What do we know about ourselves?
If asked “who are you.” Would you answer with a name, a job, a position (mother, daughter, friend). Locality (a southerner,a scouser)!
Yet none of these are us.
If told “I don’t understand you” do we think…nor do I to be honest! Or do we assume that others should know us better than we often know ourselves.
I do know I am constantly changing. That I am a very different person to myself of a decade ago, yet at the same time I am still me. If I look at a photo of me as a child I can know that was me, but may not remember the occasion or time or the photos! Am I still the same person even if I don’t have memory of being that person?
We change at a physical level with constant cell turnover….we change at a psychological level through experiences, self study, meditation, relationships.
We live in a strange society that constantly tries to slow change physically, wanting to stay looking youthful, yet often fails to appreciate the beauty of wisdom and patience. We say we shouldn’t ‘have to change’ to be in a relationship yet you are, both, constantly changing and learning within the environment you’re in. So who are you if you aren’t who you were, yet you also are?!
I know personally I am happy where I am now…this mid age, neither the foolish bravery of the young or the frail fear of the elderly. An age where my body and mind both feel healthy and able. The more yoga I do the more I enjoy who and where I am. I look back and see how many positive changes internally are mapped by smile lines around my eyes, how the harder times have made me strong and resilient and marked me with lines of tension. I like these reminders when I look in the mirror….the legacy of a life well lived 🙂 a reminder of the positive changes I have made in my life to be who I am now. I like trying to learn who I am in the quiet moments; maybe in a yoga class, in meditation, or maybe in nature. I love the times of connective ness that I often feel on the yoga mat. I like trying to ride the wave of change like a feather in the breeze. Allowing myself to float & be carried in the direction that is right for me.
To stay young is not possible if we cannot stop time. To try to constantly appear young is almost to deny the beauty of the passage of time. How it allows us to discover who we are. The inner us. The constant unchanging part of us which connects us through time…the me that is inside the me in the old photo, that will be inside me in my frailer elderly body and is in me now.
So I plan to enjoy now. To take this beautiful time when both mind and body meet at a point of growth, a willingness to change for the better a constant for my future. I plan to do more yoga to keep me young…not in a shallow way but in a deeper way. I wish to maintain my health, my well being, my enjoyment of life rather than worry about wrinkles or external evidence of aging. A willingness to accept change and the passage of time is my hope. I want to use this time to live, to love and to learn. Maybe even to learn who I am 🙂
