Project: Find Yourself

A promise, finally kept

In The Choice, I promised that nature had several plans in store for me, and that I would narrate them as little nuggets in the following posts. It has taken me a while to sit down and unfold this one — but here it is, the first of those nuggets.

Today, I work with people and walk a journey along with them to help them find themselves. That may sound quite exaggerated. But that is what Ayurveda gives us the power for.

For me, the journey of finding myself began in a university classroom, with a questionnaire.

Self-discovery through a long assessment

In my first year at university, one of our professors made us go through a huge questionnaire — a few hundred points arranged in 3 columns. Nothing like the ones you find online. No short quiz, no quick result. Just page after page of statements, and three columns waiting to be filled.

I sat with my result: 55% of the points under the Pitta column, 45% of the column titled Kapha ticked, and 15% under Vata.

And then I started to read.

The things I would often be chided for were described there, in those columns. The things I was admired for were there too. All the scattered pieces of myself — the ones people praised, the ones people teased, the ones I quietly wondered about — sat together on those few sheets, described plainly, as if someone had finally written me down.

The heaviness of the Unaccepted Self

On the train journey home, I sat with tears running down my face.

I finally felt like I was not 'strange'. Not 'defective'. Just designed differently. The heaviness of my unaccepted self was slowly melting away with the tears. 

I went home waving those few sheets in my hand, and with the delight of having found the answers, I exclaimed to my family:

"Here is the reason why I can't tolerate hot foods! And it really does scald my mouth even though it doesn't do that to anyone else! I am designed to have a lot of heat from the fire! I can dislike the sun, prefer the cold, be adventurous, be proud of being a good human all because of this!"

That is what Ayurveda did for me, before I had even begun to properly drown myself into the science. It did not hand me a label. It held up a mirror.

Who I thought I was

Here is the part I did not know that day on the train.

I had originally marked answers of who I thought I was — not who I really was. It took several years for me to see that. With deeper introspection over time, the answers have continued to change. Each time I sat with the questions again, I let go a little more of the idea of who I think I should be, and come closer to accepting who I really am.

That is the journey. It is ongoing, yet rewarding, and healing with each realisation.

And that is why I do not believe in quick quizzes and one-time labels. You cannot find yourself in a single result. You find yourself over years of honest looking — and Ayurveda gives you the framework, the depth and the company for that kind of looking.

The quiet miracle

Today, I do this work with people. I walk a journey along with them as they find themselves — the way those few sheets once helped me find myself.

I know how it sounds. Exaggerated, perhaps. But I have witnessed what happens when a person finally starts to see themselves described, truly and fully, and realises they were never strange. I cried on a train the first time it happened to me. I have seen that quiet miracle in others since.

That is what Ayurveda gives us the power for. Not just a diet, not just herbs — but the sacred knowledge of life, turned gently towards ourselves.

Perhaps you would like to begin that journey too. And I hope someday you would like to walk some of your journey along this path too.

Until next time...

Bhavatu Sabba Mangalam