Awaken your power.

Awaken your power.


Who Am I Really: Discussion on Identity + Yoga Nidra

March 24, 2020

 

This podcast is divided into 2 parts—the first 15 minutes are devoted to a discussion on identity. Starting at about the 15 minute mark, I transition into a 30-minute Yoga Nidra —a long, guided meditation through the Koshas—the "sheaths" or "layers" of the body.

I wanted to do this episode today, outside of my normal rhythm, as something I can do to help during the Coronavirus and stay-at-home, social distancing measures we're implementing and following. As hard as this period of time is for so many, it can actually be a good time to explore some answers to the Big Questions: Who am I, and Why am I Here?

Enjoy.

Keri

Hello and welcome to a special episode of Awaken Your Power. This one is going to land in between my usual rotation of every other Tuesday. It is in response to the corona virus and the social distancing that we're all practicing right now. And it's going to be divided into two sections. The first section is going to be a discussion on identity and purpose and meaning and who are we, and we're gonna take a deep dive into what it means to wear an identity. I often use the term skins as a metaphor for identity. And the second half of the episode I will be guiding you through a Yoga Nidra, which is yoga sleep, essentially a deep relaxation that you can expect to last anywhere from 20 minutes to 30 minutes.

And we're going to go through the Koshas or the coverings or she's of the body. This is going to go hand in hand with our discussion of identity because the idea of this particular meditation practice or Yoga Nidra is to, one by one, remove the coverings that hide our soul in this world.

So I would invite you now as we start to talk about identity and move into this first section of the podcast, to also take this time to set up a space where you will be able to lie down in silence and preferably in darkness as well with as little disruption from any of the senses as possible. So for this particular meditation practice, we don't want any sense or any lights on.

We want to kind of remove all of the input, so that we can go deep into our own body, mind, and then we'll go even deeper and deeper into that. So again, maybe make a space with some blankets and pillows, make sure that you'll be warm and comfortable and undisturbed.

I will put in the show notes on my website, the minute that that starts so that you know, if you want to jump directly to that later, or do that multiple times, I would definitely recommend that.

But first, I want to talk about this opportunity that we have right now to explore the questions Who am I? And Why Am I Here? for with a little bit more depth. This is a topic that is always near and dear to my heart. It was definitely a major theme of my book Embodying Soul: A Return to Wholeness.

I see skins or really identities and labels and personality, characteristics and our titles I call them all skins as coverings of our soul as ways that can depending on how we use them, either bring us a little bit closer to ourselves and our soul or keep us from that. That kind of relationship.

I want to start with this quote by Emily McDowell. It says, "Finding yourself is not really how it works. You aren't a $10 bill in last winter's coat pocket. You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried underneath cultural conditioning, other people's opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. Finding yourself is actually returning to yourself an unlearning an excavation of remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you."

When I think about being a kid when I go back there. And again, when I wrote about this period of time in my life, I remember a sense of freedom and play. I think the human journey is really about coming into this huma...