• Home
    • About Dr. Jamie Marich
    • Our Team
    • Continuing Education Approvals
    • ICM Blog: Redefine Therapy
  • EMDR Therapy Training
    • About Our Training Program >
      • Eligibility, Associated Costs & Logistics
      • Frequently Asked Questions
      • Suggested Reading List for Trainees
      • EMDR Therapy Training Graduates
    • Faculty
    • Schedule & Registration
    • Consultation >
      • Consultant Quick View
      • Approved Consultants
      • Consultant Trainees
      • Currently Scheduled Groups
    • Advanced Topics Courses
    • EMDR Video Resources & Featured Phases 1-8 Demo
    • Dissociation & Addiction Resources
  • Expressive Arts Therapy Training
    • Certificate of Expressive Arts Therapy
    • Curriculum & Core Competencies
    • Supervision in Expressive Arts Therapy
    • Process Not Perfection Book Course
    • Select Calendar of Expressive Arts Training Events
    • Certificate of Expressive Arts Therapy Graduates
  • Retreats & Education
    • Continuing Education >
      • Calendar of CE Trainings with ICM
      • EMDR Therapy Training Schedule
      • EMDR Advanced Topics Courses
      • Select Calendar of Expressive Arts Training Events
    • Retreats >
      • Between The Holidays: Expressive Arts Therapeutic Retreat (Warren, OH)
      • Dancing Mindfulness Facilitators & Friends Annual Retreat
      • Dancing Mindfulness Training Retreat: UK 2020
      • EMDR Therapy Training Retreat: Maui, HI 2020
      • EMDR Therapy Training Retreat: Montana 2021
  • Publishing
Institute for Creative Mindfulness
  • Home
    • About Dr. Jamie Marich
    • Our Team
    • Continuing Education Approvals
    • ICM Blog: Redefine Therapy
  • EMDR Therapy Training
    • About Our Training Program >
      • Eligibility, Associated Costs & Logistics
      • Frequently Asked Questions
      • Suggested Reading List for Trainees
      • EMDR Therapy Training Graduates
    • Faculty
    • Schedule & Registration
    • Consultation >
      • Consultant Quick View
      • Approved Consultants
      • Consultant Trainees
      • Currently Scheduled Groups
    • Advanced Topics Courses
    • EMDR Video Resources & Featured Phases 1-8 Demo
    • Dissociation & Addiction Resources
  • Expressive Arts Therapy Training
    • Certificate of Expressive Arts Therapy
    • Curriculum & Core Competencies
    • Supervision in Expressive Arts Therapy
    • Process Not Perfection Book Course
    • Select Calendar of Expressive Arts Training Events
    • Certificate of Expressive Arts Therapy Graduates
  • Retreats & Education
    • Continuing Education >
      • Calendar of CE Trainings with ICM
      • EMDR Therapy Training Schedule
      • EMDR Advanced Topics Courses
      • Select Calendar of Expressive Arts Training Events
    • Retreats >
      • Between The Holidays: Expressive Arts Therapeutic Retreat (Warren, OH)
      • Dancing Mindfulness Facilitators & Friends Annual Retreat
      • Dancing Mindfulness Training Retreat: UK 2020
      • EMDR Therapy Training Retreat: Maui, HI 2020
      • EMDR Therapy Training Retreat: Montana 2021
  • Publishing

Redefine Therapy:
The Institute for Creative Mindfulness Blog

Does Labeling Me Really Negate Me? by Dr. Jamie (Pragya) Marich

4/29/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Sometime in the sixth grade, I first heard philosopher Soren Kierkegaard’s wisdom, “Once you label me, you negate me.” I wish I could tell you that my exposure to this teaching happened while I was attending some kind of summer symposium for gifted children. But alas, I heard it folded into a joke by Mike Myers’ character Wayne Campbell in the 1992 comedy Wayne’s World. Because Wayne’s World is one of my favorite films and I watch it several times a year, I am often reminded of Kierkegaard’s teaching and am challenged to ponder its layers of meaning. As a woman in long-term recovery who works with others in recovery, and as an out bisexual woman who serves as an LGBT+ advocate, I often handle questions about what it means to label or be labeled versus what it me mean to define or identify. Moreover, discussions rage around me and within me about whether or not we place too much stock in identifying in a certain way or calling ourselves certain things. Do labels or identifiers help to advance recovery and advocacy, or do they keep us stuck in unhelpful pigeon holes? Do labels really negate us, and does it make it any better if we swap out label with the word identifier? And on a spiritual level, does the practice of labeling or identifying keep us cut off from the essence of our true nature?
 
