Challenging the Power and Impact of Labels in Our Lives

Are your own labels limiting you in life? This intriguing question is the heart of our discussion today, where we take a deep dive into the potential impact and power of labels in our lives. We'll evaluate the role of labels such as narcissism, sex addiction, and drug addiction, uncovering whether they are catalysts for understanding or simply vehicles for shame. We also confront the idea of labeling within our relationships and its potential to disrupt our ability to live authentically.

Labels aren't all bad, they can serve as a compass to understand our experiences, particularly when it comes to trauma. We peel back the layers on the concept of big tea trauma and little tea trauma, and how viewing our experiences through these labels can offer valuable insights. However, labels like "golden child" or "black sheep" can distort our perception of loved ones, and we'll explore why it's best to avoid them. We ensure not to forget the silent sufferers in all of this - our children, who are exposed to trauma in today's challenging world.

We wrap things up by highlighting how your feedback and involvement plays a pivotal role in helping others find this podcast. Staying connected through emails and social media not only keeps you in the loop about upcoming episodes but also keeps discussions like these alive. To ensure you're making the most out of these discussions, I share some practical tips and tools. So, tune in, challenge your beliefs, and transform your perspective on labels and their role in your life.

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Email me: hello@lifecoachjen.com for any comments or questions.

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My website is www.lifecoachjen.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Hi friends, welcome to Happily. Even After I'm Life Coach Jen, a certified life coach that specializes in relationships. I'm a mom of four awesome kids and one amazing senna. A home decorator, a remodeler, a shopper, a scrabler and a snuggler. I want to help you with your relationships, mainly the relationship you have with yourself and your family and God. Thanks for listening and letting me share the tools I have learned that can help you live happily even after some of life's greatest challenges.

Speaker 1: 0:40

Hey, friends, welcome to today's podcast, and I've really been thinking about this topic for quite some time because we all do this in our life and I've just been contemplating different things and how we do this. The subject matter are labels and how. So often we either put labels on ourselves, we put labels on the people we love, we put labels on our kids. I think a lot of labels happen in our life and I just want to have you think about labels that you've labeled yourself, if you've labeled others, and really consider, like, do you want to keep that label? And I think, especially with the model that I teach in my coaching business, we think it's a fact he is a narcissist or they are the golden child of the family, they're the black sheep of the family. We think that that's a fact, but in reality, if you understand the model, it is a thought, and when we think that we feel something, then we create actions and then a result will always lead back to our thought. And I believe that when we label things, sometimes it prevents us from living our best life, doing really creating what we want, because we've been labeled or we have labeled someone else. So I'm just going to talk about some labels and just know that they can be hurtful and why we should be careful with using them, and there are pros and cons and sometimes they are helpful in getting us to move out of a situation to choose divorce. So I'm not saying that they're bad, but I just wanted you to think about them.

Speaker 1: 2:35

So the first one and I rarely talk about this word because I don't love it and I feel like it's way overused in our society All these Instagram and Facebook posts and it's about narcissism. So I personally rarely talk about narcissism. Do I believe it exists 100%, but I think labeling people as a narcissist. It feels very mean and very like you're a terrible person. You must be a narcissist. You made all these bad choices. You must be a narcissist. But in reality it's an actual personality disorder. It is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. And I'm not saying that you weren't married to a narcissist. You might be married to one. Your kid child might be one.

Speaker 1: 3:29

However, is thinking the thought my ex-husband's a narcissist or my now husband or wife is a narcissist, is that helping you or hurting you? So I just want you to pay attention. If that is useful information and it could be it could be like okay, I think he's a narcissist, he's never been diagnosed. I mean, I've really never met anyone. That's like oh yeah, I've been diagnosed a narcissist, I haven't met anyone. I'm sure there are people that have actually been diagnosed, but most narcissists aren't going to the mental health doctors to say hey, doc, can you please tell me if I'm a narcissist? They're just not doing that. So if you have, that's one thing, but if you haven't, and you just use self-diagnose or we love to self-diagnose other people and so if you believe that, that's okay as long as you know, like, is that helping you get out of a situation or is that helping you understand that when you tell this person X, y or Z, why they react the way they do. So if it gives you helpful information, I think that's great. But I don't think going around, you know, telling that person that they're a narcissist, is gonna be useful in your life and, especially if you're divorced, in your co-parenting with your kids. I don't know how helpful that's gonna be. So just I think, pay attention to that. Knowing the definition of what a narcissist is is very helpful. It could be helpful. You could be like oh my gosh, no wonder my marriage is so terrible. Like, no wonder this person is this way. Or no wonder my sister-in-law is like this. That could be helpful. But keeping that story, keeping that label, might be unhelpful in the future. So just pay attention.

