"What do you think about identifying yourself with something?"
On a random question that lead to deeper thoughts within me
I was asked this by a fellow dancer at a live music dancing event yesterday. It was in the context of what it means to be a “dancer”, but more generally speaking.
Personally I feel weird about the concept of “identifying” myself with something and “being” that thing.
It feels like putting myself into prison somehow. One box, one label, one identifier.
I love so many things: science, art, entrepreneurship, dancing, life, philosophy, spiritual stuffs, meditation, outdoor life, people, nature, dogs, sleeping on my balcony…
Now, am I a “meditator”? Yeah I am, but what does that mean?
Am I a “dog owner”? Sure, but does that mean I have to do what all dog owners do? Nope.
Am I a “scientist”? Yeah, I got a PhD, woohoo; but does that mean I should disregard my emotions & intuition? Hell no.
Sooo… I believe it is a tricky path to navigate when it comes to labels & identifications. Mainly because of some random rules that are attached to those labels.
And who even made those rules? And why should I adhere to them if I don’t agree with them and they don’t suit me? I would like to create my own set of life-rules.
Especially the word “identification” might be a bit loaded these days and I think that we need to be careful because it can lead to reality-distortions… without getting into the details of what reality even is :D.
But here is the thing: we all were, or are put into boxes, all the time. We even put ourselves into boxes & identifiers. Maybe even automatically.
Could we have been educated to do so? Maybe.
Let’s take a simple example: I was born in Poland, I am officially Polish. I grew up in Germany, I am officially German. I live in Sweden, I am not officially Swedish, but I feel very at home here.
One could say, that it is so random where we are placed in the world & building all my life around “being polish, or german” would be pointless, cos in the end, I am just Daria.
The funny thing is, Polish people see me as Polish, Germans as German. I usually tell them to pick what they want, cos I don’t really care :D. People will see you as whatever they want to see you. You have little influence on that.
Also: I don’t think that it is so random where we are put into the world, I totally think my soul decided to do it for a reason ;). but thats for another post.
And here I come to the actual point I wanted to make: the question about what I think about identifying and labeling things is way deeper than nationalities, hobbies, titles or jobs:
It is about: who are you? Stripped away from all those labels.
What is your essence? And what does it mean for you & your life?
The answer to those questions is usually a jobtitle, name or any other label. But in the end, all these don’t matter.
For me, I usually say that I am just Daria. This means that I am a soul wandering around this planet in a physical body.
I emanate a certain type of energy, I make people feel a certain type of things, spark stuffs in them and THAT is, in essence, what counts.
There is this awesome saying, not sure from where, so I paraphrase it: People don’t remember what you say, neither what you do, but how you make them feel.
I love it, cos to me it comes closest to “who we are”. We are never just alone in isolation, we always interact & are in play with others and in the end this is what counts.
As an example: if I am miserable & sad & grumpy & have a bad day, I do influence my surrounding with my rather negative energy. People feel it, subconsciously, this is how we are built.
Equally so, if I walk though life with joy, ease and in a relaxed and peaceful state, this also affects people, they feel it too!
All this also means, that your inner world, how you feel, what you think directs the actions you take in life.
Let’s say again, I am angry and grumpy, I might leash out on someone in the supermarket & snap at them for being slow (just as a clarification: I never have done that, but I experienced people doing this). It will cause unpleasant emotions in them, maybe even hurt them, cos they were in a sensitive spot that day.
Now, extrapolate that to what you see in the world: at the core of it, are people who are deeply unhappy, unsatisfied, ego driven, they hurt within & spread that to the outside world.
At the same time, if you are peaceful, loving, calm and enjoy yourself and life, you will spread kindness and not snap at the granny that takes a bit longer at the cashier. You might even help her pack her groceries into her bag.
Guess what that will cause: it will make her day!!!
Now back again to the question about “identifying yourself with something”, there is another thought that came up:
identifying ourselves with certain emotions can be tricky too.
Let’s say, you are angry. That doesn’t mean that you are an angry person, just that you feel anger and that is totally okay.
Trust me, I had to re-learn that pattern of thinking certain emotions and feelings were wrong or negative, cos I thought they would make me a bad person.
Emotions are signs for something more, NOT something we should identify ourselves with.
Cos if you think just because you feel anger and fear inside, you are an angry and fearful person, you will show up as an “angry person”: BOOM, label added! Damage for about to be caused to you & all others from whatever it means to be angry!
The point with emotions is, to feel them, let them run through our system, learn whatever they want to teach us & move on.
The other thing is: if we all really are souls floating around on planet earth, we do not need any label at all, no mark, no nothing, cos we are more than good enough of who we are already.
This is a difficult concept to grasp, I am currently investigating it for myself. And before I can fully transcend into pure consciousness & soul-being ;), I found myself a middle way:
I decide who I want to be, what I want to do, how I want to look & what I want to emanate into the world. And for that I take parts of all kinds of labels that exist and make my own Daria-soul-label:
I love science and knowledge, so I take the curiosity from being a Scientist
—> but I condemn the ivory-tower, blindly-trust-the-science, publish-or-perish and bullshit-cult-like-poop from the science world.
—> Because: many parts of what the science world is today, are manipulated and if simply questioning a “science-fact” is deemed conspiratorial, something has gone deeply wrong.
I love art and creativity, so I will take those on into my life as much as I can
—> and I try my best to throw away the starving-artist illusion, or that art is pointless if it is not representational.
I love to have my own company & entrepreneurship
—> but I will refuse to play with the rules of hussle-and-grind-yourself to death and bro-marketing because this is not the only way to run a successful business and I will keep on exploring what my own way is… challenging endeavour ;)
I will keep on being a hiking and camping outdoors person, without needing to have 5 tents and 10 backpacks to be a “real” outdoor enthusiast; trust me, I have a lot of things already :D
I will embrace my biological given label of woman and continue deciding what this means for me and my core feminine essence.
—> Because I have lived in my masculine energy long enough to know it doesn’t serve me, I am not a man, neither do I need to act like one to amke it in thee world.
—> Letting go of those fake-labels that have been put on us woman with time, is one of the toughest journeys I am currently experiencing. Side note: dear men, you are soooo needed & I wish you all the best of luck of unraveling what bullshit has been put on you when it comes to your masculinity and what it means to be a man!
I could go on and on about how I pick and choose what I truly want, always with the aim to be as free as possible and as close to my core soul-essence as I can be!
It is not always easy, but it surely is fun and exciting! Kind of like an experiment I do, with all kinds of variables and I can decide the outcome of it… or well, I try to let the universe and higher powers guide me, another part and surrender-experiment I am participating in right now ;)
That is it for today, I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic!
Love,
Daria
