Beyond the Labels

What Ayurveda Taught Me About Letting Go of Who I Think I Am

I realize now that throughout my life I was always swimming in the in-between. Not wanting to identify too strongly with any particular identity that constricted me, I found myself hovering at the edges—observing, questioning, and often seeing both sides of a story. I always felt more comfortable outside any box, rather than inside. This ability to live outside the box has been both a blessing and, at times, a quiet burden. There is a certain comfort in belonging neatly to a category. It can feel safe to be in a box. And yet, that same box can quietly, or not so quietly, begin to limit us.

Over time, I’ve come to understand that much of this tension reflects something deeper: the way we relate to identity itself.

The Identities We Cling To

We all move through the world with identities. They are necessary. They help us navigate relationships, roles, and responsibilities. In many ways, this is the healthy domain of the ego—not as something to overcome or destroy, but as the organizing structure that allows us to function, relate, and contribute in the world.

The challenge arises when we stop wearing our identities as the temporary costumes that they are and start becoming rigidly attached to them, unable to see ourselves any other way.

I know this from the inside. For years, I navigated what felt like incompatible worlds—Indian and American, conventional physician and Ayurvedic practitioner, rooted in ancient tradition while living a thoroughly modern life. I kept waiting to feel settled in one of them. What I came to understand, slowly, is that the discomfort wasn’t the identities themselves. It was my belief that I had to be defined by any of them.

When identity becomes rigid—when we grip a particular story about ourselves too tightly—we lose the capacity to grow, adapt, or see clearly. And so much of what we call emotional suffering has this at its root. The anxiety about how we are perceived. The fear that we don’t have or aren’t enough. The quiet ache of feeling separate. These are deeply human experiences, but they are amplified when we’ve attached our sense of self to things that are, by nature, temporary and changeable.

When we begin to loosen that grip—even slightly—something shifts.

What Ayurveda Understands About the Self

Ayurveda is often introduced as a system of health—and it is. But at its philosophical core, it is really a model of wholeness. It recognizes that the body, mind, and spirit are not separate systems to be managed independently, but expressions of a single, unified process. True wellness, in this framework, is not simply the absence of symptoms. It is alignment across all of those layers simultaneously.

This is why the practices matter and why they work beyond the physical realm.

When we bring regularity to our daily rhythms (dinacharya), when we eat in ways that honor our constitution and the season, when we use breath (pranayama) to settle the nervous system—we are not just improving digestion or reducing inflammation. We are creating the internal conditions for the mind to become less reactive. And when the mind becomes less reactive, we begin to relate to our thoughts and beliefs differently. We observe them rather than become them.

This is where identity starts to loosen, naturally, without force.

In Ayurveda, the ego—ahamkara, literally “the I-maker”—is understood as a necessary aspect of the self. It allows us to individuate, to act, to engage with the world. But ahamkara can also become overactive, generating a near-constant stream of self-referential thought: how do I appear, what do I have, what might I lose? When the nervous system is dysregulated and digestion is burdened, this tendency intensifies. When the body is at ease and agni—our digestive and metabolic fire—is burning cleanly, the mind quiets, and so does the grip of the ego.

The practices, then, are not self-improvement in the conventional sense. They are a gradual clearing and cleansing of our attachments. Each layer that softens—physical tension, mental reactivity, emotional holding—reveals something that was already there beneath it. A self that is more expansive. Less defined. Still fully you, but no longer confined to the smallest version of you.

Practice as a Pathway Back to the Self

This is where self-care takes on a different meaning.

In Ayurveda, practices are not about becoming someone new. They are about clearing the obstacles that prevent us from recognizing who we already are.

As digestion improves, the body feels lighter and more at ease. As the nervous system settles, the mind becomes less reactive. As awareness deepens, we begin to observe our thoughts rather than be consumed by them.

With each layer that loosens, we experience a subtle expansion. We are still ourselves—but less confined. We begin to realize that we can move through the world with an identity, without being bound by it.

Releasing the Grip

As we continue this work, many of the emotional burdens we carry start to loosen. The need for external validation begins to fade. The fear of scarcity softens into a sense of enoughness. The feeling of isolation gives way to a deeper connection—with ourselves and with others.

This doesn’t happen all at once. It unfolds gradually, through consistent practice and mindful awareness. And over time, we begin to see that much of what we were holding onto so tightly was never meant to define us in the first place. And in releasing those attachments, we don’t lose ourselves—we actually come closer to who we truly are.

Letting go of identity does not mean abandoning it. We still need our roles. We still show up as professionals, caregivers, leaders, and community members. The ego is an essential part of being human. But what shifts is our relationship to it. Instead of being defined by identity, we begin to use identity—allowing it to be fluid, responsive, and appropriate to the moment.

There is a lightness that comes with this. A sense of freedom.

A Place to Begin

What I’ve come to appreciate is that the “in-between” space I once struggled with is actually a doorway. It is the space where we are not fully identified with any one story and therefore more open to truth.

Rather than asking “Who am I?” in terms of roles or labels, try sitting—even for five minutes—with a different question: “What remains when I stop holding on tightly to any identity?” or “Who am I beneath the stories I tell myself?”

An Ayurvedic practice like pranayama, oil self-massage, or simply eating a warm, unhurried meal can become an entry point. Not because these rituals transform you into someone new, but because they quiet the noise long enough for you to remember something more subtle—a self that was never really in the box to begin with.

That is the journey of self-care. Not toward a reinvention, but a return.

And from that place—grounded, aware, and unconstricted—we can meet life more fully. I know this is a constant process for me, and will continue to be. But it’s a much more enjoyable, process than grasping onto an identity that doesn’t fit–that started to take too much energy to hold onto. When not confined by a box, we can gently, steadily, grow beyond it.