“At the end of the day, our many identities are going to change throughout the course of life. Nobody, no matter who you are, or how stagnant your life is, has the exact same set of labels their entire life. We come into the world as perfect, beautiful shining little balls of light. The world then teaches us about labels and identities and we slowly build up layer after layer until we have a thick shell and the real us, in our spirit, is hidden far beneath. It is then up to us to find ways to peel back these layers, like an onion. We must commit to peeling back this hard outer shell, in order to get back to who we truly are.”
On Labels and Identities – Thought Prompt / Lifestyle List
If someone asks you who you are, what do you say? Your name, perhaps a name someone gave you or a name you chose? If they ask you to tell them more about who you are, what do you say then?
Some of my own answers may be I am Bri, a 26-year-old, white, cis-gender woman, who is a mother, yoga teacher, early interventionist, writer, sister, daughter, granddaughter, friend, etc. I might include things such as the college I graduated from, or places I used to work such as Chuck E. Cheese, a brewpub, a nursing home, a preschool and the titles I held at these places. Maybe I include labels such as being a vegetarian, being someone who likes to read, or someone who likes cats.
We could go on and on answering in this way. We could dig into socioeconomic status, what our family systems looked like growing up, outer appearance, our religious beliefs or lack there of, etc.
Isn’t it strange how we also label ourselves by what we claim to not be? “I am not a cat person”, you might say. “I am not a reader.” “I’m not athletic.” or even “I am antisocial.” Maybe this means that we don’t enjoy these things, don’t want to be associated with them, or perhaps we claim we would like to be able to sing, to dance, etc., but we have told ourselves (or others have told us), they are not our strength, so we do not do them. Even if there is a deep passion within us for something, if we have been denied association with it, we abandon it as a part of us. If it is part of our purpose though it will stay with us, though it may be deeply buried.
The truth is, everyone is artistic in a way. Everyone can sing, and dance, it’s just a matter of how we do it, and how we express ourselves through it. Or perhaps we say we would like to identify with a certain label, but we do not take the steps to make it a reality. For example, if you are not a reader, but claim you would like to be, why? Is it because you like the idea of it? What association do you have around people who read – that they are smarter? More educated? Shy and bookwormly? If you label yourself as not a reader at all, there are often reasons behind it. Did you never learn to read? Your attention span doesn’t allow it? You just feel you don’t have time for it? You would prefer an audio book? (But then couldn’t this give you a bookworm identity just as well?)
Create a list of the labels you identify with. Go ahead, pull out a pen and paper, your notes app, or just start a mental list. Maybe you start with the more obvious outer things, or the things that you are proud of. Make a list of as many aspects of “you” as you can think of. Of course this could go on for a long time. For the sake of it, try not to just list things you like or enjoy, such as “my favorite movie is Star Wars” unless you feel it really makes up a part of who you are (for example, if you go to Star Wars comic cons, have a Star Wars figurine collection, have traditions around enjoying the movie with family or friends, etc.) So set a timer or think of an amount of things you want to put on your list and just go for it.
Then stop. Look at the list of labels. What feelings come up? Are you surprised? Overwhelmed? Proud? Ashamed? Maybe all of these things? Do any of your labels clash or conflict? Do you feel like sometimes the labels have an identity of their own? For example, if one of your labels is parent, what does that mean to you? Does that put pressure on you to be or not be a certain way? Do you feel as if you have a “main label”, like everything else comes afterward?
How about if one of your labels is the CEO of a fortune 500 company? When you think about this label do you think about how you got to where you are, does this feel like a label you want forever? If this was a “dream job” for you, is it still?
What if one of your labels is being in recovery from an addiction or an injury? What if one of your labels is a “used-to-be”, for example, you are a retired pro athlete? What if one of your labels is greatly stigmatized and unsupported, for example being an unhoused person?
How many of your identities did you choose, work for, or fight for? How many of your labels were handed or given to you at birth? Which are current, which are in the past? Along these lines, what labels would you like to have in the future? These “future” labels may be aligned with goals or aspirations. Owning a house? Being a published author? Being a grandparent? Maybe all that comes to mind is letting go of one of your current levels so that you can have more space and time to figure out what it is you truly want.
