Newsletter 05/3/21 - Who am I beyond what I am ?
Hello dear you!
I hope you have kept well these past couple of weeks. It's been pretty intense for me work wise and my stress levels have been on the rise. I was contemplating the other day how life has taken unexpected turns professionally and how it is not always easy for me to re-adjust.
The other day at school, a mum asked me what I do as a living. I found myself a bit silly and unable to answer right away. It took a few seconds to think and reply "I'm a yoga teacher and a graphic designer. But I guess these days a bit more of a designer". It made me think of how I see and define myself and how it is all not so clear anymore. I had periods where I was fully one of the two and the answer was a bit more straightforward to give. But what I am thinking is, why should my jobs define me? Why should OUR professional occupations define us?
I am a French lady, living in London, married to an Algerian guy who is a berber also living in London and we are parents to a (freshly) 7 yo who doesn't even know what to answer when people ask him where he is from 🤣. (Though he thinks he is English!) Not to mention if you ask him what his parents do for a living, it gets even more confusing as we both juggle several hats. My man is a chef who had many other lives back in Algeria, has also been working here as a private hire driver and is now doing a diploma for our next professional adventure... So today, I've asked my son what he would answer if someone asked him what his parents do and he said 'my mum loves to make people happy using yoga and creative things and my dad loves to make people happy with a full tummy'! Isn't it the best answer?! I'll retain simply that 'I love making people happy'.
In one of the most challenging years to date, I feel like we all go through some sorts of identity crisis, trying to make a sense of it all and our life. Isn't it about time then that we start seeing ourselves beyond the limits and roles society has put on us? If this year has taught us something is that life can change drastically in the blink of the eye, without warning and with no criteria of selection in mind. You can go from wealthy to broke, from healthy to ill in an instant and vice versa. What I would like to define myself with, instead of a job, is the love(s), joys and passions that make my heart sing. And they are so many, it is even too vast to count.
The truth is that I have no way to know what the future holds and where my future lies in professionally, and simply, in general. What I do know is that they are strong foundations, visceral needs and interests that will always remain.
It's like imagining you live in the same house your whole life but it has had dozens of decors over the years. You can keep the foundations that makes you you and repaint or tear down a wall or two now and then. There are landmarks in life that are meant to be 'solid', the ones we like to call permanent, and others that are meant to be 'liquid' and keep changing in forms and places. And this is what it is all about. There is nothing like getting to know yourself, deep down and identify the solid foundations of who you are in the core whilst keeping it light when it comes to the many forms your self can take through that crazy journey. And when you feel like your resilience has been tested at its maximum limit of tolerance, this is actually when you strengthen that core that makes you wonderful you.
Going back to my life as a yoga teacher, it makes me laugh now to think that we all chase the so called "permanent classes" and gigs. In a lifestyle that makes you travel through town from studios to studios like a manic person, there is something reassuring in knowing you have regular gigs, places, familiar faces to come back to and feel a bit at home. No need to say there is absolutely NOTHING permanent in there when Boris can, in a single statement, close down studios and leisure facilities for indefinite periods of time. No hard feelings there, just a simple acknowledgement that the landmarks we create for ourselves and want to make our own for long are not always meant to stay that way. And IT IS OKAY. It's life doing its thing and often makes things fall into place beautifully. Our constant these days should solely lie in caring for our mind, body and soul and for that, there is yoga! Thank you India! So hang in there beautiful being, I got your back! See you on the mat!
Lilooxx