When it says Libby’s, Libby’s, Libby’s on the label label label… was an advertising theme many years ago for a product line that came in a can. I guess they felt that repeating something three times would make it stick in people’s minds. But what about the labels we let others put on us... for whatever reason?
A friend of mine was heading home for a visit, and although she was looking forward to it, she was starting to make herself ill. And when she comes back from her visits, she is sick. Well, I looked at her and started running some numbers through my head until one jumped out at me. I asked, “What traumatic thing happened when you were seven years old?” She initially said that nothing happened, but realized that something had. She had gotten held back a year in school because whatever officials felt that she was not reading well enough. Now, my friend is a medical professional. She is not stupid, but that was the label that got hung on her.
When she goes home (and it is a small community), they don’t see her as she is today. They still see the stupid child. As she is not there all the time, the people there don’t see what she has become. They only remember what they knew. And in truth, it might have taken her moving away to rid herself of the label, at least to herself. Because as we all know that if everyone is calling you stupid, sooner or later, you will start to take that on as part of you. You let their label stick to you. And although she no longer feels that way about herself, it comes back when she returns back to that environment.
How about the rest of us? What labels are we still carrying around with us from our childhood or young adult life? Are you still the jerk you were in high school? Are you the person that dreams big and always fails? Are you still bully bait? Are you the whiner? Are you stupid? (As Forrest Gump says, “Stupid is as stupid does.”)
If we are no longer that way, why do we accept the labels? What can we do about them? Now that is the real question. First off, I have to believe that most people outgrow their attitudes and actions of when they were younger. Yet these people may still allow the labels. But since we have outgrown these, we have to make ourselves realize that we have done just that, and that they no longer apply.
We have to look at ourselves and take stock of what we are now, and discard anything that no longer fits as we would shoes we have outgrown. When we do this, we need to release old labels as they are no longer true. Meditation is good for this. There are many meditation methods that work along similar paths. One takes you in and allows you to look at all the “shoe boxes” that define your life. You simply discard what you no longer need. You can modify this to apply only to labels you have been given. I am no longer a jerk so I don’t need that label.
The next step is to keep new labels from appearing and attaching themselves to you. This is good for all times, but also when you go back home and have to deal with all the people that can only remember you by labels that you no longer have. They try to pin new ones on you. The key to this is Teflon. Yes, you heard that right.
Think about surrounding yourself with Teflon. Be secure in that coating you. Why Teflon? Because nothing sticks to Teflon. If someone wants to stick a label on you, it will simply slide off. If someone wants to apply anything to you, it will not stick. That way you are free to define yourself as you feel you should be defined, because in truth, you are the only one that matters in your definition. Once you have defined yourself, you put that out there for everyone to see and they will no longer see what you were, but what you are.