On letting go of identity on the conscious path
There is power in what we identify with, and what we label ourselves as. The saying “fake it till you make it”, or affirmations such as “I am confident.” do hold a lot of power and strength if we put the right energy behind them. The labels that we identify with often reflect different parts of our purpose. Not all of them, but, as you know here at Eclectic Purpose, we believe that we each have unique ways to express ourselves and our gifts. Labels that feel in alignment such as “I am a musician”, may be part of our path, but maybe your true learning comes when you realize you want to let of of your successful musician title and become a scientist, or a baker, or whatever else you might feel called to be.
Labels and identities are something that will most likely find us, whether we choose it for ourselves or others do. This being said, choose your own when you can, and if you find yourself with a label that you know in your heart is NOT yours, I hope you feel supported enough in life to reject that label and choose a different one that feels more in alignment.
At the end of the day, our many identities are going to change throughout the course of life. Nobody, no matter who you are, or how stagnant your life is, has the exact same set of labels their entire life. We come into the world as perfect, beautiful shining little balls of light. The world then teaches us about labels and identities and we slowly build up layer after layer until we have a thick shell and the real us, in our spirit, is hidden far beneath. It is then up to us to find ways to peel back these layers, like an onion. We must commit to peeling back this hard outer shell, in order to get back to who we truly are.
Of course, we are born into different sex assignments, family systems, races, geographical areas, and socioeconomic statuses. For some of us these given labels are much easier than others. As we move throughout life, we learn to navigate the world differently in order to survive, and hopefully thrive.
On the journey back to who we are, pure love and being, we must learn to consciously work to let go of any emotions, circumstances, situations, memories, reputations, etc., that keep us tied to this idea of “who we are”. To truly be ourselves, there is no doing involved, there is only being, and this being has no physical form that we can see. All labels, even the ones we enjoy or choose, we must learn to detach from. Even the ones we feel comfortable in…perhaps especially those. Yes they are still there, on one plane of existence, but at the end of our lives they are dropped anyway, and what is life if not practice for death?
Letting go of these identities can be difficult, terrifying even, because we are so closely attached to them. It can feel scary when we take our first steps on the path of consciousness. An awakening often comes with the realization that all of these things we have felt mattered so much for so long, are not our true in life or something that we can take with us. Our only goal is to live life itself, and experience being a human, and everything else is just part of the experience. Part of the dream. Part of the illusion.
It is as if we are waking up from a deep sleep of being entrenched in who we have thought we are our whole life, and we’re just new little babies on this conscious path. What are we supposed to do with that? If we aren’t who we have thought ourselves to be, then what do we do with ourselves? Who do we hang out with? What do we eat or drink? What do we wear? How do we spend our free time? What even matters?! Nothing is real!! (Okay I will calm down now. Hopefully it doesn’t feel quite this unsettling and the answers to most of these questions only matter as much as we let them, so no worries LOL!)
It’s not as if we just hit consciousness once and then we are enlightened. Maybe a very small handful of people have done this over the course of time, Jesus or Buddha or them. I don’t know, to be honest, exactly how many, but I do know that the vast majority of us that are striving to walk the conscious path, we drift in and out of consciousness. Maybe we wake up and meditate one day, or we process something, and we feel full of love and light. Full of this newfound awareness, we journal, or do our yoga, and feel very enlightened. We can see for a second that all the other shit going on doesn’t really matter. Maybe we even feel conscious enough to be present in our body, while also having enough awareness to know that we are not identified with it, giving us space for a moment or two glimpsing beyond it. Then the phone rings, we spill our coffee, our partner pisses us off, we’re late for work, we’re in a traffic jam, and we slip right back into the human experience. With practice we are able to be present even in these moments, but that is HARD WORK BOI.
Chances are, most of you reading this are human. If you’re not a human and you’re reading this, please reach out. I want to meet you.
