Who Are You?

Humans like to be certain - we like to know something for sure.

In the west we think of the self as static and stable, regardless of context. We think, this is who I am, who I have been, who I will be. Maybe there are slight changes over long periods of time, but day to day we remain mostly the same self.

Other cultures see the self as context dependent; who you’re with, where you are, the phase of your life all influence how you show up in the moment.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. The self is kind of like our hips - they must be stable enough to hold us upright but pliable enough to keep us moving. Perhaps we could be a little more flexible in our idea of who we are. 

Rather than maintaining a seamless, cohesive facade of identity, we could define ourselves by our fluidity, our ever-changing relationship to ourselves, our bodies, others, and the present moment.

And perhaps some softness springs from that. We don’t have to force ourselves into a box labeled ‘me’ but can be as expansive and changeable as our hearts desire. Maybe we relinquish our judgement and pressure to figure out who we are. We can allow ourselves to be, moment to moment.