Speaker 1: 5:24

Another one I thought is a sex addict or a sex addiction, or really any addiction, drug addiction. I think when someone gets labeled as an addict, it is possible that that person it could be like oh my gosh, I didn't realize I was addicted, I'm gonna start changing. Now, what can I do? Let me jump into a program. That is possible. But what I have experienced in my own life is no, they're first gonna reject the label or they're gonna feel shame attached to that label and they're gonna hide even more and not get the help they need. And so I think sometimes labeling someone or be like my husband or my wife is a sex addict, I think that creates a lot of shame. And is that true? Is it just a thought? Is it a fact? Well, if a doctor diagnosed them, who knows? But just what I'm saying is you can see, like, think about it. How is that helping you? So, just knowing any addict, a drug addict or anyone that's looking at porn, anything like that, is it helping them get out of that? Is it helping you deal with that person? Because it's a thought we're having and it's gonna create lots of emotions. And I'm guessing, if you think the thought my husband's a sex addict, you're not like full of love and compassion, right, and you could be. You could have curiosity and be like, oh, it's so interesting, why are you doing these things? But chances are you're not. You're feeling anger and a lot of negative emotions, so it might not be helpful.

Speaker 1: 7:08

The next one I wanna talk about is betrayal trauma, and I myself really rejected this a few years ago when I first heard of betrayal trauma, which I know you think is probably crazy. How did I not hear about this? Because it was my life, but I hadn't. I don't know. I guess I wasn't on social media very often, but anyways, betrayal trauma is when someone breaks your trust, and especially a spouse, and does something physical, emotional or sexual abuse is perpetrated against you. So usually it happens when a man is having an affair, a woman is having an affair, or addicted to porn, or there I go. I said addicted, but is watching a lot of porn. That's how betrayal trauma happens and it's because it feels so violating. Here you trusted this person, you're married to this person, you think you have a monogamous marriage and they're having sex with other people.

Speaker 1: 8:12

It does legitimately cause trauma inside your body, but sometimes I have seen from clients and women I've spoken to about betrayal that they then are the victim and it's hard for them to find their power and take their life back because they're so traumatized and they're not willing to try to get out of that. Because you can totally heal from betrayal trauma and you know, move on and move forward. However, you have to do the work right, and so sometimes women Men probably too we get stuck. Well, I've been traumatized, so that's why I am the way I am, and so that is very disempowering. So Labeling that for yourself, it could also be helpful for me. It actually was very Empowering when I realized like, oh, this is what this is, this is why I feel this way. Okay, I understand that, but now what do I need to do so I don't have to feel this way? How do I get rid of this trauma from me and that? A lot of therapy, a lot of coaching, a lot of breathwork, a lot of Different other types of therapies anyways, and it's totally possible.

Speaker 1: 9:37

Trauma in general is labeled big tea trauma and little tea trauma. So what they consider like in, like the psychology books, what big tea trauma are things like natural disasters, sexual assault, combat warfare, terrorist attacks, physical abuse, witnessing violence against others. There's probably more. And I just think of our children. Almost all my kids were born after 9-11. It's up for one the amount of traumatic, traumatic experiences that our children see every single day in the news With the pandemic, I mean no wonder there is a lot of trauma that needs to be acknowledged, that needs to be understood. But then what little tea trauma is small, repeated events that can have a cumulative effect, like bullying and chaotic environments, aggressive environments, lack of trust, betrayal, divorce, instability, illness, abandonment, and we could go on and on and when you in my mind, little tea like oh, that must not be as bad. No, that's not what little tea and big tea mean. Somehow, that's just how they categorized it. However, just because One or the other, it could be traumatic for one person and not traumatic for another person.

Speaker 1: 11:14

So I think, labeling it because I have four children, my four children have all experienced my divorce, their parents getting divorced differently Does it mean one's right or wrong, one's better or worse? 100% no, it's just that they're different humans and they've experienced these things differently. So that means we have to deal with them differently and Understand them differently and have different conversations. I think why we have huge epidemic of depression and anxiety. And the thing is we label our kids. I find myself doing this too. They aren't their diagnosis. We shouldn't be labeling oh, they have depression and anxiety. Hey, this is my son. These are some things that he struggles with. But when we label our kids, it's almost they become their label and I don't think that's very useful. So just be cognizant and aware that you know we all have trauma If someone tells you they don't have any trauma in their life. They are in complete denial. But it's totally possible to heal from that and to understand that and to Get better from that. But we don't have to label it, so it sticks to us and we can't get rid of it.

