Become Nothing. Nothing at All.
"Every act of creation begins with an act of destruction." Pablo Picasso
The Real You
I'd like you to try an exercise.
You'll need a blank sheet of paper and a pen or marker. (Actually, you might need a few sheets of paper.)
Now, without censoring or second-guessing yourself, write down every word, label, title, or role you've ever been given or taken on over your lifetime—including those you've given to yourself. Do not divide them into groups, categories, or lists. Simply write them all over—upside down, right side up, sideways, it doesn't matter.
Go back as far as you can and write down anything you were ever called in elementary school, middle school, high school, and on. Think of nicknames, insults, and compliments.
Write down all the roles you've ever played in group dynamics—peacekeeper, rebel, joker, etc.
Write down all the labels you've given yourself from personality tests, astrology readings, psychologists—anything else you can think of.
List all the titles you've ever held in workplaces and at home, as well as all the many roles you play in different relationships in your life—sister, mother, friend, cousin, etc.
And definitely, don't forget all the things you've ever called yourself, or any label or expectation you've given yourself—whether it's served you well or held you back.
When you're finished, you will likely have a full page or more of labels and identities. Now, imagine if each one of these labels were a leech on your body (I know, gross, but stay with me) you would be covered from head to toe with these blood-sucking, life-sucking, limiting descriptions of who you are.
You're probably thinking that some of these labels have been helpful. Maybe they have—temporarily. But in the long term, these labels change you. Demand things from you. Platform you. Control you. Limit you.
There is a "real you" that exists beneath all of these labels. Would you like that person? Could you walk around in the world being that person? If you say yes, are you sure? The naked you, the label-less you, the identity-freed you—do any of us have an idea what it would be like to meet a version of "us" that is utterly free of conditioning and programming?
Maybe we should find out.
Removing the Leeches
Here's a long quote from Dr. Joe Dispenza, but it's worth reading:
“Psychologists tell us that by the time we’re in our mid-30s, our identity or personality will be completely formed. This means that for those of us over 35, we have memorized a select set of behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, emotional reactions, habits, skills, associative memories, conditioned responses, and perceptions that are now subconsciously programmed within us. Those programs are running us, because the body has become the mind. This means that we will think the same thoughts, feel the same feelings, react in identical ways, behave in the same manner, believe the same dogmas, and perceive reality the same ways. About 95 percent of who we are by midlife is a series of subconscious programs that have become automatic—driving a car, brushing our teeth, overeating when we’re stressed, worrying about our future, judging our friends, complaining about our lives, blaming our parents, not believing in ourselves, and insisting on being chronically unhappy, just to name a few.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One
I share that quote, simply to remove any idea that we're not programmed. We all are, to various degrees. To break the programming requires that we 1) stop denying the programming and 2) begin working to release ourselves from it.
Here's one way to start.
Read back through the list you've written. Notice, without judgment, how each one makes you feel. You might feel defensiveness, guilt, shame, pride, embarrassment, or other emotions. Some might make you feel like a scolded child. Others might give you a burst of self-esteem. The ones that give you the strongest reaction are the ones that have the tightest hold on you. It makes no difference how old they are. I was called "Miss Priss" by one girl in middle school and that label poisoned me for a very long time. Like leeches, labels suck on us, but instead of blood, they suck away our freedom. They've been doing so ever since we were children. It all started so long ago, in fact, that we don't even feel it anymore.
Labels, whether deemed "good" or "bad", suck away at our capacity to stretch beyond the label—i.e., if we have been told we are nurturing, then we may have a difficult time accepting when we feel aversion to helping someone. This denies us our full humanness, and may even be overriding our instincts. That aversion had lessons too; we denied its entry if we forced ourselves to behave in accordance with our labeling system.
Labels—even the ones that claim to help us accept ourselves, suck out the juice of our wholeness, leaving us playing out the programming of caricatures and archetypes throughout our entire lives. If you determine you're an introvert, how can you ever experience the joy of the extrovert? Labels limit our movement, potential, expression, and our emotionality.
The work of transformation is to recreate ourselves. But like Picasso said, "every act of creation begins with an act of destruction." And so we begin by destroying the labels that tell us who we can and can't be.
Strip them away, peel them off, one by one. Or jump through a fire (metaphorical, please) if that's what it comes to, to burn them off. Maybe add a little salt. Do what you need to in order to release the hold these labels have on you. Because a life lived attached to the same set of characteristics is one that never extends beyond the ego. It's a life lived in confinement.
Get into Character
We'll never remove every single label or identity from us, but that's neither here nor there. The work isn't about completion; it's about the doing. The more your release and remove, the more movement you'll get back. The more you'll see labels for what they are—masks and costumes that allow us to play in the game of life.
Once you've experienced the "easy come, easy go" flow of labels and identities, you'll not suffer so much when one that you loved doesn't stick, or when you've outgrown another. Instead, you'll laugh. A cackling, wild man/woman's laugh, as you step into your naked nothingness and finally see the labels for what they are: masks that covered our true selves.
Now, you are nothing. Nothing at all. And from there, the possibilities for you become endless.
“I am nothing.
I'll never be anything.
I couldn't want to be something.
Apart from that, I have in me all the dreams in the world.”
― Fernando Pessoa