Why You Are Not Your Personality, According to Yoga Teacher Tracee Stanley
This article originally appeared on Yoga Journal
The etymology of the word "personality" comes from the Latin persona, which refers to a theatrical mask used by actors to disguise their true identities. Think of all the masks that you have put on over the years. Which ones have you forgotten to take off? Does your mask feel like a warm invitation or a rhino's armoring?
Exploring the makeup of our personality is an essential part of remembering the power and radiance of who we are at our core essence. I had an incident as a child that gave rise to new habits and ways of being that I used to protect myself against future pain. They concretized over time to shape a personality that was much different from who I was before. That version of me went unchallenged for decades until I asked the essential question--Who am I?
Once I began to investigate my personality, I was able to see how seeds of experience that were planted long ago had propelled me to act in certain ways and to form beliefs about the world and my place in it that limited my potential. A worldview informed by pain and shame held me back from remembering my full self. Our personality consists of a cluster of our habits, which are formed by life experiences and our memory of them. This cluster is a coloring that obscures the true Self.
The teachings of yoga give us ways to understand how experiences can and do shape our lives. The sage Patanjali, who is said to have been born sometime between the second and fourth centuries C.E., codified the oral teachings of the ancient rishis (original seers of yoga) into 196 aphorisms. The Sanskrit word sutra, which has the same Latin root as suture, refers to a thread that is woven through a text to connect and build on wisdom that reveals truth. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras have four chapters that illuminate paths that lead to spiritual freedom respectively.
Patanjali introduces the concepts of how our personalities are formed in the first chapter of the Yoga Sutras, the Samadhi Pada, which is dedicated to enlightenment, ways to clear the mind, and obstacles to yoga. It is important to note that the study of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras would take many lifetimes. What I offer is a way to explore and introduce the concepts.
The Road Trip of Life
Imagine the moment you are born. You arrive full of potential. Whether born prematurely, in poverty, in illness, or in radiant health, there is a part of you that is eternal and infinitely luminous, untouched by external conditions. There is an eternal place within each of us that is said to be effulgent and beyond all sorrow, which is my favorite translation of Yoga Sutra 1:36, visoka va jyotismati.
This luminosity is not earned or granted to us in some merit-based system. It is inherently part of us and more brilliant than the sun, moon, and all the light in the galaxies, but it is veiled from our awareness. Remembering the luminous part of ourselves is part of our spiritual journey and a purpose in life.
At the beginning of the road trip, you are behind the wheel of your vehicle and marvel at the big panoramic windshield in front of you. You get started on the long road trip of life. You are full of infinite potential, and your vehicle has a special GPS configured to help you navigate life's roads. That GPS is constantly sending you signals and signs of how to stay on course to return to remembering your true Self. That internal GPS is the wisdom of your soul, otherwise known as your intuition.
Samskara: Impressions of Life's Experiences
If you have ever been on a long road trip, you know about the inevitable first bug splat on the windshield. Remember that everything we experience in life creates an impression, or samskara. Those impressions are like splats on the windshield, and they happen all the time. Scraping your knee at age five creates an impression. Learning to ride your bike creates an impression. Your grandmother dying creates an impression. Learning how to safely cross the street creates an impression. Falling in love creates an impression. Being betrayed creates an impression. Being told you're a failure creates an impression. Experiencing the unconditional love of a pet creates an impression. As a child, being attacked for thriving as my uniquely nerdy self created an impression.
Life is a sequence of countless impressions and imprints. There is no way to escape them, so we file them away, categorizing them as good, bad, or neutral. Our windshield is constantly covered. What is on our windshield? How is it affecting our life? How can we gain clarity and reconnect to our innate gifts and wisdom?
Each of those memories is formed from a samskara, the bug colliding with your windshield. Some of the bugs make little splats, and others make the kind of huge yellow gooey splatters that make you think to yourself, "I definitely have to wash my windshield at the next gas station!"
But then at the gas station there is a distraction--some chocolates you really want, an email dinging, your child needing your attention--and you forget to wash the windshield. Off you go then, continuing your journey with a dirty windshield. You try the next gas station, and there are no resources or tools to wash your windshield--no water, no squeegee, no attendant to give you a hand.