Let’s begin by looking at the distinction between labeling and identifying, for exploring this distinction sets a foundation to answer these very important questions.
 
“I don’t like to label things,” is a line I’ve heard from many people around me, from wishy-washy people I’ve tried to date to employers who have been non-committal about issues like job descriptions, expectations, contracts, and titles. Just about every woman I’ve worked with or known has been hurt in some way by a potential partner saying they don’t want to put a label on something, when it is really just an excuse to buy time or not commit. Yet I have also experienced very deep friendships that can be hard to specifically label or define because the feelings and roles involved don’t fit into any kind of a neat box. And I’ve also accepted work gigs that seem to defy the gravity of definitions and labels. On any given day it’s hard to describe exactly what I “do.” In fact, it’s a bit of a running joke in my family as my brother has long asked me, “What do you do?,” and my stepson often asks, “So Jamie, how many jobs exactly do you have? I count nine.” In my view I only have one job, yet it’s composed of so many facets and segments I can understand where it would feel confusing to people who don’t get it.
 
So an argument to be made for labels is that in many contexts, they can keep people safe (especially in work settings and in certain interpersonal relationships) and minimize confusion. Labels can work very much like boundaries and expectations in this sense, so it may feel better to many to call it a definition. Yet we’ve all run into cases where once somebody gets labeled as something, especially in a binary context, it creates a limiting and maybe even discriminatory tone. In this day and age, we only have to look to how political affiliations have divided us to see how this plays out. Many Democrats don’t trust Republicans, especially if they find out they are supporter of President Trump, and immediately shut them down as people as a result. The opposite can also happen, as I know many people (especially those who knew me when I was younger and more traditionally religious) don’t want to hear what I have to say because I’m now rather liberal. The devil’s advocate response I’ve heard, especially from others in the LGBT+ community, is that knowing if someone voted for Trump or not is a sign, a mark that helps them know if they’re really safe with that person. Although I heavily relate to this sentiment and even experienced a great deal of it myself after the 2016 election, for me it is not that black-and-white.
 
The issue of labeling comes up quite a bit in the recovery and LGBT+ communities in which I live and work. My Trauma and the Twelve Steps work is brilliant to some because it is integrative. Yet my perspective confuses many because even though trauma-focused in my orientation, I still introduce myself in appropriate contexts as, “Hi! My name is Jamie, and I’m an alcoholic and addict in long term recovery.” For me, this is an identifier and not a label. And it is my choice to identify publicly in this way, which makes it very powerful for me. Saying this identifier out loud keeps me grounded in the reality of my story, and I take great pride in being able to introduce myself in this way. Where it can feel like a label, in a negative sense, is when people judge me by this identifier, or if I completely define myself by this identifier. For me, identifying opens up possibilities where labeling connotes being limited by the way in which I identify (or by the way others try to identify or label me).
 
I recently put the question out to my hivemind on social media and there seemed to be a general consensus that identifying has a much more positive connotation in the English language than labeling. Another common theme is that labeling is more likely to come from without whereas identifying is something that is very personal to the individual doing the identifying—it comes with within. Skeptics or critics may roll their eyes at me when I say things like, “I am an openly bisexual woman in long-term recovery from addiction and dissociation.”
 
More PC bull crap. Why does everyone need to label themselves? Or be special?
 
I offer this response: Being open an honest about these things has allowed me to heal and be able to say and claim other parts of my identify like I am a deeply spiritual person, proud of my Eastern European ancestry, and I live each day to the fullest, enjoying life as much as I can and helping and serving others who my Higher Power sees fit to put into my path. I am a yogi, a seeker, a lover, a mystic, a sister, a daughter, a surrogate mother, a friend, a teacher, and author, a guide, a movie lover, an expressive artist… Shall I go on?
 
