Heather Blanchard

We are all born with a divine light inside of us. As children, that light often shines pretty freely. We know what makes us laugh. We know what we're curious about. We create without worrying whether we're talented. We dance without wondering who's watching. We ask questions, change our minds, make friends easily, and follow whatever captures our attention. We simply are.

But as we grow older, that light can become harder to tap into. Not because it disappears, but because life begins adding layers. Experiences. Culture. Education. Responsibilities.

Successes and failures.

Other people's opinions.

Expectations about who we should be and what our lives should look like.

Our identities become shaped by our families, friendships, environment, passions, careers, relationships, and the many roles we take on throughout our lives. Some of those layers are wonderful. They help us grow, mature, learn, and become who we are.

But others can slowly separate us from ourselves. We accumulate so many must-haves, should-dos, and expectations that somewhere along the way, we forget to ask a very simple question: What does my own heart need?

Recently, I was talking about the importance of Self-Study, or Svadhyaya in Sanskrit, in one of my yoga classes.

Svadhyaya is one of the niyamas, the ethical practices found within yoga philosophy. At its heart, it invites us to become students of ourselves—to notice our patterns, beliefs, reactions, desires, and the stories we've collected about who we are. There is a wonderful analogy about this in Deborah Adele's book The Yamas & Niyamas: Exploring Yoga's Ethical Practice.

In this book, she describes wrapping a very special gift for her father as a child. She placed the gift inside a small box, then put that box inside a larger box, and continued adding box after box to disguise what was actually inside. She compares this to the way we humans become packaged and conditioned as we move through life, and I love that image.

Because maybe that is exactly what happens. The original gift is still there. But over time, it gets covered.

One box might be the expectations of our parents. Another might be what we learned we had to do to be successful. Another might contain the opinions of teachers, bosses, partners, friends, or society. There may be a box labeled good mother, successful professional, responsible adult, caregiver, people pleaser, perfectionist, or the person who always has it together. Some boxes were handed to us.

Others we built ourselves. And eventually, there can be so many layers that we forget there was ever a gift underneath them.

Svadhyaya asks us to begin unwrapping. Not because everything we've become is wrong, but because underneath all those roles and expectations, there is still something essential that belongs only to us.

Of course, our passions and intentions change as we age. What matters to us as students may be very different from what matters when we begin our careers. Our priorities may shift when we become partners or parents. They may change again when children leave home, when relationships evolve, when careers end, when we become grandparents, when we retire, or when life unexpectedly changes direction.

We aren't supposed to remain the same person forever. Growing older gives us the opportunity to become continuously wiser about who we are. But wisdom requires slowing down and paying attention.

Sometimes we become so accustomed to a role that we don't realize we've outgrown it.

We keep saying yes because we've always said yes. We continue chasing goals we set twenty years ago without asking whether we still want them. We keep living according to an old definition of success. We become incredibly good at meeting everyone else's needs while barely noticing our own.

This is why self-study isn't something we do once. We have to keep meeting ourselves again and again.

Who am I now?

What matters to me in this season of my life?

What am I holding onto simply because it's familiar?

What am I ready to release?

What makes me feel most alive?

How do I actually want to spend this one precious life?

The answers may be very different today than they were ten years ago. And that's okay. This is where the power of choice becomes so important.

We cannot choose everything that happens to us. Life will bring circumstances we never requested—loss, disappointment, illness, changing relationships, aging, uncertainty, and countless things outside our control. But within those circumstances, we still have choices.

We can choose what receives our attention.

We can choose what we continue carrying.

We can choose which expectations still deserve a place in our lives.

We can choose where to place our energy.

We can choose to create boundaries.

We can choose to rest.

We can choose to begin again.

And we can choose to make room for the person we are becoming.

If we want to unwrap the divine within, we have to choose to spend some time with ourselves. We have to slow down enough to hear what's underneath all the noise. That might happen through meditation or yoga. It might happen while walking in the woods, journaling, praying, gardening, traveling, creating something, sitting quietly with a cup of coffee, or having an honest conversation with someone we trust.

The method matters far less than the willingness to listen. Because when we create enough quiet, something inside us begins to speak.

And often, it has been speaking all along.

There's a quote I love: “When things change inside you, things change around you.” — Unknown

The more we understand ourselves, the less we need the outside world to constantly tell us who to be.

We begin making decisions from clarity instead of comparison. We stop chasing things simply because everyone else seems to want them.

We become more comfortable saying no and more intentional about our yeses.

We respond rather than react. We begin protecting our energy instead of giving it away indiscriminately.

And perhaps most importantly, we become more available to other people.

Because knowing ourselves isn't selfish. When we aren't constantly trying to prove ourselves, protect an identity, or meet impossible expectations, we have more room for compassion.

More room for patience. More room for generosity. More room for love.

Our inner light doesn't exist simply for us.

It changes the way we show up in the world.

We spend so much time wondering about our purpose and, if you're like me, even reading about how to find it.

How many times have you been at a crossroads and asked yourself—What am I supposed to do with my life?

We often assume the answer must be something big.

A career. A calling. A business. A book. An accomplishment.

Something measurable that proves we were here and that our lives mattered. But maybe purpose isn't always something we accomplish.

Maybe sometimes purpose is simply how we move through the world.

There's a beautiful quote that captures this idea:

“‘What is my purpose in life?’ I asked the void.

‘What if I told you that you fulfilled it when you took an extra hour to talk to a kid about his life?’ said the voice. ‘Or when you paid for that young couple in the restaurant? Or when you saved that dog in traffic? Or when you tied your father's shoes for him? Your problem is that you equate your purpose with goal-based achievement. The Universe isn't interested in your achievements… just your heart. When you choose to act out of kindness, compassion, and love, you are already aligned with your true purpose.’” — Tao & Zen

Maybe that's the gift underneath all those boxes. Not a more accomplished or impressive version of ourselves. Not the person everyone else expected us to become.

Just us. Our compassion. Our curiosity. Our gifts. Our imperfections. Our capacity to love. Our willingness to help.

Our ability to notice another human being and say, in a hundred different ways, You matter.

Perhaps self-study isn't really about becoming someone new at all. Maybe it's about gently removing the layers that no longer belong to us so we can remember what's been there from the beginning.

Slow down. Get quiet. Ask the questions. Listen carefully. Then give yourself permission to live from what you discover.

Your light was never gone. It may simply have been waiting for you to unwrap it.

XOXO,

Heather B.