Did you know you could be living a label?

That your whole life has been a series of labels you have applied to yourself?

Applied by your mind!!

Labels are part of our lives even if we don’t ever notice them. After all aren’t you a parent, wife, son or daughter, colleague, boss and so on. They may just seem unavoidable society titles but they can stick. Get glued in when descriptions are added before them – supportive husband, good son, hard working colleague.

And then we begin living that label as it also attaches to our mind.

The trouble is some labels come with life, but others are fostered on us whether we want them or not. And it’s these that are often the ones hardest to remove from our own minds and the minds of others.

As one famous singer found out.

Tagged as a troublemaker.

We all had one great friend at school our parents didn’t approve of.

They didn’t know them but labelled them as a trouble maker. From that point they could never see them as anything else. It’s far worse when you are someone famous and the media tags you as someone you are not.

That is what happened to Paul McCartney in 1972.

That year an infamous and shocking event occurred in the British controlled Northern Ireland. At a civil rights march in Derry in January 72, British troops opened fire on unarmed civilians killing 13 of them. It’s a horror that is still argued over to this day. Paul McCartney also felt that horror due to his Irish heritage through his mother.

Believing that such events would happen again and the violence would escalate as a result, his peacemaking side thought it should be better if the issue over the territory was sorted. He penned the protest song, ‘Give Ireland Back to The Irish’.

Instantly he was labelled a political activist, pro-IRA, and a trouble maker so the song was banned from radio playlists. His stance through his music added labels to him that persist to this day and many have never forgotten, or forgiven, him for the song.

And that’s what labels do…..they stick!

Long time labels.

For Paul McCartney the song was released over 50 years ago but the labels remain.

Most of these were generated, and continue to be promoted, by the media.

Our mind is like the media in this way. It accepts a label, often from long ago that was never correct or fair, and keeps running it like a story that the newspapers always dig up and re-use. One we were usually given that seeped into our consciousness.

Let’s say you were called insensitive in the past. Or a selfish lover. Maybe it was lazy worker or poor with money. Some throw away comment made by someone who normally didn’t fully know the whole story.

But, the comment stung or hurt or bothered you and so you held onto it. You didn’t let it go.

And so, like the media who likes to dig up the dirt, you kept the story on file in your mind as some definition of yourself.

You actually began to behave the way the label stated.

You got lazy in your work or spent money foolishly. Effectively you lived how the label classified you. Yes, you told yourself that this proves the label someone gave you was completely correct rather than noticing that is was simply you acting it out.

The ultimate tag before Facebook ever came along.

Labels are simply outdated self-beliefs that you never questioned that hang around you still today.

And because you don’t realise, you don’t even think about it.

What labels to lose?

So what labels you have about yourself do you need to lose to improve your life?

Labels are everywhere. They are part of life and society. All of us are defined by being single or middle class or qualified instructor and the like. We use, and need them, to help define levels of authority, relationships and connections, and understanding who’s who in relation to others.

Most of them are innocent everyday tags.

The ones you need to work out and remove from your psyche are the personal ones ‘about you’ that caused negative emotional reactions in your actions and behaviours. Past labels that made some personal observation or prediction about you that lingers still today. Examples being told you will ‘never have any money as you are too irresponsible’, or ‘no one likes you’. If it hurt then you kept hold of it in your mind and allowed it to limit you.

Life is often held back by old untrue labels.

Your job to rid yourself of them is to revisit them. Take time and think back (as you may have buried them as you felt shame or guilt after hearing them). Remind yourself of situations when an upsetting definition was made about you. It may not take that long.

Write down each label you recall – and yes it may be uncomfortable.

Then face them. Know they’re not right. Tell them they are wrong. See yourself as not that person. Then cut them up into shreds or burn them. Release them from your mind and feelings.

Unleash your unlabelling and be free.

Because the only label you ever need is the one that says, ‘This is me!!’.

References – Wikipedia – Give Ireland Back to the Irish.

Photo attributions – free to use under Pixabay Content License by geralt and kinkate and Maklay62.