I can celebrate the fullness of my human identity because I’ve learned to be honest about my story and what it has meant to shaping my identity. Robert Ackerman, the teacher and recovery writer, said in a 2015 talk: “You cannot expect yourself to become a fully functioning individual (physically, emotionally, spiritually) if you deny a part of yourself. The key is integrating all of who you are.” I felt like he was talking directly to me, and in the months following this message circumstances allowed me to come out fully (not just to my close friends and colleagues) about my bisexual identity. Doing so was a game changer not just for my mental health, but for feeling more authentic and genuine in my professional work. I feel now that no one can label me, and if they do so pejoratively, it’s lost any power to affect me.
 
The yogic perspectives and teachings from other spiritual paths may offer a slightly different angle to the challenge. Teachers I’ve studied with contend, “As soon as you say I am…, then you are limiting yourself. Because you are really your soul and the pureness of consciousness.” In fact, in many yoga settings, it’s common to introduce yourself by saying, “I’m called Pragya,” instead of “I am Pragya.” Even saying things like “I am anxious” can be discouraged because you are identifying yourself with your anxiety.” It may be preferred to say “I have anxiety.”
 
Ever the bridge builder, my feelings are that both perspectives are true. I know that when I look at the bigger picture and my Divine essence, it is very limiting to label or to identifying myself in any way. Who I really am exists at a soul level that cannot be damaged or affected by anything on this plane. Yet I also live on the human plane for the time being and to know who I am in this body, a knowing that is empowered by the ways in which I identify, helps me to thrive while I’m here. Knowing the communities to which I belong and where I stand in work or relational contexts is important. Important, yes; everything, no. Like many answers to existential questions answered through the yogic perspective, the key is to not be attached. Freeing myself from the grip of attachment—to outcome, to definitions, to identifiers, to labels, to anything is the key to health and happiness. And this detachment I practice while also being honest about what matters to me is what allows me to be fully human and fully Divine, dancing as One between the worlds.   
 
0 Comments

    Institute for creative mindfulness

    ​Our work and our mission is to redefine therapy and our conversations are about the art and practice of healing. Blog launched in May 2018 by Dr. Jamie Marich, affiliates, and friends.

