Who are you?

“Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are.” ~~ Jason Crandell

(My daughter, at last year’s Renaissance Festival)

Well, Halloween is just two days away and before I know it, kids from all over the neighborhood will be ringing my doorbell to get their yummy treats. These are kids that on any normal day, I’d know in a heartbeat. But in two days, I’ll be squinting my eyes, peering at them carefully, trying to figure out who is who. My daughter (shown above) is a kid who starts planning out the next year’s Halloween costume as soon as Halloween is over. And throughout the year, she and her friends love to play “dress up” and pretend they are someone other than themselves.

I have to admit that, when I see her and her friends running around in crazy outfits and costumes, it makes me giggle sometimes. Especially when I see them running around in some of MY clothes and make-up, complete with my high heels. I shake my head, smiling, wondering why in the world they would want to be “adults”.

When kids do this, it’s just one of the ways they go about figuring out who they are and what makes them tick. For those of us who already are adults, how often do you take the opportunity to reflect on your life and think about whether or not you are the person you want to be? Whether or not the person you are now is the person you envisioned yourself as being when you were a kid?

Last week, I wrote about cultivating your personal harvest so that you can plant the seed for new growth over this next season. So this is the perfect time to discover who you truly are. Reflect on where your life is at this moment, and if you’re not where you want to be, it’s the perfect time to figure out how to get there. Plant a new seed, if that’s what you need in order to grow.

Using your time on the mat to help in this discovery process can be just the thing you need. For example, when moving through a challenging vinyasa sequence, do you tackle it with gusto, or do you hesitate and back off? Are you listening to your breath and your body, so that you leave the mat feeling rejuvenated rather than depleted?

As you do this over and over again ON your mat, listening to the cues your body, breath and mind are giving you — then, you’ll be able to figure out who you really are OFF the mat. So who are you? As The Who said in their song, “Who Are You?”: