We Are Not Just This

In mindfulness meditation we learn the tool of "naming" or "labeling" to help us create some space from the thoughts or feelings that arise. When we can name it, it's not all of us. It's as if we take a step back from it so that we can see it. It's like looking at a painting. If we go right up to it we can't see what it is, we just see splotches of color, but when we move back we get clarity as we see it's whole form.

Our thoughts and feelings can be like big blobs of color that we can get lost in, sometimes happily so and sometimes painfully so. We can get caught up in the color. But, when we can name what's there, it becomes separate from us; it's not all of us, even if it feels like a large part. We know there is more to us than just that, even if it is the loudest at the moment. This can be helpful because we don't have to react from that color. We can be aware of it, feel it, and know that it will change, as all things change. Or, if it's pleasant, naming it can help us not attach in the ways that will cause us future pain. This is the useful part of naming/labeling in meditation. But, there is another way we can label ourselves in our lives that is not so helpful.

Do you tend to make statements about yourself in any of these ways:
I am ___________ (ex. insert any condition, diagnosis). I'm  ___________ (ex. insert any generalized description -- conservative, liberal, athletic, klutzy). I'm an anxious person. I'm too sensitive. I'm a procrastinator. I'm bad at __________ (ex. relationships, boundaries, self-care). I have a bad __________ (ex. back, knee, hip, neck, digestion, etc.). I'm lazy. I'm a perfectionist. You get the idea.

We can so easily name ourselves as one thing or another. I tend to do it with my back. I'll catch myself say, "I have a bad back." It's not true though. I have a great back. It has a ton of muscle and strength AND what else is true is that I often experience pain, which has become a life long process of getting to understand. My back is a part of me that I am in relationship with and constantly evolving with. When I say I have a bad back. It becomes me. Jean and her bad back. That statement feels permanent; it feels like I am broken; it feels bad. I'd prefer to say I'm working with the pain in my back so I can understand what it needs and feel better. It's a kinder way to think of myself and I'm on my side -- all the sides of me.

The problem with calling ourselves one thing or another is that when we classify ourselves as something, it stops there. Like putting a period at the end of a sentence. It has finality to it and leaves little room for there to be more than that or for it to evolve and change. It happens with trauma....we become the trauma. As if it defines us. Or some past history that we keep holding onto as if that's all there will ever be because it comes to the surface at times. We don't have to limit ourselves this way. The shift in the way we defines ourselves in our speech and thinking is simple and it's a kinder way of being. It allows for us to be more a more full, complex, and constantly changing human being, which we are.

My invitation this week is to notice when you name yourself as being this or that and see what happens if you let it go and instead say something like, I'm experiencing ______ or I'm feeling _______, remembering that you are not ________ itself. It doesn't define you. How does that shift in language and way of seeing open up what is possible? With practice, it can free us from being stuck and limited to some idea we adopted about ourselves or were told by someone else (doctor, therapist, coach, teacher, family member). We are not "just this." We are so much more.

🌻
Jean