the last few days, I have sat back offline. I have been trying to recalibrate. I have been taking in my mom’s words, not only as I parent, but as I move online and offline. I do not want to feel my light dim; I want it to shine. And although I share many thought patterns on how we can grow—as an author and a teacher—I am still a work in progress.

And for 2022, my aim is to remember that my light matters, too.

Everyone is amazing and our differences make us beautiful and unique. However, they can only be our super powers if we do not dim our lights and lose ourselves.

So here’s to 2022: remembering that it’s okay to lose others and things in life, but it is never okay to lose ourselves, because in the end, we are the only ones who can make our lives truly beautiful and our own.