Speaker 1: 12:37

If you've ever heard this, and I know you have but he's the golden child of the family. I think this is very damaging to label our children. The golden child or the black sheep, is another one I'm gonna talk about. But a golden child is one who is considered special by their family and chosen as a proxy for a parent's own achievements and magnificence. So basically, we're putting on our child hey, son or daughter, can you be everything that I wasn't? Can you be this amazing kid? Like talk about pressure, what if they make a mistake? They're sure as heck not coming to you and telling you about it because they're gonna let you down and that's such a heavy thing. They're putting your child up on a pedestal that they will surely fall off of and you may never know about it because they're always gonna be trying to impress you to be better, to be the best. Yet inside they're probably miserable or they probably have made mistakes, since we all do, and so it's just a very, I think, delicate like just even having someone. If you are doing that, stop I think and consider, like, is this a good thing for my family? Is this a good thing to have someone be the golden child Same with the black sheep, a member of a family or group who was regarded as a disgrace to it why we even have this terminology anymore for our children?

Speaker 1: 14:10

I mean, they basically learn to live up to that, the black sheep of the family. Like you know, aren't we all God's children? Aren't we all important and have value? Yes, some of our kids make different mistakes. Yes, some of us do different things that are challenging and struggle, but, like the black sheep, that feels so heavy and it gives them no desire to even wanna live up to any expectations because they're like well, my family already thinks I suck, so why even try?

Speaker 1: 14:45

There's a million more labels like labeling someone that's they're smart. Well, some kids, when they think that they're smart and then they get a B on a test or a C or an F, it's like their whole world. They can't deal with that because it's like no, my family thinks I'm smart. And how am I gonna ever tell them this is what I really got. So then they're gonna lie, then they're gonna feel shame, then they're gonna hide and it really, for some kids, can really put them on a downward spiral, cause depression, cause anxiety, lots of different things that our kids already are experiencing and they're just gonna get more of because we have labeled them.

Speaker 1: 15:32

And what if we labeled ourselves like I'm shy or I'm not very fun, and so it's almost we live up to that thought, even though it's not really true? There's no blood test out there that's gonna say hey, jennifer, we took your blood and you really don't know how to be fun, or you're not very nice, or you know what, you're not very smart, or actually you're super smart. That's not gonna happen. That's not a thing, right? Of course, we all are given different talents and different things, but we can always become anything that we want if we work hard and do the effort, and for some of us that's gonna be easier than others. Like I'm never gonna be a famous mathematician. I have no interest in math, nor do I wanna be that, and I probably, I guess, could, but that's not something I want. But if there is something you want like I wanna become a marathon runner. I don't, but if I'm just using that as an example, I could be right, like right now no one's saying calling me, nor am I calling myself a marathon runner, but I really could become that.

Speaker 1: 16:48

So I think labeling people can be harmful, because then it's like we pigeonhole them into a certain box and they may not wanna be in that box, nor is it good for them to be in the box. So as you're talking to your kids, talking to your spouse, talking to yourself, thinking about yourself, of course you can be a million things right and we all have different talents but don't put yourself in like pay attention when you're talking to your kids and what you think about them and how you're talking about it, because I think it can be really detrimental and it is an effect that, were any of these things, they're all thoughts and pay attention. When I think this about my child, I wonder how that makes them think and feel. Because we might think like, oh my gosh, my child's so smart and you feel so proud. But when you ask your child, he could be feeling like, oh my gosh, mom, that's so much pressure. Stop. And then it creates a whole different model for him. So I just think it's really good to be aware of labels and how you're using them and how you think about them and what you believe about them, and is it helping you get out of victimhood not being the victim in your life or is it keeping you stuck? So just pay attention.

Speaker 1: 18:18

If you've enjoyed this episode, I would love for you to leave me a review, and it's super easy. It will take like two minutes max. You can give me five stars if you're interested, or leave an actual review, and it just helps people find my podcast and I would just really appreciate it. So, anyways, thanks so much for listening. Have a great day. If you want to learn how to live happily even after, sign up for my email at lifecoachgenwith1ncom. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Happily Even After podcast. Let's work together to create your Happily Even After.