Don't Identify With LABELS - You Are Not Your Condition!
Don't Identify With LABELS - You Are Not Your Condition!
When you identify with some condition or disease, you inadvertently make it a part of your IDENTITY. This will prevent you from healing, as it attacks who you are!
You are not your condition!
Do you want to heal your disease, overcome addiction, beat depression, or improve yourself in any way? Then stop identifying with your label. Detach your identity from your condition.
If you’ve been sick for a long time, being sick is now a part of your identity. Once that happens, healing becomes impossible. You will resist it somewhere deep within, as it will mean killing a part of who you are.
You will unconsciously use phrases like:
I am sick.
I am depressed.
I have ADHD.
I am an addict.
I have a disease.
I am disabled.
I have cancer.
“I HAVE” and “I AM” combined with a label, whether it’s for a physical or mental issue, has now become part of “WHO” you believe you are. This isn’t doing you any favors.
Reframe how you think and talk about yourself regarding your condition
You are not depressed - you suffer from occasional depression, or even better, you sometimes have depressive thoughts. They come and go, and one day, those thoughts will cease to bother you, and you will see who you really are, the person who was observing those thoughts and needlessly believing them.
You are not sick - you are experiencing temporary symptoms of an illness. You will find and heal the source of these symptoms and return to being who you are: a healthy, strong, and complete person.
You are not an addict - you have developed a temporary addiction to something. You can and will shake it and remember who you are, which is a person who doesn’t need the subject of your addiction (drugs, alcohol, sex, games…).
You are not a fat person - you are a person who happens to have too much weight and fat on their body. It’s not who you are unless you make it part of your identity. It’s not some permanent condition. You can lose that fat, but it has to start from within! Who are you 20, 50 pounds lighter? I’ll tell you who you’re not - a fat person!
If you want to heal yourself, you have to detach from the label, this idea of being sick.
The first step in healing is to understand and accept the problem - yes. But a close second is deleting it from your mind, seeing and believing you are now perfect, whole, and healthy! Believe it’s only temporary and not a part of you.
The problem with identifying with a label or disease
As long as you identify with the problem, the issue, the disease, you cannot heal.
Why not? Because this identity has now put you in the mindset of a helpless victim, and by reaffirming that you’re sick, you’re just causing more problems and evidence of your beliefs being factual. It’s an endless cycle.
Furthermore, you perceive it as something solid, unchangeable, a part of you. How do you expect to heal if your disease has now become a part of who you believe yourself to be?
This is not only true for physical or mental illnesses
It’s also a valid consideration when you don’t like something about yourself. Your weight, skin, weakness, or some other part of you that you don’t like. You attach your identity with your issue when you consistently say things like I’m fat. I’m weak. I’m stupid.
These labels are most likely imaginary, but more importantly, they’re a matter of perspective. Furthermore, you can change them with effort and focus, but not if you identify with them.
They are not permanent - they are not who you are!
A fat person doesn’t eat healthy and work out. A depressed person doesn’t work on their mind. A chronically sick individual doesn’t think like a healthy person thinks.
If you identify with your “temporary condition,” you will unconsciously do what those labels expect of you, and that’s not improving. Improving would mean you’re becoming someone else, and you will subconsciously resist it.
The first step is to stop piling onto the problem
Stop identifying with labels, diseases, and defects.
YOU ARE NOT YOUR CONDITION!Stop thinking and talking about them.
REFOCUS AWAY FROM YOUR CONDITION.Get them out of your mind, and the way to do it is to accept and then forget about them.
ACCEPT IT AND LET GO.Realize that you are not your illness or defect.
DETACH YOUR IDENTITY FROM THE LABEL.
Detach and stop fighting it
The more you fight and resist whatever bothers you, the more you focus on it. What you should be doing is trying to delete it from your mind. Think of it as a temporary manifestation that can and will disappear, just as it came into being.
Who are you?
Find out who you are without this condition, illness, disease
Who are you beneath those labels?
Who are you without your conditions, disease, illness, or disability?
Who are you without those depressive thoughts?
Who are you without all that fat on your body?
Who are you without your addiction?
Only you will be able to determine that. Once you do - focus on it and never allow any other label to become a part of your identity. Not just the ones connected to health issues - any kind of label!
Who is the ideal you?
If you’re sick, who is the healthy version of you?
What are they like?
What do they look like?
What do they FEEL like?
How do they see themselves and the world around them?
How do they think?
What do they do?
Become this ideal version in your mind
Figure it out, define and polish this ideal you, and then become it as much as possible. Forget what you see in the mirror or the labels you assimilated.
Close your eyes and imagine you are already that person. Walk in their shoes. Think, imagine, and write from their perspective, adopting their view of the world.
Here’s the thing - you’re already doing it all the time!
Only you’re not imagining yourself as your ideal, healthy, strong self, but as whatever LABEL you identify with!
You keep imagining all the horrible things connected to your condition.
Anticipating future or remembering past suffering.
Imagining how others see you while you’re sick.
Feeling helpless, reaffirming the permanence of your “temporary state.”
Can you see what this is doing to you?
I healed my incurable autoimmune disease
When I was temporarily suffering from Chron’s disease (for about 15 years, give or take), I imagined myself free of it. Since I couldn’t eat anything without feeling horrible, I affirmed, "I can eat and drink whatever I want and always feel good.” It was an obvious lie, but I kept at it.
I stopped identifying with the condition, stuck to my diet, and completely accepted my current position. If this was the cross I was to carry, so be it. It could have been much worse.
I let it go and slowly but continuously imagined and talked myself into becoming the version of me that is healthy and strong. It took me about two years before I finally realized I was entirely free of Chron’s condition. I describe my path to healing in this post:
As counterintuitive as it sounds - the mind is all!
Fix the mind, and the rest will follow. Give your mind instructions on how to rebuild your body by giving it an image to aspire to.
Convince yourself that you are healthy and strong, and you will eventually become at least healthier and stronger, depending on your condition. Even if you skip this step (don’t), identifying with your condition will prevent you from getting better.
You won’t want to lose that victim privilege and a part of your deep-seated identity. Do what you must to keep your condition under control, listen to your doctors (I’m not a doctor!), but work first and foremost on your mind.
Again - STOP IDENTIFYING WITH LABELS!
I like you. Subscribe, and I’ll deliver new stories to your mailbox. You can choose topics you’re interested in and will receive only those. I also write on other subjects, fiction, and non-fiction. Check them out!
Thanks for reading and helping by liking, commenting, and sharing! It means a lot. Follow this LINK if you want to do more. You are appreciated.