Labels.

Labels; they are everywhere. Whether it is in a store, your pantry, or your Google calendar, much of our lives involve labels. Aside from showing the brand on your soup can or notifying you of a meeting on your phone, labels seem to overcome a great part of our existence when it comes to defining ourselves as human beings. They seem to be something that affect our energies, our days, and our happiness, and often in a negative manner. Sometimes they even affect our quality of life when they touch us deep enough.

Labels can be just one word: Late. Annoying. Loud. Messy. Weak. Unintelligent. Depressed. Addict. Failure. Or they can be lengthy thoughts: Not good enough. Won’t be able to accomplish that. Always trying and failing. Never going to come back from that. Negative labels are given to us all the time. Maybe you have experienced this recently and it has de-railed a goal you had. Maybe you have experienced this and it made you feel less about yourself. Maybe someone professed a label over your life that you’ve never been able to get rid of, or maybe you’ve placed the label over your life on your own; maybe without even knowing it. Whatever it is, I want to challenge you in the rest of this reading to let go of whatever negative labels you have in your life, and replace them with new ones… positive ones. ‘Labels can be positive,’ you ask? Absolutely.

I’ve been spending 2018 refocusing myself in many aspects of my life; specifically spiritually. In the last year and a half, I have probably grown and learned more about myself, other people, and the world like never before. But with all of that growth, one of the hardest things I have been facing is how to get rid of the ‘old negative labels’. How do I go about replacing something negative that defined me with something brand new and positive and encouraging? 

One of the first things I’ve learned in this process is that “this process” takes time. In our society, we are bombarded with instant gratification. We want what we want when we want it… and usually when we want it is ‘now!’ This goes for life changes too. We want them to happen immediately. This training that society has placed over us makes it more and more difficult to simply wait for things. We have difficulty with simply taking time, being still, and trusting in ourselves, or in God or the universe to get us through the process. But if your label was once ‘alcoholic,’ then it will take time to redefine that into ‘sober.’ If your label was once ‘depressed,’ then it will take time to redefine that into ‘happy.’ In this re-labeling process, remember time is your friend. Allow yourself the courtesy that defining a new truth over your life will take time. But it can be time that you spend enjoying the process and not dreading it, eager for immediate results. 

Be still. Trust. Wait. 

Another thing I’ve learned is that to place new truths over your life, you have to believe in the new truths over your life, and put action with them! If you are someone that is always late, believe that you can be the person that is always five minutes early instead, and then take steps to make that possible. Once you start setting your clock ten minutes ahead of time, or having your clothes and bags ready for the day ahead on the night before, you will start to practice new patterns and new norms that then create a new label in your world! 

Being late is something that is relatively easy to be changed. But maybe your label is something bigger. Maybe you’ve been told you were overweight. Maybe you never had anyone that encouraged you to be better in life. Maybe you’ve been told you were unwanted by a parent, a partner, or a friend. Begin affirming the opposite. Put sticky notes on your mirror that say beautiful, loved, wanted, successful. Infiltrate giving yourself new labels into your day-to-day actions, and really believe in them! I promise your thoughts or old labels over you will begin to diminish. I went into a store today and there was a sign that said, “You are an awesome human being.” It was the first thing that caught my eye. So when the lady working asked me how I was doing, I responded with “I’m awesome!” Because I am! And you are too. 

I said how I had been growing specifically in spiritual ways, and that has been huge in re-labeling myself. What happens when you connect your spirituality to your labels? Let me give you two spins here. Maybe you aren’t someone that believes in God, but you believe in the universe, karma, or Buddhism. If you believe in those things you know that what you put into the world will come back to you in the future. I think the same goes for labels. If you believe you are wonderful, loved, and great in all the ways you want to be great in, and REALLY believe these things, then these new beliefs and truths will come back to you. Once you start proclaiming a truth within, others will see your confidence in a newfound label, and will accept that. They may even begin to believe it too! But remember, this takes time. Buddhism also assumes that there is no fixed ‘self’ in life; that we are always changing. Re-interpret this in a way that if this is true, then you can always gain a new label. Leave the broken and negative ones behind, and accept your new truths, whatever you want them to be! 

While accepting all of the truths above, if you are a believer in God, I encourage you to go back to what He, as The Creator of all, labels us as. In the Bible, God calls us friends of Jesus and children of The King. Sometimes He labels us with one word: redeemed, free, accepted, loved, blameless, and wise. Sometimes they’re full thought labels too. He tells us that our bodies are temples. He tells we are holy, and chosen, and perfectly made. He tells us that formerly we have been in darkness, but now we are lights to the world through His love. He says that we are complete and that He will supply all of our needs. Now you find me a label that can’t be countered by THOSE truths. So if you don’t believe them about yourself, know that God believes them over you. Life gets so busy sometimes that we forget that these labels are the real truths, and ultimately the only ones that matter. And there isn’t a single person or label in the world that can take that away from us. 

So whatever label it is that you’re holding onto today, it is my hope and prayer that you replace it. That you let any negative defininition over your existence go, and choose something new, and something positive to call yourself. Take time in the process, believe in the new affirmations, and connect your spirituality to your labels. After reading this, I hope you feel known, thought about, encouraged, and inspired. Those are some pretty good labels that I’m always thrilled to take hold of. So I hope that YOU decide to do that too! And start loving the newly labeled ‘you’ a little more today. You’ve got this, friend!