Our brain creates names and labels to help us understand the physical world – safe/not safe, food/not food, threat, not a threat, and mine, not mine. This process is great when it comes to physical survival. Labels are also created to help us identify types of things – flowers, bees, useful, difficult, and beautiful. This helps us know what kinds of things we need or want. We also create labels to identify people – Christian, Jew, Black, White, Chinese, Native American, Man, Woman, Straight, Gay, Trans. This helps us experience belonging, we know who is “us” and who is “them”.
A challenge with Labels is that they are designed to separate and categorize and they give the impression that we know something important about each individual within a group we’ve identified. When labels are hurled in anger an attempt is being made to re-establish the boundaries between us and them. But there is no us without them and no them without us
Let us stop using labels in anger, or to separate, dismiss, or diminish. Let our labeling be a joyous celebration of the infinitely diverse ways the ONE Life shows itself. Let’s make each label a beautiful description of the uniqueness of expression. Each individual and each group becomes valued as part of the whole rather than separated into pieces that don’t belong. Let your labels be a blessing and not a curse and Oneness will shine through in a blaze of glory.