Rolling with Roles

midwinter dreams of place and identity

my mom holding my daughter in 2016

Who am I?

“If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.”

-Ram Dass

For the record, I don’t think I’m enlightened, or even close to it. Actually, I spent a total of five months at Satchidananda Ashram (a.k.a. Yogaville) over a decade ago, and during a class on the Bhagavad Gita, one of the swamis asked us to raise our hand if we wanted to be enlightened in this lifetime. Some hands went up. Then she asked if some didn’t want to be enlightened in this lifetime and other hands raised. I didn’t raise my hand for either, but instead asked, “What if I don’t know? I’m not even sure what enlightenment is…”

I don’t know why, but I don’t even remember her answer! It’s like I sorta blocked it out so that I would keep asking that question and discover the answer for myself. I will say, though, that being a mom has kept me in a more mundane headspace, where I reflect more on all the finer details of my kids’ lives, like how to get my son to use the potty before he pees his pants, or how to help my daughter keep her room clean.

I know I’m more than just their mom, but that’s definitely what’s in the forefront.

Right before that, I was an English teacher and a yoga teacher. When my daughter was born in 2016, I decided to step back from teaching and stay home with her. Even so, I’ve had a hard time letting go of the story that ‘I am a teacher.’ It’s not a bad story, but it’s also not the full picture. There’s more.

If I did make a new year’s resolution for 2026 (I didn’t!), it would be to ask myself again and again, “Who am I?” and wait for the quiet whisper of my soul to reveal who I am.

A change of scenery

As someone who has moved a lot, I really believe that where we live shapes who we are.

I’ve been thinking of the phrase, ‘like a fish out of water.’ How can we truly see a place when we’re so immersed in it? Every now and then, you gotta get out of the water (maybe that can be an idiom that I coin).

We just passed Imbolc, that marker of mid-winter halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox. We had a freezing couple of weeks in Chicago, then got on a plane to California to see family and celebrate my dad’s 90th birthday.

I do appreciate the winter and having a built-in resting time; it’s what has made our time in Chicago so unique, and living in freezing temperatures is a natural stimulus for rest. But when I arrived here and felt the sun and got down on the beach, I felt something in me stir…

I always joke with my husband that when we go back to California, and especially to my hometown of Santa Cruz, I can feel my DNA vibrating. He thinks I’m ridiculous, but I’m half serious about it. What I mean is that I can almost feel my whole history hanging in the air. Have you ever felt that when visiting a place where you used to live?

I’m not sure if moving to Chicago has been a long-term change of scenery for me, or if going back to Cali for visits with family and friends is my yearly change of scenery. It’s more like they are alternating changes of scenery, but they also live inside me, too, as my personal story.

Changing channels

Sometimes when a place or situation becomes overwhelming or stale, it can be so refreshing to escape.

I think this is why people love movies, stories, shows, and any form of narrative escape. We need that perspective switch, the power to change the channel, turn the page, or put down a book if it’s not suiting us at the moment. We can’t do that with life, but we can take a break from it, mentally.

On the plane ride to San Francisco, I watched a movie called Good Fortune. It’s about a man named Arj, who is struggling to make ends meet and who ends up losing hope. An angel intervenes to help him see that his life is worth living by allowing Arj to live the life of a rich man, the angel just ends up making a mess of multiple people’s lives in the process. In the end, Arj finally comes around to realizing that his life is actually the one he wants to live.

Would I want to live the life of a rich person? Maybe for a few days, but I would miss so many elements of my current life. I would sort of be a different person, with a different mindset and lifestyle. Do I complain about things in life? Absolutely! But humans can always find something to lament. The question is, how can we find things to celebrate?

I know this is easier said than done, because it’s actually pretty easy to psyche ourselves into saying our lives are great, even if somewhere in our bodies and emotions, we don’t feel so content or at ease.

This trip home to California reminds me of me, of younger versions of myself. It is simultaneously the reason I feel I can’t live here AND the reason I need to keep coming back to remember. There’s that New Age adage to ‘live in the present,” or “be in the now.” But it’s just as powerful to look back at where we came from.

At the same time, I often hit a point where old struggles and pains arise when I visit California. Maybe my imagination is too active; maybe I get triggered. I change the channel externally by ‘pulling a geographic,’ but then when we get to scene two or three, I remember why I left. California, for me, is not all sunshine.

That’s when it’s time to change the channel on the inside.

Letting go of your story

“Your body exists in the past and your mind exists in the future. In yoga, they come together in the present.”

-B.K.S. Iyengar

Iyengar’s words above convey a certain truth, though in my opinion, not totally accurate. Your mind can live in the past, present, and the future all in a moment. Your body can live in the past, present, and future, too, at least chronologically.

Have you ever been to a yoga class where the teacher instructs you to ‘let go of your story?” If so, has it helped you, or did you ever find it nearly impossible? I’ve written about this before, and I’ll probably keep writing about it over and over, because it’s one of those recurring things in life that we can see and hold in different ways, depending on our current situation and mindset.

Letting go of your story is sort of like changing the channel without pulling a geographic. It’s a process of entering the witness state, where we remember we are the ones changing the channel….

Lately I’ve been reflecting on my story as a mother. Like many parents, I had an image of the kind of parent I wanted to be; sometimes I hit the mark, other times I don’t have the capacity to be my version of the ideal mom. It’s hard to be my best self if I’m stressed or dealing with my own emotional struggles.

