facing finitude

reflections on health, interconnection, and the power of living authentically

At the end of 2024, someone I love had to undergo a biopsy. I guess many of us have been through this or know someone who has. I’ve experienced it myself, and I can tell you: waiting for the results feels like a shadow hanging over you. During this waiting period, we had that difficult conversation: “What if it’s not benign?”

We recalled loved ones who had faced unfavorable diagnoses and reflected on how, in those moments, it’s common to hear comments like:

“Poor thing, they didn’t deserve this.”

“So young, what a shame!”

“How awful, why did this have to happen to them?”

As well-intentioned or harmless as these remarks may seem, they often reveal something deeper: a subtle air of vital superiority. As if death were a distant reality, something that wouldn’t touch them — not through age, and certainly not through illness. As if the baton of health and life were always, unshakably, in their hands.

In the end, the results were favorable. Nothing to worry about.

But moments like this lay bare our finitude. Some avoid the topic altogether, living as if tomorrow is guaranteed, as if plans are shielded by the ticking of clocks and the turning of calendars. Yet the truth is, tomorrow might not come. The only certainty is this very moment. The end will arrive, sooner or later, for everyone: the good, the just, the cruel, the attentive, the distracted, the “deserving,” and the “undeserving.”

Looking straight into the eyes of finitude opens a window to question the quality of what will inevitably end: life — and everything we can touch. If it will end, what are we doing with this life we’ve been given? This realization creates an opportunity to question the life we lead — its flavor, choices, decisions, priorities, and automatisms. It challenges us to discern between internal limitations — shaped by habits, traumas, fragile self-esteem, naiveté, or internalized external desires — and external limitations, imposed by social, cultural, political, and economic structures. These external limitations weigh more or less heavily depending on one’s social class, nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and so on.

My relationship with yoga has taught me to face, understand, and deconstruct many of my internal limitations — I often used to stand in my own way. It still happens occasionally, but much less than before. Reaching a deeper understanding of myself has also given me strength, clarity, and courage to examine, question, and understand countless external limitations. Yet it’s not uncommon to find narratives in the yoga world that ignore these external barriers entirely:

“Create your own reality.”

“Visualize your desires.”

“Manifest what you want.”

As if internal reality could, by sheer force of will, override all external reality. These phrases may seem positive at first glance, but they deny the power of dominant social structures, simplify the complexity of the philosophies they stem from, and fall into exclusionary narratives. This has a name: Orientalism.

Orientalism simplifies and exoticizes Eastern cultures to serve Western interests. In yoga, this process adapted complex philosophies, deeply rooted in Indian tradition, to fit Western demands. Thus emerged a “consumer spirituality” that promises personal happiness, financial success, and even social status — while ignoring yoga’s traditional roots.

These narratives are problematic — they deny the existence of forces beyond individual will. They negate Īśvara, structural realities, and systemic oppression. They reinforce the fallacy of absolute freedom, which capitalism works so hard to convince us is real.

We must be cautious with these narratives. Two weeks ago, during a study session with my teacher, a colleague commented:

“For me, this whole ‘we are all one’ thing feels abusive.”

It made me think. This phrase, so common in yoga circles, seems harmless, even well-intentioned, much like the remarks people make upon hearing unfavorable diagnoses. But it has the power to erase particularities, lived experiences, and the authenticity and history of each individual. It’s another cliché that oversimplifies an ancient, robust discipline that should help us affirm and question who we are—without denying, suppressing, or diminishing our nuances, abilities, challenges, aptitudes, gender, nationality, or uniqueness.

To deny who we are, or to standardize existence, can be a dangerous path to oppression and control. And not being who you are is unhealthy — literally. In Sanskrit, the word for health is svastha: “sva” means self, and “stha” means established or firmly rooted. In other words, to be healthy is to be firmly established in oneself, an alignment that goes beyond the physical and encompasses the emotional, mental, and spiritual.

And you know what’s interesting? The more I study and practice yoga, the more I delve into sociology, politics, anthropology, history, geography, philosophy, and ecology. It took me a while to grasp the deep connection between yoga and these fields - in my own my personal journey. Now it seems obvious: we are interconnected, social beings. Ignoring external limitations — or simply being less affected by them —does not make them disappear.

The deeper I dive into yoga, the more delicately and compassionately I confront what hurts, blocks, or overwhelms me. And with equal commitment, I engage with the collective, with otherness, with what lies beyond my ego (ahaṁkāra)—and with what pains, blocks, and overwhelms humanity: the “we.” I’ve learned to empty myself of my internal dramas — at least far more often than years ago. And I always remember, like a mantra:

“Everything that lives on this Earth is food for this Earth.

The Earth spins with its great power.

Great power, with its great power.”

This is an except from a Brazilian song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RDvtH7myShldo&v=vtH7myShldo

The finitude of this complex body-mind-sensation system is always lurking: in tragic news, test results, wars, genocide, accidents, ants carrying the hollow shell of a beetle, the goodbye we didn’t know was the last, the tree that falls. And thinking about it is healthy.

It’s also healthy to acknowledge our insignificance and smallness. Among over 6 billion humans and 10 million species, what size of importance do we believe we hold? Yet, it’s equally healthy to recognize our greatness — precisely through the authenticity of being unique, expressing our peculiarities and “strangeness,” and setting boundaries. How often, and in what situations, do we make ourselves smaller than we are?

A few days after the favorable biopsy result, I learned that another person, relatively close, also underwent a biopsy—but received the result no one wants. Finitude, once again, knocking at the door.

All we can do is live fully — feeling, paying attention to this moment, choosing carefully and intentionally, and doing what we can within external limitations to live firmly rooted in ourselves. For each person, this involves different forms, choices, and activities — a profoundly personal journey. It takes effort, but it’s worth it. On an ordinary day, with no warning, there will no longer be the option to act, and we will become food for the Earth.

This new year, I wish you svastha.

In a few weeks the yoga study group begins. If this text resonated with you, let’s dive deeper into yoga-life reflections together.

With care,

Vivian