Labels Are Not Real Unless We Make Them Real
Recently I was labeled as courageous. Then seconds later as weak and broken. Then, literally seconds later I was labeled as chronically ill, then depressed, then happy… and shortly after all of that as resilient. The labeling was going on in my head through my thoughts as they related to how I was thinking about my Lyme disease and how I was feeling in that moment; thought by thought.
What’s interesting is we are our own worst… or best labeler. Labels by themselves are meaningless. Until we give meaning to them.
Sometimes I realize my thoughts are nonsense, so I let them go. Then other times I believe my thoughts are real. So I hold on and commit to them. If I let it a thought go, it becomes fluid like water and sifts through my cells and off to wherever thoughts go. If I don’t let it go it becomes real to me. Whether it is true or not, it is 100% true to me in the moment.
What is a label? My definition is it is a value we are assigning to a reality we have created through thought. That value by itself has no meaning. It is neither good nor bad. It is neutral. Until we give it meaning. Then it is very real and is good or bad depending on the meaning we give it.
Labels exist outside of our thinking as well. You don’t have to go very far to experience labels. You see labels on Social Media (especially in the chat threads), in the news, in our discussions with family and friends, at work, and in the conversation that is going on in our heads.
Here are some examples of labels –
That person is (or I am):
Smart, stupid, conservative, liberal, short, tall, skinny, fat, successful, struggling, winner, loser, lazy, energetic, athletic, a couch potato, artistic, shy… the list goes on and on.
What I have come to realize is that labels are not real unless we make them so. We make them up with our thinking in the moment, whether it our thinking about ourselves, others, or our thinking about labels another person has placed upon us or others. And then we think they are real. But they are only real to us. To the thinker. We have taken a thought, which created a belief and assigned a label to that belief.
Where does all of this lead us? It depends.
We can go through life believing all of our thoughts, bouncing from one thought to the next and believing the labels we create. Which in my experience is exhausting. OR…
We can understand that thoughts are fluid and have no meaning unless we give them energy.
I have found this second option to be a powerful way to exist, as it usually leads me back to a place of understanding and at peace with my thoughts. To a place where deep down I know that the label is not permanent. It’s just true with that thought in that moment and if my thinking becomes quiet a new thought will come along to replace it.
