Discovering Yourself Through Your Experiences

If you want to be happy, you need to be present in the moment, you need to open up your mind and eyes to see the universe from all different sides and angles. You need to be part of your own existence rather than live passively. There’s one bulletproof way to do so, and it’s to engage with your own life and push yourself into areas that are outside of your comfort zone. Even the smallest measures you take will count.

Have you ever heard of the term “momentphoria”? Well, you have now. Possibly because it has just been created. It’s not easy to explain certain situations that make you feel human but these moments are important because they somehow make you understand yourself better, in a magical yet realistic way. Momentphorias are certain experiences that occur when you feel inexplicably euphoric, as if an eruption of emotions that you did not know existed in you flows through your soul. They usually happen when you let go of familiar habits and experience something completely new to you.

It was that one summer afternoon, when my friend dragged me to my first yoga practice in the great outdoor with at least fifty other sweaty strangers, that I finally viewed life from an entirely different angle. Literally. The instructor guided us into our next position: the most uncomfortable one, downward facing dog. It was then when my whole perspective changed. I opened my eyes and what I saw left me feeling heavy with gratefulness. I saw mother earth upside down. And I don’t know if it was the zen-high functioning at the time, but I felt as though the weight of the entire planet was held in the palm of my hands. Yet, I also felt as light as a feather. As though I was falling against the sky, defying all laws of physics, gravity, and Newton’s apple. Newton was wrong at that specific moment. I felt small and not in a bad way, but in a way that is somehow liberating. If earth was this big and I was this small, then how tiny were my worries in comparison. I was in utter awe, hesitantly trying to keep my eyes open like a newborn child that is scared of the unfamiliar change of surrounding. But then I finally embraced the view of the sky and its endlessness, its infiniteness. In that moment, I fully acknowledged my existence in this humongous space that I often don’t give enough attention to. All it took was to see my world from the same lens but from an unfamiliar angle to make all the difference in my perspective. It took the patience to balance myself in discomfort on all fours, to really see the bigger picture that holds my existence together.

If you want to discover who you are, you need to discover what makes you shiver with passion. And in order to do that, you need to keep trying new things and experimenting new techniques to live by. It will make you happy, almost ecstatic to see what you will see, learn what you will learn, and feel what you will feel. The new things you choose to try may not be as comfortable as the new show you chose to watch on your couch, but at least they’ll have a solid impact on you. Often, just like anything worthwhile, the impact is not instant. But when you’re well down the road, you’ll look back and notice how much your choices changed you. Good things rarely happen when you religiously follow your routine. For example, a new and exciting job is somewhere outside your day-to-day life. It’s out there waiting for you to come in its direction. A new and exciting friend is also doing different adventures that are outside of your box of comfort, which is what makes them attractive in the first place. It only takes getting yourself out there to understand your purpose. Maybe you’ll change your perspective or maybe you’ll change your entire life. It doesn’t have to be an epic change of lifestyle; just doing one new thing every day can magically turn your dull life into an extraordinary one. And it will make you feel more alive than ever.