With the birth of my second child, the shock of the pandemic lockdown, and the death of my mom almost 3 years ago, my inner landscape (and personal story) shifted. Add to that the intriguing experience of watching my kids grow and become their unique selves and it’s easy to scramble just to keep up with who I am. Who am I to myself, to my kids, to my husband, family, and community?

There is both a sense of freedom and fear when I realize that the answer to this question is more fluid than I often assume.

More than yoga, more than my story

It’s with these rambling thoughts that I play with my voice as a writer. For almost 8 years, I’ve written on Substack using my yoga teacher voice. Along the way, rereading some of my old posts has meant that I’ve been able to receive and rehash my own teachings. Do you ever read something you’ve written, something you’ve half-forgotten about, and think to yourself, ‘Hey, these are some good ideas!”

I think my yoga teacher voice is always kind of there, but I have been noticing the call to shift my vibe and embody a new voice. That’s what brought me to write my recent post, More Than Just a Yoga Mama. It’s not that I’ve worn out my voice and teachings as a yoga teacher, but there’s more to my personal story, to my everyday identities, that are ready to come to light. Besides, I’ve discovered so many fantastic yoga writers here on Substack. Let me share a handful with you:

1. Patty Townsend | Embodyoga

2. Ashley Zuberi of Yoga for Women’s Wellbeing

3. Corie Feiner of Corie Feiner Poet + Performer

4. Janine Agoglia of Yoga Living 50 and Beyond

5. Jo Hutton of Yoga for Tired People

6. Sarah Ezrin of Let’s Get Real with Sarah Ezrin

7. Hasti Yavari of Hasti

There are more! There are so many great yoga resources online today, on and off Substack. It’s a sea of offerings.

It’s not that I think there’s no room for me as a yoga writer with all these other lovely, insightful voices. It’s more that I see this platform as a community of sharing, where we all have a space to weigh in on common interests. When I first started out on Substack, I don’t think there were many other yoga writers and now that there are others touching upon so many yoga concepts that I click with, I feel the freedom and permission to branch out to the other levels of who I am. Beyond just yoga.

Have you ever sat down and thought about all the roles you play?

To quote Moana in the song How Far I’ll Go:

“I know everybody on this island has a role on this island

So maybe I can roll with mine”

My roles are many. Life is so much more rich this way, and I look forward to the roles I dream up for myself in the future!

Winter — a time to dream

These are all thoughts I’ve been having in the winter. For me, winter is a time of dreaming, of drafting the story of our lives that we have more energy to enact when the days get longer. I find it much easier to be reflective in winter than in the ecstatic energy of summer, when all I want to do is be outdoors exploring. If we slow down and take it easy, winter can be a sort of spiritual sleep cycle, where we restore energy and integrate what we’ve experienced in the warmer, brighter months.

During this family trip to California, where I can almost pretend that winter is over, I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time with my dad, who is in the deep winter of his life. Today is his 90th birthday! As my dad has aged, I feel like I can see how he has let go of many of his old stresses and tensions. I never ask him about it, but I can feel it. With that shift in his demeanor, I’ve felt a little bit that who I am to him is different now. We’ve meandered around an unspoken, invisible spiral labyrinth and taken a pause to gaze at each other from different vantage points. We are both who we’ve always been and who we’ve become to each other as a father-daughter pair.

my mom and dad celebrating their last birthday together (hers in January 2023 and his in February)

It’s the same with my kids. As they’ve grown, we’ve gotten to know each other better at the same time we are constantly assessing who the other is. Remembering this one thing in life is the deepest form of yoga that I’ve found. All the versions of Virabhadrasana and Surya Namaskar that I do are just little tools I have to help me to get present enough to remember this big game of identity. Who am I? Who are you?

striking a lil’ Virabhadrasana 3 at Ocean Beach, San Francisco

Thank you, readers, for going on this little ramble with me as I find my new voice on Urban Yoga Mama. Thank you, winter, for giving us this gift of slowing down and asking ourselves the same questions. Thank you, dad, for my life and upbringing (and for all the ridiculous dad jokes, too:).

Hovering between winter and spring

I’m gonna close this post with a little gift from @CorieFeiner. It’s a yoga poem that she has revised. Here is the old version, which should give you a nice glimmer of winter vibes and here is the new version, with a more enchanting twist for any time of year:).

Here’s a taste of it the old version of Corie’s poem about Bear Pose:

“...I lift my knees and let

the cauldron of my core ignite, digest the worries

of the world until they burn. I tell myself that no one

needs me, not even me, and when I finally lower

my thick knees back to the ground, I give myself

permission to crawl back into the cave of myself…”

This is such a nice encapsulation of everything I’ve written in this post. What shapes do we inhabit through the seasons of our year and the seasons of our lives? How can we be fluid and remember those shapes are just moments, and not our full identity?

playing with hovering table pose:)

remember the little baby my mom was holding in the picture at the top of this post? Here she is playing with some hovering poses, too!

Thanks for this little cross section of my story as I awkwardly shift from being Urban Yoga Mama to ‘more than just a yoga mama.’ I hope you feel inspired to change your own inner channel whenever you need to, let go of your story now and then, and then reel it back in for a more authentic telling of who you are.