September is lying + grandma Lilly 😌

What if something you've believed about yourself for years is simply not true?

September comes from the Latin word septem, meaning seven.

Which makes perfect sense — except September is the ninth month.

It actually used to be the seventh month in the old Roman calendar. Then the calendar changed, January and February were added to the beginning, and September moved.

But the name stayed.

And it made me think about how often we do the same thing.

Things change. We change.

But somehow, we keep carrying around an old label as if it still describes who we are.

I have one of those.

And I think I know where it came from.

My grandmother Lilly was what people at the time would have called an “accident.” Her biological mother never acknowledged her, and Lilly was raised by her grandmother. Even after her mother married and had a large family of her own, Lilly was never allowed to be a part of it.

My grandfather Anders lost both of his parents and his sister when he was two years old. He grew up in an orphanage.

Lilly and Anders met in the late 1920s and went on to become statare.

Statare were landless farm workers on large Swedish estates.

Much of the pay wasn't money but food, housing, firewood, milk and grain.

The housing was often poor, the wages were low, and families were heavily dependent on the landowner.

The system was outlawed in Sweden in 1945, although that way of life didn’t disappear overnight.

My mom grew up in that world.

She left school at 14, and she grew up with a very clear understanding of where her family stood compared with the people who owned the farm.

Below them.

I sometimes wonder how much of that gets passed down even when nobody actually says it out loud.

Not the poverty itself.

The inställning — the mindset.

Don't take up too much space.

Don't assume you belong.

Other people are more important.

As a child, I was very shy. So that became part of how I understood myself.

And for a long time, I had plenty of evidence.

When I worked a desk job, I would email people instead of picking up the phone.

Talking to someone I didn't know? Avoid it if possible.

So: shy.

Case closed.

Except one day a friend said something that made me stop.

“But you're always talking to people you don't know.”

And I started thinking about it.

I strike up conversations with strangers all the time.

I started my own business.

I teach groups of people I've never met.

I travel by myself.

None of those things fit particularly well under shy woman who should probably stay in the background.

Maybe I was shy.

Maybe part of me still is.

But maybe it's also an old label I've been carrying long after it stopped telling the whole truth.

September kept its name even after it stopped being the seventh month.

We do that too.

So here's something to think about this week:

What old label are you still carrying that no longer matches where you are now?

Maybe you're “not athletic.”

“The quiet one.”

“Not someone who travels alone.”

Maybe it was true once.

Maybe someone else gave you the label.

Maybe you've simply repeated it for so long that you stopped checking whether it still fits.

You don't have to become a completely different person.

But every once in a while, it might be worth looking at the label.

And asking:

Is this still me?

Living in Alignment: Yoga + Journaling

See you soon,

Tina

Yoga Explorer

Want to reach me? Just reply to this email! Always here

PS All-level Vinyasa with Jessica Tuesday September 1, 6 pm

PSS Living in Alignment: Yoga + Journaling, Wednesday Sept 2, 6 pm

PSSS Yoga in the Gardens at JC Raulston Arboretum — FREE Tuesday September 8, 6 pm

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