Labels Aren’t Helpful

October 29, 2019

Labeling people is scary.

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One of the big traps of the ego is deciding who is good and who is bad, who is right and who is wrong. Often we find that we’re the biggest culprits of them all. The ego is the mindset of separation. Its job is to separate and it does that through the activity of sorting.

Sorting out who is right and who is wrong is a major use of ego, time, and energy. We can spend huge amounts of our precious attention on determining who is right and who is wrong. And, for a moment, the ego seems to feel fulfilled, empowered, justified, and important.

Observing life, you can watch people all day long as they struggle to figure out who is right and who is wrong, to assign blame (and often shame) as well as responsibility. It gives the ego a lot to do.

What many of us don’t notice is that all that judge, judge, judging leaves an energetic hangover that is painful. The pain that leads us to tune out, disconnect, and hide. And then we slowly begin to learn what a bad investment we made with our precious attention.

Labeling people isn’t helpful.

The purpose of labels is to sort and separate.

Since God is all there is, aren’t we tuning out from God when we start labeling?
Since Spirit is omnipresent Love, aren’t we disconnecting from Love when we judge?
When we judge, attack, complain and label, aren’t we hoping to hide our attack thoughts from God?
Since the Infinite One Mind is omni-active, are we really thinking we can hide from within our own mind?

Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. Psalm 139

Deciding who is right and wrong is predicated on the concept that “I am the decider”. When I’m the decider it often means that I’m thinking that God has left the building and now I’m in charge. I’ve learned that I do NOT want to be in charge. I’m not (yet) able to see through all directions of time and space, and so I’m not able to discern what everything is for. My Spirit knows it’s all working together for my relentless good.

I do not wish to replace God in my mind – I tried that, and it didn’t go well for me. I’d like to do everything I can to avoid falling back into that mindset. I’ve worked very hard to realize that God’s Plan is the best way for me to go.

God’s Plan doesn’t include my judging people and deciding who is good and bad. I can think I know what’s right and wrong at the moment. I look for the loving choices and that feels right to me. Unloving choices feel wrong to me.

People are all good at their core. Their essence is still perfect and pristine, regardless of their behavior.

Knowing that I don’t need to label people with some story I’ve made up.

I’ll stick to focusing my attention on remembering the truth, which is that we’re all good and perfect.

I hardly use the words “right” and “wrong” anymore. Mostly they’re helpful in describing how things feel. Paying attention to how things feel is a great skill that I work on each day.

Labeling people isn’t helpful to me, only to the ego.

I don’t work for the ego anymore.

Is there anyone you’ve labeled wrong that you could let go? You can still feel their actions are unloving but do you need to label the person? This is a very powerful and healing contemplation. We can call the angels in to help us and be willing to see clearly the Face of God in each one we meet for our own Peace of mind. It works! Peace is worth it!

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