Letting Go of Identification Labels: A Therapeutic Follow

What’s an “id label?” It’s a phrase that stands to signify part of ourselves and our shared experiences with others. Such phrases are essential components of communication, however they’re additionally restricted. The phrase isn’t the expertise itself however, fairly, is shorthand to specific that have.

For my psychological well-being, I’ve discovered it vital to domesticate a way of who I’m previous the boundaries of language and, when it comes to id particularly, to see myself as extra complicated than any single phrase or phrase can seize. Whereas it may be therapeutic to embody an id label to really feel that sense of belonging, it can be constricting.

Once I at all times introduce myself with an inventory of phrases pertaining to gender, race, means, and so forth, I begin to really feel pigeonholed, as if I’m not giving others an opportunity to see me as a person however as an inventory of preconceived notions. Letting go of id labels, then, is a follow that helps me perceive when you will need to title id and when it’s extra useful for these points of who I’m in society to go unsaid. By witnessing my attachment to my labels, I can deepen my relationship to them and to the individuals who share them.

This follow additionally helps me in difficult tokenization, whether or not it’s my tokenization or my potential to tokenize others. Do I would like each story about my id to middle on being nonbinary, biracial, or disabled in a number of methods? No, as a result of this will dilute individuals’s understanding of who I’m. It might probably additionally flip me into an instance of how all bipolar individuals are, for instance, when that’s not at all times greatest for me or for different bipolar people. Realizing concerning the issues with tokenization, I attempt to watch out about how I converse on my experiences of id in case I’m performing as a false knowledgeable, believing that my expertise represents and captures the totality of everybody in that neighborhood’s expertise.

It may be liberating to easily converse as me and never as a member of one among my communities, and this follow of letting go of id labels—briefly and with clear intentions—offers me perception into when to embody my individuality and when to function a neighborhood consultant.

Step 1: Acknowledge limitations

Are there points of your lived expertise that don’t neatly match throughout the bounds of what an id label communicates? What different phrases, pictures, or sounds assist you to convey this expertise? What produce other individuals with this id shared that you don’t relate to?

By witnessing the constraints of id as a phrase, you’ll be able to start to glimpse your private definition of it, examine that to the broader definition, and maybe see the way it works for you and to your neighborhood—and the way it doesn’t. This reveals up for me in being a South Asian yoga trainer. It may be extremely vital to call my racial id in an area that’s cultural, however once I at all times put that id first in my yoga follow, it limits my expertise.

Step 2: Domesticate the sense of being past labeling

My yoga follow is a good house to let go of the messaging—phrases, pictures, something that proves your sense of self to others—and be taught to easily be.

Do you have got cultural practices the place you’ll be able to witness the distinction between transferring in it as a [insert identity label here] and letting go of that label? For instance, when I’m training yoga, I don’t at all times want to consider myself primarily as South Asian. There are moments once I can simply transfer my physique intuitively or meditate without having to outline who I’m in society.

This means to be who I’m past the labeling applies to diagnostic labels too. When I’m cleansing, do I must be outlined as an individual with OCD who’s cleansing? Can I simply placed on some music and get the job executed with out contemplating my anxiousness degree, or noticing what number of occasions I wash my arms and questioning if it’s clinically thought-about an excessive amount of? Sure, I’m pleased to share that I can!

Step 3: Return to your relationship with an id label

When you launch the label, or develop your perspective of it, then you’ll be able to come again with a renewed understanding of why it issues to you. Is there a way of spaciousness, impermanence, and surprise?

Maybe you’ll be able to uncover new layers of which means that didn’t happen to you earlier than difficult the attachment to your id label. Sure, the phrases for gender, race, sexuality, means, temper, and so forth., are vital, but additionally they can not outline every little thing about who you might be. Phrases for psychological well being, particularly, exist to pinpoint considerations and map an individualized therapeutic plan—to not predict who you’ll grow to be sooner or later.

Conclusion

Being in your expertise, with out attaching to a message, doesn’t negate the expertise. I discover silence to be an area that honors complexities there aren’t any phrases for. This could additionally open up connection to others who relate with the expertise with out essentially regarding the id label—and that features individuals who got here earlier than us, within the occasions earlier than these social constructs like race, gender, sexuality, faith, and behavioral diagnostics existed. Personally, I really feel extra peace and calm by connecting to those individuals and remembering that I exist as who I’m as a result of they existed as who they had been.