Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye. The Emerging Spirits Center in Ventura, California, where we have a monthly Buddhist Boot Camp Discussion Circle, has offered me use of their space when no one else is there as a quiet place to record these episodes, so I will likely be able to record
them more frequently. I want to thank you for being patient with me as I try to get my podcasting rhythm going, so to speak. Today, we are going to discuss the labels that we each wear, sometimes throughout our entire lives, and often as an excuse for being the way we are. I've heard someone justify their anger one time because they're Italian, or their constant fear because they're from New York. Those make good jokes,
but they leave us stuck if we take them too seriously. When I was a kid, I simply identified as a boy, and I'm pretty sure that was the only label I wore at the time. But when my family and I moved from Israel to San Francisco during my first year of high school, additional labels were either thrust upon me or became more apparent than ever before: Jewish, Israeli, foreign, short, minority, ESL student, weird, and so on.
I never thought of myself as those things, but other people sure did, and each label felt like a stamp. Later in life, I was labeled according to my job title, tax bracket, dating habits, dietary restrictions, and spiritual seeking. Labels became so essential, in fact, that I foolishly started wearing a few of them with pride, and even a sense of achievement. I thought I was "finding myself," but each label actually distorted and restricted
who I truly was. At one point, I started studying world religions and psychology, but did finding value in the teachings of Christ make me a Christian? Did taking the monastic vows make me a Buddhist? At first, I thought each label was helping me understand who I was, but the truth is that I am all of those things, and not one of them defines me. Each label was actually limiting who I was, not helping me.
You see, labels segregate us into a subgroup of a subgroup of a subgroup, that keeps getting smaller and smaller until we lose sight of the big picture: that we are all the same. Growing up, one of my closest friends believed that she would never amount to anything, that she was unattractive, and that her ultimate failure in life was inevitable in whatever she pursued.
None of this was true, of course, but because her father repeatedly said this to her from childhood through puberty, she ultimately, perhaps inevitably, accepted this as true. Even years after her father was no longer around, she continued telling people what a failure she was. And it didn't matter how many friends told her she was charming and beautiful, because as long as she didn't believe it to be true, then it wasn't,
at least not for her; not for many years. So what is true? Is Lily beautiful or not? Well, she's technically neither beautiful nor not beautiful, but her experience in life is ultimately shaped and greatly affected by what she chooses to believe, by the label she chooses to wear, if any, as is the case with many of us. We can choose to believe that we are perfect by design, gifted, smart, capable, fortunate, blessed, and worthy, or we can choose to believe the opposite.
It took Lily 36 years to change what she believed, but that's the wonderful news about re-evaluating our belief system and our labels: we can embrace a new truth even after decades of believing the opposite. Or, of course, we can choose to stay stuck.
Either way, we are the ones who live with the consequences. To accept a new truth, we must be willing to let go of an old one, and that's where most people struggle: ignoring or forgetting whatever society has previously deemed as beautiful, successful, saint-like, or heaven-bound, and redefining ourselves according to new and improved standards.
How much of your identity is wrapped up in a label? And do you see the difference between identifying as "a person with disabilities," for example, as opposed to "a disabled person?" The difference between saying, "I am angry," and saying, "I am feeling anger right now," which honors both the feeling and the fact that it's temporary.
Be careful of the labels with which you identify yourself, they become part of your personality, and it's very difficult to let them go because then it feels like you are losing your identity, where in fact, you are expanding, you are growing, you are limitless. I am a lot of things and not one of them defines me, unless I let it. So, be careful of the labels you choose to wear, because you are also many things, don't limit yourself to just a few.
It is with tremendous gratitude that these episodes are brought to you without any commercials thanks to the support of listeners just like you. If you find value in this podcast, the YouTube videos, online posts, books, or events, show your love with as little as a dollar a month through patreon.com/BuddhistBootCamp. Thank you for your support. Timber Hawkeye is the bestselling author of Faithfully Religionless and Buddhist Boot Camp.
For additional information, please visit BuddhistBootCamp.com where you can order autographed books to support the Prison Library Project, watch Timber's inspiring TED Talk, and join our monthly mailing list. We hope you have enjoyed this episode and invite you to subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions. Thank you for being a Soldier of Peace in the Army of Love. 🙏