“You’ll never know who you are unless you shed who you pretend to be…” – Celestine Chua
During the holidays, I usually spend some time hibernating at my parents’ in my hometown, a small rural town in the middle of the Netherlands.
Here, I would often go for a jog across the typical Dutch landscape, stretches of green meadows, filled with cows and herds of sheep, a view I find familiar since childhood. I felt at peace, I felt at home.
Then I recalled how a few months before, my jogging view was completely different.
I was running across the shore of a deserted beach in Bali, passing palm trees and later rice fields with a volcano view backdrop, on the way home. The memory surfaced once more and I recalled what I felt – Yes, this was also home, my Indonesian home.
And I realized the privilege of acknowledging how both countries feel like home and feel that they ‘complete’ me. My Dutch and Indonesian sides are two fitting puzzle-pieces forming my identity. However, it took me a few decades and a pandemic-induced travel hiatus to finally see all that.
Growing up, I experienced what you could call a biracial identity crisis. Too Asian and exotic to be a Dutch and too white to be an Asian. In the small town I grew up in, I felt like a misfit.
My classmates were opinionated, narrow-minded, and couldn’t give a damn about my Hello Kitty-themed accessories. But once every two or three years, my summer holiday gave me a chance to have a sense of belonging. This is when we’d spend about 6 weeks in Indonesia, visiting my family.
With every trip, my world opened up. It’s as if a door was unlocked to a new universe with exotic smells, food, nature, bustling street life and most importantly, people who made me feel welcome. I experienced a sense of unconditional friendliness which I never witnessed in the Netherlands. When my Indonesian summer holidays came to an end, this reality always hit me hard.
I would lock away that part of me that flourished in Indonesia; the memories, the language, the longing for that unconditional warmth of the people.
They would only be resurrected during my next visit a few years later. Whenever I return to the Netherlands, I find that I feel the need to put on my Dutch ‘mask’ back on with the conviction that it was the only way I could fit in.
Alternating between ‘wearing’ my Dutch and Indonesian masks was my MO (modus operandi). This was still happening even when my worldview expanded when I moved to Rotterdam (the second biggest city in the Netherlands) to study.
I seldomly met Indonesians in my hometown but suddenly, as there were many Indonesian students at my university, whom I’m able to interact with on a regular basis.
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I grabbed every opportunity to connect with them; an ‘invite’ for me to put on my Indonesian mask back on. We would bond over Indonesian food, traveling and culture. At around the same time, I also started traveling to Indonesia on my own or with friends, and my then boyfriend.
Once I started working, I couldn’t resist visiting Indonesia (almost) on a yearly basis. I longed for that rush of setting foot in my beloved country, being greeted by the tsunami of flavors, colors and sounds and most importantly, that most invigorating feeling of warmth and friendliness.
I found myself continuously switching my masks with every visit. This was, of course, until travels were put on a hold because of the pandemic.
Suddenly, I no longer have that yearly opportunity to put my Indonesian mask on. I was *stuck* with my Dutch mask. And then suddenly there was a lot of time and basically no ‘excuses’ to escape to and I felt ‘forced’ to do some really deep thinking.
By this time, I was so sick and tired of letting my surroundings decide what mask I *should* be wearing.
Because the irony is that I never wore any of those masks well.
I was still perceived as “too nice”, “too humble and sweet” at work, which I blamed myself for, a slip-up for not putting on enough of a Dutch mask. And in Indonesia, I often felt I came across too direct, too blunt, too forward, which was me slipping up the opposite way.
I finally realized something has got to give. I realized I would keep myself in this perpetual state of self-blame. because I did not play the adaptation-game well enough. I was losing a game I set up for myself and I was tired of playing it.
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Over time I learned to shift my mental game through some deep realizations. And these realizations didn’t come over night but were rather pieces of wisdom gained through reading, meditation and yoga. I can write a whole book about this but I can be brief about how it helped me in healing that core wound of struggling with my biracial identity.
I turned to my yoga mat first of all to feel a sense of instant relief. Lockdowns, dating wobbles, stressed work situations, anything was a reason for me to find refuge on my mat. I could calm my mind and my body and over time I noticed my beliefs changed during my time on the mat.
My mind went from firing off worrying thoughts to honestly believing things would turn out just how it was supposed to be. And by deliberate practice I took these thoughts and beliefs with me, off the mat. I could see my identity crisis with a lot more perspective. At some point I shook off the need to belong to a certain race or have a cultural label and I owned my dual entity. I could have never reached that place without the aid of yoga.
My love for yoga led me to taking a yoga teacher training course in Spain last year. This was an opportunity to learn all the other puzzle pieces of yoga. The history, the philosophy and Ayurveda. And this course embarked on a journey to teach yoga, next to my day job in finance.
Again, I learned to embrace the duality of my personality; the deep interest for spirituality and at the other side of the spectrum my deep affinity with finance and banking. There was no no need to choose one identity over the other, I could just be me and own both sides.
This led me to organizing my first ever yoga retreat, which could not be held anywhere else but… Bali. It will be an intimate and luxurious retreat for women only, where we will combine both life coaching, which I invited Lystia to lead and daily yoga sessions, which will be done by me.
This retreat feels like such an accomplishment and milestone looking back at how I went from feeling so insecure to the sense of “completeness” I feel now thanks to yoga… I wish everyone the honor to embark on a similar journey. Namaste.
PS: If you’re interested in joining the 8-Day Luxury Yoga & Life Coaching Retreat in Bali, be sure to act fast and save your spot soon because space is limited!
This post was contributed by Jacintha de Vrankrijker. Jacintha works in banking and is a part- time yoga instructor. Find more of her posts on Medium.
