Ep 6 | Labels: Who Are You Without Them?

What were you called before you got to choose?

In this episode, Hemali and Sheila go deep into labels — the ones given to them as children and the ones they adopted as adults.

Hemali was called crybaby until she was a teenager, then became the girl who didn’t speak at all. Sheila was called a tornado, then spent decades becoming the opposite — the good girl who stayed still and stayed quiet.

Both shared labels that became self-fulfilling: Sheila was called a liar so she became one. Hemali was called a failure so she stopped believing in herself. 

They talk about how spiritual spaces create their own labels — healer, star seed, channel — and whether those are any different from the ones your family gave you. They challenge the collective agreement of what a spiritual person is supposed to look like. And they ask the question nobody wants to sit with: who are you without any of it?

This is an introduction to one of the biggest conversations of your life. Pull up a seat.

New episodes every other Tuesday. Pull up a seat.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:32

Today we're talking about labels. The ones you were given before you could speak, and the ones you picked up along the way. Tornado, crybaby, good girl, failure, liar, healer, mom. We carry them like name tags. We forgot to take off. We're getting into what happens when you start peeling them away. What's underneath, what's left, and whether it's even possible to move through this world undefined. If you've ever felt like you were performing a version of yourself that someone else wrote, stay with us. By the end, you might find out that who you are without the labels is the most powerful thing you've never met. Hi Sheila, how are you? Hi, hi Himolly. I'm super cold. How are you? Good. Although it's a little warm here, but the AC is blasting in the basement, so it's cold. So today we're gonna talk about labels. And we get labels, I guess, the minute we're born, or even before that, right? Girl, boy, you know, um, or how beautiful we look, how dark we look, how our hair is, how I I mean everything. Our eyes, the color of our eyes, how tall we are. So labels have been comes down from what family. Then we go to school, you have labels you acquire over there, social labels, cultural labels. My experience with labels was when I was little, and I from what I remember is when I was called Crybaby. That was my first label that I remember. And it was more so, I guess I used to cry all the time. Maybe I was stimulated a lot. Until I was five years old, I cried, and that's what I've heard stories upon stories. But that label or that name continued with me in some people that called me until probably I, you know, I was a teenager or so. And yeah, that's something that I did not like. How about you? Have you, I'm sure, you know, we all have that. What is one of the things that you remember when you were a baby? What kind of name did you get?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Labels is such a big topic because, like you said, it it is with us from before we enter this planet, and we don't know the real impact until we're much older of a label. So when we were gonna talk about this, I had to travel back in memory lane and be like, what was that first label that I recall and how did that feel, right? So for me, it was being called a tornado, right? But in Spanish. So I was very much untorbellino, right? A tornado, whirlwind, inquieta, the inability to sit still. I had a lot of energy, was naturally, and I always say this, very curious. So I was growing up with my brother, I I couldn't stop. I remember sweats. My dad will say the stories like, I never saw you just with your hair done because you always had this plaster of sweat all over you from not being able to sit still. I skipped instead of walked. I couldn't walk. My childhood skipping, and I would do these little jumps and move and all this stuff. And though I am speaking of it very lightly and like kind of laughing, it brings up a lot of pain for me because I kept hearing the surrounding story around it, which was girls don't behave like that. You have to be still, you have to be proper. Good girls sit still, good girls listen. So I learned to associate my hyperness and an inability to just be quiet with not being a good girl. So whenever I was in a space of joy, my immediate reaction was to want to jump from joy or move or dance or twirl. But as I grew older, that story and that association of girls, good girls don't do that, kind of like overtook that joy and dampened my spirit to the point where a lot of people, a lot of times, people don't didn't know the sound of my voice because I wouldn't speak, right? I became this girl who fulfilled the label of calmness to because I had to be a good girl. That was my main priority in life. And I didn't know how much that impacted me and hurt me and like carried along with me until we started talking about labels and how they come from like infancy and how they stay with you. And for me, it was a very painful emotional experience and one that took a really long time to process. I really did not become my hyper self again, my true nature again, until three years ago, when I started allowing me to fully experience my emotions in my physical beingness. And all of that stemmed from fulfilling this idea of good girls, stay still. And that was really impactful. Yeah, it was just that's the thing. That's the label, that's the thing that carried through with me for the longest amount of time, and one that created such turmoil for me as a child and as an adult. How did it feel like for you to be labeled a crybaby? How did that shape like your schooling or Himali inside? What was that like?