As humans, we are by definition not perfect and will make mistakes. As a recovering people pleaser, I have learned that it’s not possible to make everyone happy. The only person that you focus on making happy is yourself. This being said, if you end up hurting others, along the way, you do in turn hurt yourself, whether you realize it in the moment or not. Through contributing to the happiness of others, and by being the strongest force of good and love in the world you can, you are contributing more to your own joy.
Of course, even with the best intentions, perfection isn’t attainable or achievable. Perfect is the enemy of good. Give yourself grace. Personally, I struggle with only giving myself grace about certain things. If you read my recent piece on guilt, you know that I am far from being a perfect person. In a discussion with one of my close friends recently, I noted, and she agreed, that it is easier to be the recipient of poor behavior, than the perpetrator.
It is often easier to forgive ourselves for certain things than for others. For example, if you spill coffee on your friend’s white rug, you would most assuredly feel badly and you would apologize. You could offer to help clean it up and maybe even to pay for the rug if it needed to be cleaned. If you are in the right company, your friend will quickly forgive you, and you will be able to forgive yourself. Maybe there will be a moment of shame or guilt. You might beat yourself up a little for being careless, or clumsy. At the end of the day, though, you know that everyone makes mistakes like this, and it wasn’t intentional. It might be harder to forgive yourself, if you knew something was the wrong decision, and you did it anyway. It might be even harder still if you want to apologize, but the person does not want to hear from you. In this case, you must realize that an apology is meant only to be for the other person. Yes, you might need to feel brave and strong and you might get some relief from your guilty feelings after apologizing with a sincere heart, but the apology is not meant to be for you. You can not control, no matter how much you would like to, how other people feel or what they do after a situation is said and done.
Mistakes and poor decisions can lead us to label ourselves as “good” or “bad”, or a variety of other terms under each of these. If you have labeled yourself as either one of these, and feel that you deserve it, why?
I know several people who identify themselves as mainly a good or mainly a bad person. The people that identify as “bad”, continue to make poor decisions because the shame, guilt, stress, anxiety, and heartache of their past actions feel so overwhelming. These people often grew up with a lot of shame, trauma, and abuse, and still haven’t received true help or healing for it. Many of the people on the opposite end, who view themselves as “good”, and only a good person, are also often suffering from past of shame, trauma, and abuse. Their identities have become so wrapped up in being a “good” person in order to earn worthiness, to attract love, or to keep up a certain appearance. This can lead to being disconnected from emotions that are viewed as “bad”. It could also lead to a complete lack of taking responsibility and handling situations whenever they do, inevitably, make a mistake or do something they consider wrong. It could even lead to not being able to apologize, deflecting, or complete denial that they had any part in a bad situation.
I believe that the key to letting go of these identities, although I am still very very far from ending this work, for myself, is to realize that we are not good or bad people, we just are. We can make decisions that get us closer to our higher self, and our purpose, or we can make decisions that take us farther away. We can make decisions that decrease suffering in the world or increase it. In reality we are all going to make some of each “type” of decision, and we need to accept this about ourselves, in order to move forward. We must recognize that there are reasons for even the shittiest things we do, even if they are not excuses, so that we can learn more about ourselves, and heal in order to do the best that we can every day. Our goal is to be able to look at ourselves and accept ourselves, wholly and completely, without denying any part of ourselves, no matter how we deem them to be.
On a slightly less all consuming note, sometimes, we strive to release identities, simply so we can make space for the other. It’s beneficial to explore different paths, even if we have not completely released our current one. Being a parent, for example. If you would like to pick up pottery again, or perhaps start a pottery hobby for the first time, you do not need to wait until your children are grown. You also (hopefully) don’t completely disown your children so you can pick up a new hobby or career. No, no, these roles may exist simultaneously and in fact, they can enhance one another. Perhaps you are grieving the person you were before you had children. That is necessary and an important part of the process, but there are ways to keep the parts of yourself that still want to be alive and current, present. On the other hand, maybe you’ve been trying so hard to maintain the roles you had before becoming a parent, what you really crave is giving yourself and your children the gift of space and time. Maybe you would like to be more present with your friends, your partner, yourself.
