Explore the concept of self-study and notice the need to unpack all the layers protecting your genuine self.
Russian Dolls of You
As you explore the fourth Niyama, Svadhyaya, picture a Russian nesting doll. Through Svadhyaya, you are asked to study all the things that make you who you are. You can only do this by peeling away and examining the shells you portray to the outside world until you are at your center.
The First Doll
Self- study sounds simple at first, but it can be an emotional and eye-opening experience. Using the nesting doll metaphor, the first and largest doll you see is the one that you present to strangers within your community. Maybe this doll dresses a certain way or speaks with a certain dialect. This is the layer you’ve formed to protect yourself and portray yourself the way you wish to be seen. Now there is a semblance of your truth in this layer. What elements of your truth are here? For example: maybe you love new fashions and embrace changing styles, or maybe you’re extroverted and gain energy through building relationships.
On the opposite side, what in this first doll is a lie? Do you feel like the image you project wholly matches who you are? It can be helpful to have these dolls to protect and hold you through life, but it’s important to understand what in your past experiences led you to this outer shell.
The Second Doll
Moving inward, let’s look at the part of you that you only show your friends and family. Even more than that, let’s look into how you interact and connect with this group. Do you find yourself judging a friend for their decisions? Where does that judgement come from? When did you begin to believe that their decision was something you didn’t agree with?
The point of this exercise is to encourage deeper thought behind the mundane. In a marriage counseling course, a husband and wife explained how they struggled with the wife’s need to control the home’s decor. Everything from the paint to what hung on the walls had to be entirely her decision. That could be the end of the story and they could have gone on disgruntled and misunderstanding one another, but instead they noticed the habit and sought answers. The wife discovered that her childhood was filled with unpredictability and she felt like she never had her own space. Years later this impacted her and her partner as she unconsciously sought to rectify her past. It doesn’t have to look like this example, it can be more simple or more complex, but sometimes you may be holding onto beliefs and traumas that present themselves everyday. It’s important to unpack these and release whatever is not serving you.
The Third Doll
Let’s say this nesting doll ends here and right here, this third doll, is the center of everything. This is the true self. What do you know about this doll? Have you ever felt safe and connected enough to show this side of you, the real side of you, to someone else? Are you still getting to know this part of you? This third doll here is the goal of Svadhyaya. You can actively study the layers, the biases, the beliefs, the traumas that create the versions of your present and find the truth of your identity. Only you can know if you’ve learned who you are, and only you can know if you’re actively trying to unravel your facade to find this person.
Freedom
So what’s the point of all this? Maybe you don’t have that question at this stage, but if you do, here is the answer: freedom. You know that feeling when you meet someone who is the same kind of weird that you are? That freeing moment where you feel like you can drop the act and just be. Svadhyaya is pulling you towards a full liberation of the true you, a shedding of the layers and revealing of who you are. Like the star pose in yoga, a Svadhyaya practice allows you to live unashamedly as yourself and to learn about all the intertwining histories that led you to where you are.
Just like the other Niyamas, take this process slow and one step at a time. You’ve had years to build yourself into the present you, so give yourself years to understand her/him/them.
Intend to Shine,
The NuPower Tribe