SPEAKER_02 6:31

And I don't think that may have had that much impact as much as the other labels, specifically during school year, a failure or somebody who doesn't know anything. And I think we talked about it. I had a very struggling school time or a struggling childhood in terms of schooling goes, or teachers and peers, and it was I was a weird child, and you know, I didn't fit into things. I didn't, and and yes, so one point I was crying, and I was told up to I was five years old, and then the next minute it's like I am someone that does not even speak. I am so quiet, and that taking on that persona of that good girl, and you follow, you obey everything you're told, not just your parents, but your neighbors, your teachers, whoever that comes through, um, or you interact with. That I think has followed me in terms of that failure. As I I think talked in our second episode about the authenticity, or just that how the worthiness, or even that belief that I know nothing and I am nothing. So that went on for a long time, I think. That once I started doing the healing work, or once I started working on just trying to strip away labels, each labels that impacted me or continue to impact my life. And I think that was the hardest one. And I think even name as such, because when you you bring certain energy with certain names, and I have a nickname or a name that my family and close relatives and neighbors and they call me with, and then I have the name that you know, the official name that people call. So it's like there is that difference and how you act around when certain when you're called a certain name and how that separates you. So I think that that calling of that that being that failure has impacted me quite a bit in my life so far.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

That's a big one, yeah. It's interesting because I don't think people stop long enough to identify how a particular label is going to impact a child, right? I I don't think until recently, historically, parents haven't been as grounded in parenting as I see a lot of a lot more of them are now. And the impact of an action or a name or a label was never something that was talked about. It was just like, well, that is just who you are, right? For me, that's one of the biggest challenges. And I learned as I was parenting my own kids, like I want to address the behavior and not the child. So you're not good or bad because of what you do or feel, right? Your actions don't determine your worth. So I was very careful as to which things I addressed and labeled when it came to their person, because for me, it was a very painful thing to experience. Even then going to school, I tried to become that good girl label and carry it out and continue to fulfill it because at the end of the day, I wanted my parents to be proud of me. I wanted what they said about me to be true. But to the same token, does it become a detriment to who you are? Do you then feel forced to fulfill a label that you don't relate with? Right? I had a family member who anything I said was a lie. And I used to get into so much trouble. Like I'm talking punishments, right? Um, for periods of time. And it didn't matter what it was, everything that came out of my person, I was labeled, you're lying. It's a lie. That's not true, that's not how it happened. And because they were the adult, what ended up happening was more people, what happens? Believe the adult, right? So no matter what I did, I got in trouble. And I remember feeling the weight of this label so deeply that I thought to myself, you know what? I'm already getting in trouble for lying. I am already seen as a liar. I'm just gonna lie. I'm gonna get in trouble regardless. So mind you, I was like 11 or 12, but that logic is working there, right? That age. But I really felt like in personifying or becoming that label was going to benefit me. Why would I keep being the good girl? And that's when that good girl label fell off, right? Because I was continuously getting in trouble for something I didn't do or didn't say, and I was like, I'm done. I'm not a good girl. I'm just gonna play the part. And it was small fibs most of the time, but for a long time, fulfilling that label caused so much internal injury for me. Because one of my biggest pillars in my life, in my adult life, is authenticity. So it went completely against my beliefs, my values, my essence. And that was really difficult. And I didn't have someone to navigate it with. There was real pain in that label, there was real pain in fulfilling that label. At times it was even more difficult to dismantle that label because I got lost in that in-between, right? And I mean, do you relate to that? Is there a part of your life or a label in your life that you felt became you or you became it?