Regardless of where you are, try not to give yourself too hard a time wherever that is, and just observe. Become curious.
Observe and see into yourself. What aspects of yourself have been neglected? Which ones have maybe become a bit too much? There’s no right or wrong answer.
You may feel the weight of other’s expectations, or the expectations you have placed on yourself for each role. Please question whether these expectations are actually in alignment with who you want to be. There is only one of you so showing up 100% for multiple things at a time is impossible. It’s impossible to be in two places at once. When we work to become in alignment with every role in our life, the space and time and energy around each activity begins to balance out and feels more in flow. If we are constantly feeling like we can’t do it all, or telling ourselves we are overwhelmed, that we will be.
Of course, multiple roles and identities can and do coexist. We can show up fully in each of those roles, as long as we give them each space, end release guilt or the feeling that we are neglecting the other parts. As soon as we do this, we lack presence and fail to show up fully.
There is the conversation as a society around how women are expected to be stay at home moms, and be fully engaged as moms, while also being full-time employees and fully present in the workplace, and be completely put together at all times. Dads, and other people have complicated roles as well, in different ways. If you are a working college student, or have multiple full time jobs, or are a caregiver for a family member, you may have at some point struggled to find balance. I am still learning how this looks in my own life, and how much time and energy I need to dedicate to each aspect. I don’t want to spread myself so thin that I can’t do anything well. I also want to be able to do the things I want to do and not put them on hold until my child is grown or until I quit my job.
Start taking baby steps. Imagine the life you want and do something to work towards it Every. Damn. Day. Be grateful for what you already have, like truly deeply cultivate that felt sense of gratitude. Keep your eyes open for new opportunities or unexpected openings. Start to learn to work with your intuition. I can’t count the amount of times I had an intuitive hit, ignored, it and went the other direction because it seemed easier in the moment.
Be confident that what is meant for your will not miss you. Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it’s not happening. One of my favorite daily affirmations recently is “I am moving confidently in the direction of my purpose” – let that be true!
Now I can see some of you rolling your eyes and saying oh this isn’t how it works or you just got lucky, or whatever. I truly believe that what you energetically put out, you will receive back. I had the same job I have now when I was childless, working consistent 60+ hour weeks, giving every inch of myself to my job. I loved my job (still do), but I did get to a point where I was feeling burnt out, stressed, and as if I was missing out on life’s other offerings. Slowly and gradually, my workload decreased, and was able to get to a point where I could work from home with a caseload that felt full, but stable. I can still pay my bills, but I feel more at peace. Work comes with more ease. I would say “more balance” but I really don’t think that true balance is ever a thing because different times of your life will be devoted to different moments, activities, people, and situations, and that is okay. That is how it is supposed to be.
It didn’t happen overnight though. It took saying no to things my ego wanted to say yes to, being okay with not being the most productive one on the team, and feeling some guilt or anxiety around not taking every opportunity I could for more money. I sure as hell still work my hours and hit my bonuses as often as possible, but I trust that what I am bringing in is more that enough. I know that if I were to take on more responsibilities in my job right now I either wouldn’t do them justice or I would be abandoning myself and my other priorities (writing, momming, teaching yoga, self-care, etc.). I actively carve out time for other things in my life. I also actively carve out time to dedicate to work in order to meet the goals I have for myself, and it works for me.
As we grow and change and let go of trauma, we begin to let go of roles naturally, or maybe we let go of them being dragged away, kicking and screaming.
