On Fitting In and Letting Go

It occurred to me the other day that I spent a large part of my youth trying to fit in. This, of course, is not unique to me.

What made it particularly cumbersome is that I moved so much. So fitting in required acquiring a passable accent in whatever language and pretending unfamiliar cultural mores didn’t feel as scary as they truly did. This happened at all levels: professionally, personally, even intimately.

I don’t regret this. For one thing, I can’t. The combination of being hell-bent on fitting in and moving country or continent every year helped me see myself from the outside in a way that wouldn’t otherwise have happened. I talked to people I otherwise wouldn’t have, and entered into their lives and realities in a way I couldn’t have, had I not deliberately overridden my fear of the unknown. (And the unknown was a large entity, you understand, having grown up in an extremely homogenous and fairly inflexible culture).

But it had a cost. I have been sitting with the realization that the cost was a significant delay in feeling into who I am, when all the language skills and cultural competencies and whatever else are stripped away.

Yes, yoga helped me. When I started practicing, pretty much every practice released tears from my body. Accumulated fear and pain. Stuff I hadn’t really dealt with or had overridden for fear of not fitting in. Lots of stuff.

To me, this is the true value of yoga: as an aid to knowing who we are, beneath it all. Finding the “me,” the “you,” the “us,” that is universal and unique, all at once. Meeting the self where it is.