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Yeah, and and that's again the same thing. We come back to the same one as being that failure and or being punished. And I relate so much with you in terms of no matter what, I'm going to be punished, no matter what, you know, uh, so might as well have fun. I'm gonna be hit anyway, right? So a few days or a few weeks go by, and like, oh, I haven't gotten a scolding or a beating. Let me just act up, you know, um, or not study, not do this, not um pay attention, whatever that was around there. But now as an adult, it's it has so much impact in terms of the inability to move forward, paralyzing yourself, inability to believe in you, or inability to just kind of valuing yourself or even seeing the worth in yourself, what you bring to table. All that, I mean, that has such a big impact. I mean, if you just think that you are a failure as a person or as a child and you grow up like that, you're constantly talking about that. How I mean, it impacts in every interaction, it impacts in how you show up, your body language, how you say things. And you know, we talk about it sometimes when I'm talking. Sometimes I feel that am I asking a question or am I telling you? And we've talked about that. Like you've asked, like, are you asking me or are you telling me? And I've had that happen when I was in PT school. One of the teachers used to say, Are you telling me or are you asking me? And it's like, you can't get away with that. It's an oral exam, right? So that has always, I always put that in my mind. Like, I am telling them I have to take on as a person that is giving you this information instead of asking or asking for a validation, more so, right? That for you to say, yeah, you're right. For me to feel okay, to me to feel um it's again validating myself, like what I'm saying, or confirm what I'm saying is right. So, you know, also kind of um put myself back, like you can take the information as I'm telling you, or you can take that information as a question. So you can curiously think about it and ask yourself. So I think that has brought a big impact in my life. And I was just sharing, and I as we were talking last week, I went to Salvador Dali's uh museum, and when we were talking about names, what I came across was that his name, his brother had died, and he got his name, his brother's name was given to him, so Salvador, and he said he always felt that he was a replacement. And so when you feel that within yourself, then he started acting total opposite of what his brother or was what his family would have imagined that person would be like or act like. He took it upon himself that he would act totally opposite, so that eccentric, out of this world, or bigger than life, gestures and personality, you kind of go out there into the world. As a performer, right? We talked about that performance and you perform, you constantly perform. So, how much of that impact labels have, so especially when you're children and in some of our communities, like especially in those days in India, it's like not only does your family, but then you have this whole bigger neighbor, your neighbors, your friends and family. It's like this story gets repeated constantly in front of you about you and what you did, not as, but it just becomes your persona. That's who you are. And it just kind of it's like it's out there, put out there into the universe so many times that yes, of course, you're gonna start believing that that's who you are, and you start living like that, you start performing like that. It is very hard to take off labels. And I used to, I strongly believe in it that when the kids are growing up to even at in school systems where it's so easy to label someone, he is like this or he is always getting in trouble. One you get one chance, one time you mess up, that's it, that's your label. You're send to principal's office, and it's okay to teach kids, but have conversation and talk to them. But when you put that one label, and it that will remain with them for the rest of their life until or if they know how to go past that label.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

It's really curious to think like we leave we live in a world filled with labels, like we have baby shower, gender reveals, all this stuff, and rarely do we stop to think about what does that mean to that child or to that person because we label people as well. And I was thinking about is there a difference between use to define yourself or using labels to describe yourself? And wish belongs where, and it's fascinating to stop to think about the subject of labels and becoming the labels that you are given, or the labels that you then give yourself, those given to you by culture, society, parents, family, school. I mean, we can go on forever, but is there a way to go through this world undefined by a particular label? Is that even possible? It was blowing my mind going in circles, thinking around can I, should I, do I want to? And what would that look like and what does it mean? I I had to stop to think about how was this for me when I was raising the kids? And I remember having a clear definition in that moment of, like I said before, I'm addressing the action or the feeling and calling that out and also explaining the why. And that goes to what you said, right? Can you have a conversation? Because you can go through life as a child in school and get in trouble one day and you become a troublemaker, then you fulfill that label. How does that how can that be helped? Very, very simply to me, you explain the expected behavior, you were outside that behavior, your action is causing trouble, but you yourself are in the trouble. School systems are difficult, you don't have a lot of time. But is there really a way that we can lead our life without adapting or personifying any particular label? Do you think that's possible?

