Skinny dipping in the universe. Care to join me?

Our world is desperate to label us.

By the time you were seven years old, you had received your first labels. If unchallenged, labels stick to us with superglue. You are likely still wearing many of them today.

Perhaps you were the quiet child, or the loud one, or the one who wouldn’t sit still. You might be called arty, or sporty, or brainy. Parents and relatives were already guessing at your future occupation. The labels we are assigned at school (I was a daydreamer, lazy, bad at maths, hopeless at science, not sporty), can stay with us forever. 

You are so much more than the labels you have been assigned. 

This unsporty, bad at science child went on to run ultra’s, and study nutritional science and cellular biochemistry. Not in any record breaking, world-defining way; but in a good enough, ‘I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,’ kind of way. None of my teachers would have bet on that.

I might have said it all comes down to desire. How badly do you want something, and what sacrifices are you willing to make to get it.

But it’s nowhere near this simple.  

In order to challenge your labels, you have to first be aware they exist. Some are obvious, but plenty are not. These are the labels we internalise. The coding our brains work off. You might have an ‘I’m not good enough’ label, or an ‘I don’t deserve success’ label, or a ‘I must always be busy or I am a bad person’ label. These are the sneaky labels, the ones that continually trip us up. These labels aren’t just stuck on to us, they have grown into us. Like a broken bone screwed together with a metal plate, over time the two become inseparable.

These are the labels that can sabotage our best efforts over and over again, regardless of how hard we seemingly try.

It may surprise you to learn that I have a ‘no one wants to hear what you have to say’ label. This one is velcro, I peel it off only to rediscover it stuck firmly back in place. Not everyone will be interested in what I have to say, but some might…..

Then we have the labels we chase down. The labels we want. 

Shortly after returning to my creative practice, I knew I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to paint pictures. I was desperate to label myself ‘an artist’. 

It took six years before this label stuck (don’t get me wrong, some days the imposter syndrome is utterly overwhelming, days when the label feels completely wrong), but I persevered. And do you know what happened?

Almost immediately I noticed the weight of limitation. By my own definition I am an artist who paints. And if I paint, then I shouldn't be writing. I should stay in my lane. Focus on my thing.

Yet I also love words. Some days words tumble out of me more easily than pictures. Writing is fun.

Can you see? Even the labels we chase down, the ones we work so hard for, the ones we desire deep within our soul. When we stick them on ourselves, even these labels can stifle us - suffocating our potential, if we believe this is all we are allowed to be. 

What if we were never meant to wear any labels?

What if life is meant to be one big, bold, adventurous skinny dip? 

What if you were to leap naked into the universe and to trust in her potent magic?

I wonder what might happen then?

Thanks for being here. Big love,

Helen x