Becoming Again

Chapter Nineteen - Remember Me

We are always changing, always growing, always evolving. Sometimes this evolution feels like growth, and sometimes, if I am honest, it can feel like we are moving further away from ourselves.

These past few months, I have felt very lost. Disconnected from a self I used to know so intimately. A self I used to love so fully. She gave me so much joy, stability and a deep sense of connection to my own being.

I remember a time in my life when I was practising yoga for four to six hours a day. I was running most days of the week. My diet was what I understood to be deeply Ayurvedic: vegetarian, whole foods, and no what I call “klat” foods, chocolate or chips and bits. I was creating so much music. I worked a simple farm job from seven until four, four days a week, and on my days off I spent so much time alone, immersed in my own creations, practices and inner world.

Recently, I have deeply begun to grieve this part of myself.

And it hurts.

I miss her. I love her so dearly.

I really don’t know how or when I changed.

Now I find myself searching for the time to get onto my mat and deeply connect from a place of authenticity. I might run a little, sometimes. Nothing like I used to.

I eat what feels like more “klat” than ever. I started eating meat after fifteen years. I have chocolate occasionally, and I love salt and vinegar chips. Mouth watering as I write this, not good for my Pitta.

And perhaps this is part of the point.

The past version of me may have appeared picture-perfect, socially grounded, spiritually evolved. Yet underneath that image, she carried so many physical, mental and emotional struggles.

Today, I still carry many of the same struggles.

But I am willing to see them.

I am vulnerable enough to share them.

And I am brave enough to want to heal.

Perhaps our identity is built upon our own judgements of what we believe to be good and what we believe to be not so good. What I have begun to notice is how much mental anguish I can create for myself when I do not fit within the frame of what I have decided is “good”.

I long to be this.

I long to be that.

I should be practising more.

I should be eating differently.

I should be running.

I should be more disciplined.

And suddenly, I am no longer here.

I am somewhere in the past, trying to return to someone I once was, or somewhere in the future, trying to become someone I have decided I should be.

And I miss the only moment that is actually mine.

Now.

Time always turns, and just as we grow older, we change.

And perhaps instead of holding so tightly to a past memory of ourselves, we can rejoice in the present creation of who we are becoming.

We have the ability to recreate ourselves again and again. What I have noticed is how gentle we need to be within this moment, and within the transition between one version of ourselves and another.

Healing is a personal experience.

It takes time, dedication, and practice.

Although the part I so often forget is to embrace the journey itself.

To honour who I was.

To honour who I am becoming.

But most of all, to see, cherish and nurture exactly who I am in the only moment there will ever be.

Now.

So perhaps “Remember Me” is not a call to return to who I was.

Perhaps it is a call to remember myself here.

To remember myself beneath the identities, the expectations, the discipline, the achievements and the images of who I thought I needed to be.

To remember that she was never really gone.

She is changing.

Growing.

Evolving.

Returning always to the Self. Capital S.

I acknowledge all that has been, all that is becoming, and all that is here now. I honour the Self within it all.

May these words resonate with you and bring you the peace to wholeheartedly embody and embrace exactly who you are, in this very moment as it unfolds.

ॐ