SPEAKER_02 20:25

You think we should even like go there? That reminds me of Prince, the singer, and how he decided one day that he was not going to be called Prince anymore, and he had a symbol for himself. And now the whole world was confused. What are we gonna call him now? Right? Like, how can we address him? And then either people would say symbol, I don't know, or they would say formally known as Prince, singer formally known as Prince. And so, yes, we do need, I feel, a name, but it was it was really surprising, or even I had to really think when you first, when we first started doing, you know, just started talking about this podcast, and you said, Himali, send me a bio without using any of the labels, any of the credentials, any of the certificates, send me a bio about you, who you are, and not about what you do. And it was hard. I had to really think, and I had to think and talk it out and just write down some of the things about myself. And some of them you're like, no, but then again, it's what you perceive about yourself, right? And some of the things, like, okay, I will tell you guys one thing I wrote, and that was probably the first thing I wrote, yes, twice, was that I'm boring, and I what I I think what I was getting at was that underneath all, I'm a dull personality, like more so it's like I am not jumpy, I am not out there, although I speak loudly, but I am not out there when we are together. I like to I'm I'm slow. It takes me time to process. And when we talk, I'll be excited, I will smile. But otherwise, if you go on the text and everything, you'll see practical, logical, one liner answer with. Periods and all the exclamations on it where it may seem, or even conversation on the phone won't be the same as you are talking to me face to face. It will be a little bit more personal. And then as we go with a phone conversation, then texting, it goes distant, distant. But yet I am not distant. I am just logically having that conversation. So, and I think that's what I meant as dull because over time I have realized that my conversations are not dull. I do capture the room, I do walk in with that energy of larger than life, but more on a quieter, I feel. And I talk more now than I used to ever talk. Believe me, some of you do know that I was a person that you would not even know that I existed in that room. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Same. I gotta say, we gotta go there because you brought it up. But when we were getting ready to working on the podcast, the ideas and all of that, it really stretched a lot of things. It stretched our definition of ourselves, it stretched our intention and the definitions of those intentions. We spent so much time defining what do we want to bring in. And one of the things that kept popping up was we want to open the space up for anyone. No labels needed. Come as you are, right? And what we wanted to do is be super inclusive. And one of the things we came to find is that Himali and I can have conversations via Zoom or now recording, and we would be fine. And then we would hang up the call. And it was very quickly like, thanks. No, it's great, but nothing else. So we had a little bit of period of time when we had to adjust as we learn how we communicate outside of a video call. Because what happens when you have a label? And we had just given ourselves the label of we're constructing a podcast, right? All labels come with attached expectations, every single one. Um, it conjures a specific idea, a specific set of standards, behavior, right? All labels carry expectations. And when we decided to draft our bios, I wanted us to be really conscientious of who are we without the credentials? Who are we, if not our work? What does that look like? What is our essence? And it wasn't super easy, it took a little bit of time. Who am I? How do I behave? What do I do? Who is this person that has the name of Sheila? And and how is she wanting to show up? I knew I didn't want to portray a label. I wanted people to get the little bit of me essence in there. And that's why I was pushing you. No, Himali, come on, tell me who are you? Who are you? And when it came back and you were like, I'm boring, I was like, no, you're not boring. And for me, it was like, I am awkward. I love words, can put them together speaking. It's difficult to say on topic, but I love, love my mind. I love living within it, and I love expanding and pushing past in everybody else's mind. I want them to push themselves a little further out, right? So it took us a while, but we got our bios that have nothing to do with our credentials. And it was super beautiful. But to the point of all labels have expectations, I don't think entering the spiritual space was any different than any other environment. I didn't realize how label-y the spiritual space can be. That was difficult to navigate. But before I take it to where it took me, where did the spiritual space and the labels that surround it take you? What was that like? Which spiritual label did you take upon yourself?

SPEAKER_02 26:48

The first one. Probably the Reiki master teacher. Yeah, I think that was it. But yet when people ask me, what do you do? And I cannot answer, what do I do? Because that's just the surface, right? And I always say that. I was like, well, Reiki, but that is just at a surface late level. And I was like, I do quantum healing, quantum work. And but then again, that when you start getting even into that, then there is that performance anxiety, right? Or am I going to be able to, or fears that you're not going to be able to live up to the expectation? Or if you're a healer, this this belief that, oh, you have no pain, right? You're able to heal that, right? Or you're not supposed to have any kind of ailments, or you are always supposed to be happy in the zen mode. You know, probably the person that we talk about sitting on the top of the mountain, maybe growing beard. I don't know. But that that, you know, you you have to constantly keep watch of that. Or, well, if you're in the health field, you shouldn't be fat. You should know exactly how to, or like it has certain expectations. Again, same thing as you said, that every label carries an expectation and what you think it should be, what the society has this definition already written for certain labels, right? How do you what do you think that you first took on one of these labels? And how did you feel?

