Power and pitfalls of labels
“I am a yoga teacher”, “I am a backpacker”, “I am a mother of two”, “I am an artist”.
Sentences like these give me a mild case of the hives.
Since I could remember I’ve always been very allergic to labels. I would have a hard time giving myself a definition and would be instinctively distrustful of people that present themselves to the rest of the world with one.
Nowadays when people ask me if I am a yoga teacher, I bypass the sarcastic answer “who in Rishikesh or even India isn’t!?” and go for a very politically correct “well I do teach yoga”.
There are lots of (intellectually sounding) reasons why this answer makes sense and I will stick to it for a while longer. First and foremost, it keeps myself and my ego in check. Second, it makes it a bit more slippery for others to assign me an additional bunch of assumed attributes that go with the yoga teacher, or any other, label du jour.
Some labels are also very tricky, because they represent a story about yourself that’s crystallised in time. Like a prehistoric mosquito trapped in amber. It would be great to get out and know that the world has moved on from dinosaurs and all that jazz. These labels keeps you stuck in a role, a skin that no longer suit you and lend a certain unnecessary stickiness to the process of self-transformation. Which, to be honest, is already pretty darn complicated. In some of the most serious cases of crystallisation, the label is not even self-inflicted but thrown onto us by friends or even close relatives. In my own very personal version of the 60s counterculture movement, I therefore have decided that “I ain’t labelling anymore”.
I was discussing this topic a couple of days ago with some friends while having a very late palak paneer and jeera rice breakfast. I presented my point of view with logical clarity and, I’m loath to admit, a sprinkling of bragging. After attentively listening to me, both of them (yoga teachers, of course) looked and me and said that, actually, it’s very important to define yourself as a yoga teacher.
Labels are sometimes like shadow play [Photo by @omarboussemha]
To give some context, one of them finished relatively recently her yoga teacher training and was thinking of looking for jobs teaching yoga. As many other people (women in particular), she was navigating the treacherous waters of being true to her perceived skills and competences, while also believing within herself that she knew enough to teach others. In this case adopting a label is like a Elizabethian-era calling card, opening the doors of exclusive boudoirs and members-only clubs. Or we can also think about it as a refined and more elegant version of “fake it till you make it”. Hello, I am a yoga teacher, please pay money to come attend my class.
It occurred to me that it’s not that I have never thought about in in these terms, but rather I don’t need that protective enclosure anymore. At least for some facets of my life. Heavens know that I still need it in others. Indeed, you might notice that I’m calling this a website rather than a blog!
After our chat I didn’t change my way of talking about teaching yoga, however I’ve gotten back in touch with that myself that used the same approach some years ago. Crafting CVs to apply to companies a new industry, introducing myself to clients decades older than me that I not only had to work for but sometimes even teach. Until your light shines so brightly that that’s all others can see, I used labels. In some cases made an art of it.
So, to label or to not label? The answer does not have to be black and white. As with everything else that’s genuine in life, there is a juicy collection of grey shades that we can pick from.
Wherever you are on this spectrum I believe that if you know the part of you that’s speaking in a given moment, and are able to catch any signs of an inflated ego or a (falsely?) exceedingly humble attitude, you are probably doing fine. Whether you label yourself or not.
And I wish anyways for all of us to use labels as chameleons, being able to adopt them or drop them at will. Not being chained by them into living a restricted life. Using them not to show off (though who doesn’t secretly believe that chameleons are in fact the biggest fashion victims?) but to support our survival, if not physical at least emotional.
