Personal Identity

Collection: Identity & Reflection

This triptych series is inspired by reading Xochitl Alvizo’s article Human, Just Human that appeared on August 16, 2023 on the Feminism and Religion blog. I read it during my holiday as expat back in my birth country The Netherlands. Thank you, Xochitl, for your thorough and inclusive essay, which spurred on some deep reflections regarding my own journey with identity, touched on some uncomfortable feelings, and provided much food for conversation with friends as well.

In today’s piece, I question the power of naming or labelling, the insecurities that flow from the lack of clear labels for my personal identity, and the pressure I feel from outside to label myself or be labelled. I describe how the absence of meaningful identifiers lead to a desperate search for a participation ticket to life. 

Naming or Labelling?

Questions around identity and belonging are never far for me. I moved many times between different countries, languages, professional disciplines, personal development practices and spiritualities. I like to reflect on things deeply and am aware of societal trends. I like to learn about other views and lifestyles. I feel connected to humanity on a soul-level, yet not so much on a level of sub-culture identities. I am interested in cultivating freedom for each of us, to fully be home in ourselves, express our unique blueprint, and stand firmly, joyfully, and unapologetically in our power, in the vibrant stream of our life force energy.

This is, I’m sure, what Xochitl advocates. Yet what she describes as the ‘power of naming’ feels more like ‘labelling’ to me. Labelling is what I do with my boxes and jars, so I know what is in it. “This is the box with office supplies, that is the jar with Vervain.” I love my little label printer, and always feel a sense of peace and accomplishment when my labelling is up to date. 

However, for me as a person it is not that easy. There aren’t any ‘labels’ I naturally identify with that feel empowering. I have a fairly mainstream personal identity (see below), and nothing specific to ‘come out’ with. Yet, the current trend where everyone self-identifies and proudly claims membership of a minority group, pressures me as well to find a label for the ‘jar’ that contains my Eline-Essence.

Because without a label, you are invisible nowadays. Your voice doesn’t count, and in worse case scenarios, you are lumped in with the bad guys. 

Hence, I question whether labelling (or naming) always gives us sovereignty and control over our body, and helps us “live out our humanity,” as Xochitl so eloquently poses. For me, it is closer to the opposite. Without a label, I feel muted and silenced. The absence of an empowering identifier risks dislocation, and exile, and even a certain tyranny. 

Personal Identity

It is a vulnerable place, not being a revolutionary who fights for specific equal rights. It’s not “sexy” to be a middle-aged, heterosexual, white woman who lived her adult life on a shoestring and who is generally happy in her own skin most of the time. There seems to be no ‘story’ there. On the contrary, without belonging to a meaningful category, I either become invisible, or I’m defaulted to the camp of colonialists, neo-liberalists, and unwitting oppressors. Not having a label assumes blind ignorance and white privilege.

My response is to desperately search for a meaningful ‘participation ticket’ to modern life. Only then, people might consider I too might have something to contribute, a right to join the debate, or have a chance for my work to be funded (to be discussed in Part 2). 

So, I consider things that might set me apart and make me different. 

• Would doing a DNA test help to discover an ethnic lineage that I have some kinship with? As Carol Christ described more than a decade ago, most of us belong to more than one ethnic group.

• If being a woman in a still male oriented society isn’t enough, what about the fact that as introvert person with a Highly Sensitive Personality (HSP) it’s debilitating to bear public spaces dominated by flickering lights, music and loud noises, or fast games like ping pong games in airport lounge?

• Might I identify with being an AS- or IBS-patient,* and join the legions of #chronicpainwarriors (with many sub-categories for this hashtag!), who will recognise chronic pain and low energy levels as a form of invisible disability?

• Or perhaps I should profile myself as ectopic pregnancy survivor who literally danced close to death’s door?

Zooming in on Similarities or Differences?

For me the above exercise of building my identity around a random life experience is not empowering, and I question whether looking for things that make us different is really is the way to go.

One of my teachers jokingly calls this the ‘poor-sick-miserable-me-place’, in which we zoom in on lack, absence or powerlessness. Everyone knows that place inside, where we feel we aren’t good enough, we’re too different and don’t belong. Yes, also the people ‘supposedly’ on the other side of wherever we find ourselves, know that place in the quiet of their own being.

So I complete this first part with a question: if all of us recognise apparent powerlessness, lack of self-worth, belonging or confused identity, doesn’t that lose its relevance as identifier? Isn’t it more empowering to look for similarities and shared humanity rather than for otherness? Indeed, to be Human, Just Human as Xochitl pondered?

In Part 2 of this essay (which will appear on October 13th), I’ll continue with some thoughts on professional and spiritual identity.

Until then!

What do you think?

I would love to hear your reflections! Are labels important for you? Do they give you a sense of belonging? Or do you have aversion against them, and you don't want to put in a box? I think this is a really 'dangerous' side-effect of the woking movement...

The small print...

• AS = Ankylosing Spondylitis, an auto-immune condition on the rheumatoid spectrum; IBS = Irritable Bowel Syndrome, neither of which are a laugh, as people who recognise those abbreviations will know!

• This post first appeared in the Feminism and Religion blog.