As many of us did, I grew up in a toxic family environment, that was saturated in attempts to control the uncontrollable. Being raised by a “religious” parent and homeschooled, among other things, came along with extreme expectations and boxes to fit into. Shame and condemnation were thrown at anyone, including those in the family, who did not adherently stick to the rules. ALL the rules, all the time. I grew up being taught to look down on those did not look like me, believe what I believe, or do what I did. In turn I was also punished severely if I was not perfect 100% of the time. It was an exhausting environment to grow up in, and there were a lot of other things I will discuss in a different piece. As I became a teenager, I became deeply anxious and depressed. My anxiety attacks, OCD, ED, and self-destructive behavior worsened. I started finding other roles for myself to escape and break free that did not match with the roles that I grew up with. I found other labels for myself, and clung to those. I simply replaced the old with the new, and in many cases, the exact opposite of what I had I been identifying with for so many years. I learned to hide many of my old identities and labels. I wanted to leave all of that pain and who I was in the past. I wanted to fit in and be accepted by my newfound community. This worked for a while, but I was still trying to live in a box, and to fit a certain mold.
As I grew more into who I am now, and who I am meant to be in the future, I began to heal. I began to stop clinging so tightly to labels and identities. So the Work is here, letting go of all emotional attachment to labels and boxes, even those we have put on ourselves. We must recognize these labels and attachments, at least, even if we don’t necessarily want to get rid of them, or if they can be a helpful or desirable.
We must set intentions to notice and be aware of our own feelings around these things. Then realize that every single other human on the planet has their own shit that they’re dealing with and people that they’re trying to become. After recognizing these two things, all we can do is try to be a little gentler with others.
As a society, we are moving towards being more vulnerable, exposed, raw and authentic on social media. As incredible a movement as this is, we still choose to share specific moments and content for a reason. As exposing and justifying as cancel culture can be, it still never shows the full picture. This is why we should not put our leaders or your pop icons on a pedestal because they will fall. Each and every single one of us, if we were in the public eye, would most likely be called out in some way at some point if we were closely followed and scrutinized. We are all human, and all we can do is our best.
One of my friends and I recently were joking because my Instagram, the platform that is my main form of personal social media, is 90% “good things”, or things that are perceived as good, I should say. Happy and perfect. I love and appreciate all parts of myself, and I strive to be vulnerable in other ways, but personally I use Instagram as a sort of scrapbook for the highlights. Sometimes I feel pressure as if I should share more, but the reality is whatever I want to share is my choice. What you want to share is your choice. While it’s good to be raw and open and vulnerable, you should not do so if you feel like you are forced to, or must do it to fit in, etc. Of course this doesn’t mean to lie, but it can be true that there are joyful moments full of gratitude even in the toughest of times. There is nothing wrong with having a space that you want to cultivate a certain feeling, just make sure that in your real life, you are being honest with yourself and others as much as possible. If you wanna make a nitty-gritty, vulnerable, crying reel and that serves you, do it. If you want to cultivate an uplifting, flowery, rainbow unicorn vibe on your platform, do it. If you wanna share both and everything in between, do it. Do whatever works for you, just recognize your why behind it.
- Who are you are at your core has no labels or identities, so release your attachment to them.
- If there are identities and labels you no longer feel are in alignment, that you would like to completely let go of, or something you would like to invite into your life, what steps can you take in that direction? And how soon?
- If you are completely happy where you are right now with the labels and attachments that you have and you can’t think of anything else, you would want to add or take away…well first of all WOAH. Really? Is that true for you? If so, how can you lean into that? What else can you do to enhance these beautiful things you have cultivated?
- Be grateful. Appreciate your life and all it is teaching you. Mourn and grieve the things you need to. Be brave and prepare yourself to invite in what is meant for you.
Lastly, consider the other humans in your close circle, or strangers you meet on the street. Notice the labels and boxes your mind puts them in, or what they may be identifying with. What stories do you assume about them or consider to be true?
In your discussions with loved ones, could you be vulnerable enough to share parts of yourself that you want to make a reality, or parts that you are wanting to let go of? Perhaps invite them to hold you accountable. They most likely have things they would like to consider in their own lives around this as well. An in-depth conversation around roles, labels, and identities may help you gain some perspective into someone else’s experience, while deepening the knowledge of your own journey.
Wherever you are, make an effort to lead with love towards yourself, and others.
Your journey back to yourself is eclectic. Ever-changing, always diversifying, never stagnant. Expansion and contraction is powerful shit so please honor each in their own time.