So you keep driving, and it just keeps accumulating more and more bugs. You try the windshield wipers and it creates a giant smear. Now you can't really see what is in front of you. All you see is a coloring. What you see through the windshield does not accurately represent what is out in front of you. You have lost clarity, perception, and vision. You can barely see the road ahead. After a long while, you forget that the windshield was ever clear. That dirty windshield seems perfectly normal. You have forgotten that you have an internal GPS because it is obscured by the coloring, and your attention is focused externally.
Vasana: An Accumulation of Impressions
You keep driving and reacting according to what you see on the windshield instead of the reality of what's ahead of you. At this point you may not even be on the road any longer. You become a prisoner to the coloring that is now on the windshield. That coloring is known as vasana, an accumulation of imprints that form a coloring of the mind. This coloring gives rise to habits or actions based on your response to the coloring. If the coloring stays on for too long, the habits become concretized and become our personality.
Avidya: Misperceptions Based on Impressions
We then become attached to our personality because we have forgotten who we really are. We have forgotten our radiance. We believe that our personality is the whole of who we are and forget that we are wearing a mask made up of all the coloring of life's experiences. This can lead to suffering. In yogic philosophy, the cause of suffering is known as avidya, or misperception, ignorance, wrong knowledge. Your dirty windshield has caused you to make wrong turns and decisions because you are in ignorance of your true nature, and you lack clear sight.
This dirty windshield and the habits you have formed by looking through it have now informed and concretized into your personality and your worldview, affecting how you see the world, what you believe about it, and how you react to it. You may find yourself experiencing the same things over and over and seemingly never learning the lesson.
You never stop to ask yourself, "What lesson am I tired of learning and why do I keep having the same undesirable outcomes in life?" An unseen force is compelling you to continue driving, though you have forgotten why you are driving or even where you might be headed. Every once in a while, you may have a moment when you think you hear a voice or you get inspired to make a turn in a new direction. Still, something might hold you back from following through to the magical destination of infinite possibilities that is just over the pass.
It's easy to forget that there is something great waiting for us when all we see is a dirty windshield. We need tools to get back on track, practices to remind us that we are not the car, the bugs, or the windshield. We are radiant, infinite potential, and our true Self is waiting for us to remember. The moment we realize that we have lost our way, or have lost clarity, is a moment of transition. We have sparked a desire to find ourselves again. We know that something must change. We need to remember who we really are and begin to act accordingly. But how?
No one can do the kind of windshield cleaning you need for you. A great psychotherapist can guide you, but ultimately you must do the work. You have to be the one to scrub the sticky caked-on coloring off of the windshield so you can see again. Don't worry--you don't have to do it all at once. All you need is one tiny spot to begin to gain some clarity and momentum.
Power Washing the Windshield
Self-reflection, meditation, and deep relaxation practices are like a power wash for our windshield. We cannot escape impressions and the colorings created, as they are always happening. But we can begin to burn the seeds of samskara, making them less potent or inert. And we can reduce the coloring on the windshield. You'll need a handful of tools to begin cleaning your windshield spot by spot.
Intentional Pause: Self-Inquiry
Devote a few minutes for the following questions:
How are your accumulated samskaras leading to discomfort or stuckness in your life?
Do you feel as though you are at a transitional point in your life?
What ways of being are you ready to release?
How would you like to see your life change?
Excerpted from The Luminous Self: Sacred Yogic Practices and Rituals to Remember Who You Are (c) 2023 by Tracee Stanley. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, Colorado.
About Our Contributor
Tracee Stanley is the author of the bestselling book Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity and the founder of Empowered Life Circle, a sacred community and portal of practices, rituals, and Tantric teachings inspired by more than twenty-five years of studentship in Sri Vidya Tantra and the teachings of the Himalayan Masters. As a post-lineage teacher, Tracee is devoted to sharing the wisdom of yoga nidra, rest, meditation, self-inquiry, nature as a teacher, and ancestor reverence. Tracee is gifted in illuminating the magic and power found in liminal space and weaving devotion and practice into daily life. She lives with her husband and two dogs in northern New Mexico. Find out more about Tracee at www.traceestanley.com.
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