![\"The](\"https:\/\/hspsgateway.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/AdobeStock_407419500_Preview-300x150.jpeg\")
Who would you be? <\/strong><\/p>\n If I didn\u2019t know I was Heidi Connolly with her ego, identity, knowledge, experiences, beliefs, and her emotional, mental, and spiritual constructs, who would I be<\/em>?<\/p>\n Start with depression. How would I know I was depressed if I didn\u2019t know I had a reason\u2014or didn\u2019t have a reason\u2014to be depressed? Without a label of \u201cdepression<\/a>,\u201d would I even look for such a reason? If I couldn\u2019t remember why<\/em>, would I still tell myself I felt that way? Without any validating external factors in evidence\u2014my friend dissed me<\/em> or my husband forgot my birthday<\/em> or I hate my job<\/em>\u2014how would I know how to be, how to act? Would I feel anything at all?<\/p>\n If everything we are and everything we do is in direct relationship to the world around us, how do we ever know what is simply a reaction to stimuli or a true act of self?<\/p>\n You might say they\u2019re the same thing. If there\u2019s nothing to react to<\/em>, no outside stimulus, then what provides us with an identity? How much does the backdrop of your life color, constitute, create, give birth to, support, confine, define, and refine you?<\/p>\n Say I woke up and the first thing I heard was, \u201cHey, Shirley, are you going to walk the dog this morning?\u201d How long would it take before the message kicked in that (1) I wasn\u2019t called Shirley, (2) I don\u2019t have a dog, and (3) I\u2019m usually by myself when I wake up, so, um\u2026who was talking to me?<\/p>\n In that moment, however brief, before realization of self\/ego takes over, who would I be then? And if there\u2019s a \u201cme\u201d that isn\u2019t tied to the experience of being Heidi and the experiences that have created her, what would be left?<\/p>\nWhat defines us?<\/h3>\n
What if there were no labels?<\/h3>\n