My heart whispered:

“If someone, whom your conditioning, culture, religion or society has labeled as “less than,” enters your experience pause and expand into full presence. Know viscerally that the differences your mind seems to perceive are mere illusions in the greater context of existence, know the lies and hidden self-aggrandizements embedded in the labels you learned, know the violence of denigration in the labels and narratives handed down to you, perceive and know the being-ness of the other and you shall know awe. 

Observe thoughts or narratives of charity or pity, see their dark and disempowering nature, release them from your mental body and replace them with knowing of sovereignty, compassion and service from the oneness of Self and Source. 

Can you see their presence opening countless doorways of wisdom to hearts and minds willing to be receptive to the wisdom on offer?

Can you see the magnificence of the soul that chose to explore an incarnation that was sure to be met with many obstacles, exclusion, resistance and pain? 

Can you see them being another you?

Can you be at the zero point, anchored in wholeness and oneness, being alert, open, receptive, giving and ready to co-create?

Now that you dropped the baggage of the old paradigm, you are ready for them to teach you a whole lot of new dance moves, you have never known to exist nor been capable of executing in your former mind state.”

Every time I look at this picture I feel a humbling gratitude for the intricate magnificence of life and the consciousness and love embedded in all our experiences. Both patiently waiting for our senses and awareness to awaken to them and delight in their abundant gifts and revel in joy. 

What could be more delightful and majestic than the play of rays of consciousness in innumerable forms, states and embodiments? 

Photography by Unknown

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There is a need to look at their diametral opposite and see where and why it, or the traits associated with it, may lie repressed and rejected in us. Persisting past the defenses and smoke screens of the ego we can uncover how these traits are expressed through us in unconscious ways. 

Observing it more we realize how we hide a vicious circle of repression, expression and self punishment from our awareness when we are obsessively attaching to an identification or label. Confronting these patterns, reflecting on the truthfulness of their underlying beliefs and judgements will slowly diminish them and release the energy blocked and stagnated in their upkeep.

Being attached to an image, identification, or label is an expression of a old wound keeping a stranglehold on our inner child, thereby severely limiting our life experience by creating repetitive cycles of, painful experiences and undercutting our ability of manifesting the life we wish for. 

I sincerely hope you hear me when I tell you, positive identifications and labels hurt us as much as the negative do. No label or identification truly serves us!  Go back and read the previous sentence again and let it sink in.

The light of inquiry, meditation and knowing brings change and allows the shadow parts of us to painfully and yet joyously come back to life and add their wisdom and tools to our engagement with life. Bringing us closer to wholeness and balance.

I realize the stories of when and how I picked them is mostly irrelevant or of a cursory importance in my shadow work. What is important, though, is the gentle integration of what I once learned to reject and deny by dropping my judgements and welcoming these aspects as members of my inner tribe of selves with love, compassion and most importantly with humor. This is the path of the heart warrior who brings love and peace to himself and therefore to all.

When I write about embracing all of our feelings, traits and selves I do not mean that we drop kindness or consideration and become insensitive hurtful egotists. What i am talking about is that we let go of splitting our natural feelings, sensations and thoughts into welcome and unwelcome and stop repressing in favor of living with acceptance, curiosity and openness to all of our experience within and without. 

I realize more and more the need to free ourselves from internalized corsets of acceptable expressions and behaviors to be who we came to be and to have more compassionate and joyful relationships with self and others. 

Photography: Unknown

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This mean ego move is not unknown to me, I have been doing this and might be in the danger of doing so when triggered, out of ignorance and lack of sensitivity.

I understand the discomfort with labels some might feel with a view to how many people utilize them as a means of setting themselves apart, exotizing the other or rendering the unique human being behind it invisible in any other way.
I get the subtle ways words and labels can have a self-limiting and -isolating effect if we are not mindful. “I AM” is a very powerful self programming sequence that can be useful or create unexpected suffering when chosen unwisely.

Rejecting the use of any labels or self chosen prescriptive of others is an expression of a lack of respect and understanding of another human’s equality and sovereignty. It speaks to me of the person’s lack of freedom to be all of who he truly is due to strict critical and judgmental self-management.
Not using labels, as a shorthand to convey multi-layered concepts, ideas or identities without adequate explanations is showing a lack in communication skills and understanding of its challenges. When you side-step labels to monologize on their content you might be in danger of being disrespectful of another’s time and communication preferences.
If using an appropriate label gives you a feeling of being “less than” our being out of your league and makes you reject and reframe the meaning the labels instead it speaks of old pain of being shamed to me.

I have compassion for internal conflicts and protective patterns but fiercely oppose the externalization that hurts another’s feeling or becomes part of systemic oppression.
Our discomfort and pain are invitations to inquire, to educate ourselves and use the tools of language even if they are lacking. When we follow that invitation and explore we inevitably will be met in our shared humanity and enriched by the diversity of lived and embodied realities and the kaleidoscope of insights it affords those open to receive.

The freedom of some to relabel themselves and their preferences is an act of liberation for all, opening the pathway to understanding our society and freeing ourselves from any label that limits our self expression.

Respecting everyone’s freedom of expression and choice of labels is a small admission fee to our own freedom, don’t you think?

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