THE POWER OF LABELS

How this book was created …Some of the exercises, which I have recommended, come from my own battle with labels, the rest have been borrowed from the Gestalt psychotherapy. One of the main Gestalt principles is that mental phenomena awareness should go through bodily sensations. For example, when we suffer, we have to focus on the body and try to find out where the pain resides, in what area of the body we feel discomfort. In my personal process, I discovered that the “manifestation” of the labels seems to render them powerless, it makes them visible and easier to remove. Such are “the weed in my garden”, “the bricks or wooden blocks in my backpack” and the “mine field” exercises. All physical actions we undertake in the “Label Removal” process will help us present them to our mind as material entities, which will enable us to remove them with greater ease. Because, how could we otherwise, overcome something elusive, without form and colour, something we cannot see or touch? The power of labels is like that – an invisible pressure coming from all directions, which intercepts our thoughts and actions, distorts beyond recognition the mirror reflecting our body and soul, and makes us vulnerable to the pain of the past and the fear of the future. Another major principle of Gestalt psychotherapy, which you may recognize in the exercises and the explanations of the “Label Removal” process, is the “HERE and NOW” principle. Because life is that which happens at this moment, in this place, in this situation – we can build it up, or change it now. And the labels are the screeching break which prevents us from making the decisive step, or stops us dead in our tracks just as we aspire towards our goal… When we compare ourselves… Imagine how from the very first day at school right to the Prom day, in the course of over a decade, we all take part in a beauty, intellect, talent and skills contest. And no one is equally good in all areas but at first we all strive to be perfect in everything. We gradually find out what we are good at, and what we are not so good at. But, when we go to school, we carry our prevalent attitude, passed on to us by our family. Some of us highlight and are proud of the things we are good at but talk halfheartedly of our failures, and inside our minds we consciously ignore them. Others, do just the opposite – they turn their failures into a drama, blame themselves (and if someone else blames them too – just watch…), yet they take their successes for granted as if no attention should be paid to them. They are not especially happy with their success because they are too busy eating themselves from the inside. Thus, the constant grinding of their failures turns into a habit at a certain point (also see the chapters on Habits and Failures). So, they stick their own negative labels and the more they chew and dissect their failures mentally, the bigger their insecurity gets and the more they get to doubt their intellectual and physical abilities. Too often is the reason for our dissatisfaction with ourselves hidden in comparisons we make between ourselves and our classmates. We are still not mature enough to appreciate that people are different, that no two people are equally good or bad in all spheres of knowledge or in handling mundane problems… „What would people say?” This is not a question. This is a reproach which we often hear in our childhood and teen-age years. It is equal in power to “Shame on you!”, “You are embarrassing yourself!”, “this behaviour is unacceptable!” This is how we learn the norms of the society we live in, where everybody should feel comfortable. There’s nothing wrong with that. Our parents raise us with similar phrases, and we, in turn, raise our kids with them. The worst comes later, when in our adult years we are capable of giving up our own decisions, our understanding of how life should be, in order to comply with “what people would say”. But other people have their own problems and concerns and are hardly all that interested in what is happening in our life. Well, sometimes they talk about us, as we talk about those around us…but that’s it. What they would say is of no consequence. Dubbing us this and that is for their own use and should not concern us one bit. Of course, there’s always one concerned neighbour who would tell us what others are saying behind our backs, but the biggest mistake would be to accept other people’s opinions of us as an authoritative truth and start doubting the correctness of our own decisions. The minute we accept that their opinion is more important than ours, we surrender the control over our lives to them. If we start worrying about how we’ve been labeled, we gradually start believing them. We start living according to their rules, ignoring out own impulse and strife for a different way of life, for a different thinking. Their “must” and “must not” becomes more important than our “I want”, “I think this is right”, “I get kicks out of this”, “I can’t do this any longer”, etc. Advertisements Ads attack our self esteem and our fears; they feed our desire to be at our best, to be in tune with fashion, while actually they manipulate us and label us very successfully if we allow it. Few are the people who are immune to the advertising virus, and let’s not forget – it attacks us 24/7, 365 days a year. . So, if you are still 30 and are anxiously staring at yourself in the mirror, looking for wrinkles, think again – is this your own fear, or your reaction to what you have seen on TV, on some billboard, or on the shop window of a store, selling cosmetics? Well, if your search is thorough, you will inevitably find one, and no matter how insignificant it may be, it would seem to you that the whole world is looking at it. . If you ask any dentist, he will tell you there is no snow-white enamel in nature. So if your teeth start to look discoloured to you and this “problem” bothers you almost every morning, think whether the reason is not the ad for that new toothpaste which “makes your teeth whiter in only a week.” You liked your curly hair until yesterday, and today it seems horrible to you when you look at the unrealistically thick, soft, glossy curls that float on the screen - and all this – thanks to the new hair balm with whatever…Not that we are not tempted from time to time to take advantage of these miracle products, only to find out that in most cases the result of their use is more than modest… I don’t even want to start on the subject of advertising drugs and food supplements. You can literally get sick if you give in to their hypnosis. The promise is that if you let yourself be under its spell and decide to improve the turnover of the pharmaceutical companies, “you will get cured” from all known diseases plus two or three yet undescribed ones as a bonus… Feeling old before you turn 30 Why a 25-30 years old person may feel old? There may be many reasons but the main ones are as follows: - if a person’s peers have already created families, the person risks to be labeled “spinster/old maid”, or “(old) bachelor”. Perhaps they think it’s too early for them, perhaps, they are not ready to make the important step, perhaps they haven’t met the right person yet, perhaps they have other plans for their life, perhaps… perhaps… there may be thousands of reasons which other people not only don’t want to understand, but often don’t see or don’t perceive as legitimate. Such persons often hear from parents, relatives and close friends remarks like: „Come on! What are you waiting for? Your classmates’ children have grown up already, and you still don’t dare tie the knot”, „The Prince on a white horse exists only in fairy tales, no point waiting for him, get yourself together and do it”, „ Well, you are the only one who cannot find a man/a woman…why are you so picky?”…