    Archives

    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018

    Categories

    All
    12-Steps
    !2-Step Recovery
    Adam O'Brien
    Addiction
    Addiction As Dissociation
    Aerial Yoga
    Afterlife
    Ahimsa
    Alcoholism
    Amadeo Giorgi
    Amrit
    Amrit Desai
    Amrit Yoga
    Amy Olson
    Anna Pirkl
    Anna Schott
    Anne Lammott
    Anti-semistism
    Art
    Attachment
    Attachment-focused EMDR
    Backpacking
    Baggage
    Bahgavad Gita
    Baking
    Beauty
    Bisexual
    Blocks
    Body Diversity
    Bosnia-Hercegovina
    Brene Brown
    Buddha
    Buddhist Psychology
    Call And Response
    Career
    Catholicism
    Change
    Christine Blasey Ford
    Christine Valters Paintner
    Coaching
    Competition
    Complex Trauma
    Confrontation With The Unconcious
    Connections
    Creativity
    Croatia
    Culinary Arts
    Dance
    Dancing Mindfulness
    DBT
    Definitions
    Derek Farrell
    DES
    Detachment
    Dialectical Behavior Therapy
    Dissociation
    Dissociation Phobia
    Dissociative Disorder
    Dreams
    Dr. Francine Shapiro
    Dr. Jamie Marich
    Dr. Kellie Kirksey
    Dr. Marsha Linehan
    Dr. Mary Riley
    D.W. Winnicott
    Edmund Husserl
    EMDR
    EMDRIA
    EMDR Phase 2
    Emdr Phase 2.5
    EMDR Phases 3 6
    EMDR Phases 3-6
    EMDR Therapy
    Emily Wichland
    Emotions
    Europe
    Experience
    Expressive Arts
    Feelings
    Feeling Tone Meditation
    Flash Technique
    Flowers
    Friendship
    Fusion
    Gabrielle Bernstein
    Ganesh
    Gracie Jiu-Jitsu
    Growth
    Gun Violence
    Hannah Senesh
    Hanuman
    Hindu Gods
    Hinduism
    Holistic Healing
    Holly Speenburgh
    Iatrogenic
    Ide
    Identify
    Identity
    Illness
    Imposter Syndrome
    India
    Intuition
    Janet Leff
    Jiu-jitsu
    Judgment
    Jung
    Karma
    Katharine Fertig
    Labels
    Lakoff And Johnson
    Language
    LGBTQ+
    Maharaj-ji
    Marcia Camino
    Marie Kondo
    Marla Carano
    Marnie Cram
    Martial Arts
    Medication
    Metaphors
    #metoo
    MID
    Mindfulness
    Miracles
    Morality
    Motivation
    Myths
    Naltrexone
    Names
    Networking
    Opportunity
    Oprah
    Painting
    Parenting
    Parts Work
    Paula Lavocat
    Perfectionism
    Peyton (Marnie) Cram
    Phase 2
    Phenomenology
    Phillip Manfield
    Phobia
    Photography
    Pierre Janet
    Pilgrimage
    Poem
    Poem Of Instruction
    Poetry
    Popular Kid Complex
    Popular Kids
    Pragya
    Preparation
    Process
    Process No
    Process Not Perfection
    Protector Figures
    Psychiatric
    Psychiatrist
    Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
    Qualitative Research
    Quantitative Research
    Readiness
    Recovery
    Redefine Therapy
    Relationships
    Reprocessing
    Resourcing
    Retreat
    Ricky Greenwald
    Risk
    Rita Lampe
    Saints
    Sanatan Dharma
    Sarah Treem
    Saraswati
    Self
    Sexual Assualt
    Shame
    Sharon Saul
    Showtine
    #ShowUpForShabbat
    Social Media
    Soren Kierkegaard
    Specialty Protocols
    Speech
    Speech And Debate
    Spirituality
    Squirrel Hill
    Stacy Menka Piccolo
    Step 4
    Stigma
    Subjectivity
    Suzanne Rutti
    Targeting Sequences
    Tattoos
    Teaching
    Television
    Teresa Allen
    The Affair
    Touch
    Training
    Trauma
    Trauma Focused Care
    Trauma-Informed
    Trauma-informed Yoga
    Trauma Treatment
    Travel
    Tree Of Life
    Violence
    Visual Art
    Weirdness
    Withdrawal
    Yoga
    Yogi Amrit Desai
    Zhuangzi

    RSS Feed

The Institute for Creative Mindfulness
P.O. Box 8732, Warren, Ohio 44484

Interviews with ICM Team
EMDR Video Resources
​Mindfulness & Yoga Video Resources
​
​ICM Blog: Redefine Therapy

Question or Comment? CONTACT us!
  • Home
    • About Dr. Jamie Marich
    • Our Team
    • Continuing Education Approvals
    • ICM Blog: Redefine Therapy
  • EMDR Therapy Training
    • About Our Training Program >
      • Eligibility, Associated Costs & Logistics
      • Frequently Asked Questions
      • Suggested Reading List for Trainees
      • EMDR Therapy Training Graduates
    • Faculty
    • Schedule & Registration
    • Consultation >
      • Consultant Quick View
      • Approved Consultants
      • Consultant Trainees
      • Currently Scheduled Groups
    • Advanced Topics Courses
    • EMDR Video Resources & Featured Phases 1-8 Demo
    • Dissociation & Addiction Resources
  • Expressive Arts Therapy Training
    • Certificate of Expressive Arts Therapy
    • Curriculum & Core Competencies
    • Supervision in Expressive Arts Therapy
    • Process Not Perfection Book Course
    • Select Calendar of Expressive Arts Training Events
    • Certificate of Expressive Arts Therapy Graduates
  • Retreats & Education
    • Continuing Education >
      • Calendar of CE Trainings with ICM
      • EMDR Therapy Training Schedule
      • EMDR Advanced Topics Courses
      • Select Calendar of Expressive Arts Training Events
    • Retreats >
      • Between The Holidays: Expressive Arts Therapeutic Retreat (Warren, OH)
      • Dancing Mindfulness Facilitators & Friends Annual Retreat
      • Dancing Mindfulness Training Retreat: UK 2020
      • EMDR Therapy Training Retreat: Maui, HI 2020
      • EMDR Therapy Training Retreat: Montana 2021
  • Publishing