SPEAKER_00 28:35

We'll get to that.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

We will get to that.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Let me touch base on something really quick. Um, yesterday was Mother's Day. Oh, yes. Yes, yesterday was Mother's Day, and we never think of that label.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

And I'm a mom, you're a mom. But we are not just mom. It's very easy to get lost in the expectation of the labels of mom. We don't think to think of our mothers as a human being. Mothering is the greatest, most difficult, enjoyable, stressful, love-filled label. And it's the one that also has the biggest weight when something goes wrong. We're quick to say, well, but you're my mom, right? I have a certain standard of operations for what that means. That means you should love me all the time. That means you have to hug me and kiss me. That means no matter how tired you are, you're still my mom. It doesn't allow for the truth of the person to come through. Oftentimes until you're also a mother and you understand the dynamic. And the reason why I wanted to go there was because labels create division and there's limitations within all of them. We take them on to fit us for a specific place, space, situation, right? But I'm gonna challenge you to think of yourself outside of these labels, right? And try to pinpoint what it is that you are, not what you do. Who are you? What is your essence, your frequency? What brings you joy? What pushes you to wake up every single day, sit there and think of it? Because you will feel yourself a lot more connected to humanity when you strip away the cages these labels construct. And since yesterday, I've been very much in my heart. I am living a whole continent away from my adult children, but still, it's the second Mother's Day for me without their nearness, their closeness. And I've been having a lot of feelings about it. So I wanted to bring in the importance of meeting meeting human to human rather than label to label because they tend to separate and because we're always mentioning we're all one, we're all the divine, right? And I wanted to put a light onto that aspect of labels, not just behaviors, not just actions, not just things, but really stripping it away into I want to know you, your human aspect. I want to relate to your essence. Who are you? Right? Can we answer that? So it was important for me to mention, but to answer your question, the first label I battled and took on because it was not easy. I didn't consider myself this, so was the label of healer. I had had an Akashic Records session with someone, and in the session, this person says, You have healing hands, they are glowing, right? And it took me to like past lives where I had been that, done that, been a healer or called myself a healer. And it took me to remembering that when I was little, I would make potions to heal my brother. I don't know where this came from, but I would mush up some herbs and like we would have real bad physical fights. We were little, okay? It's just him and I. We had nothing else to bother. Oh, so we would get into these fight, and then I would go heal him. So this was the first label that presented itself to me in a space of spirituality after my awakening. And I struggled to see it because I didn't consider myself as someone who could heal other people. Therefore, who or what was I a healer of? Long, long story short, I realized that I was healing myself. And therefore, I was healer of I, me. And that was the energy that I was experiencing. And not many people will relate to that, but that is my definition of what how it worked for me. It was very difficult to consider myself a healer when I didn't know what I was healing, and still felt very broken, still was carrying a lot of trauma and a lot of pain and a lot of doubt about who I was. But when you enter into a space of spirituality, everybody has a label and you're trying to self-identify. Wait, where do I fit in? Where's me here? Why am I in this space? And what label do I wear? Right? Same like in school. So whenever I had to define myself, that was, I think, the easiest to call out, even though it was really difficult to actually feel within that label. Everybody was like, Oh, I'm a starseed, I am a collector of records, I am a scribe, I am this, I am that. And I'm like, what the heck am I? Super lost. And that's okay, people. It's okay to be lost. Take your time figuring it out. Have you come across a label that felt difficult for you in the in the way of embodying that aspect of the label? Or have all the labels and because of all the modalities you practice felt comfortable for you?

SPEAKER_02 34:22

No, I think when you were speaking, what was coming up in terms of not being able to or feeling confused more outside of the healing world, but it was more as when I first moved to America, US, I was still considered here as Indian. But when I go to India, I'm considered as American. And I'm like, okay, where do I fit in? What, you know, who am I? Where am I? It's like, where do I belong? I think that word comes up a lot. It's like, where do you belong? Do you belong to this label? Or does this label belong to you more so? And I think in the healing world, yeah, some of the things like doing my fascia release, you know, I have all these certificates and I've used it here and there, but I'm not comfortable in doing that. And I'm okay to say that I'm not comfortable in using that. And so that could be one of the certification or skill set that I don't use. Also, when I did the holistic nutrition certification a year long, I think that more I can relate to in terms of healing myself or healing my household with all the allergies and all the just not living healthy, going to doctors and but not so use it for other people. But once you acquire that knowledge, there's no turning back, right? Once you've seen it, even in terms of healing, like once you've seen it, you can't turn back. And so you kind of keep doing certain or you start talking about it, but then people look at you as like, are you an expert? They want to know, are you an expert of this? Only then, or are you practicing what you're preaching? And some yes, some no. And just because you don't practice, it's invalid, right? So I don't know if I've answered your question, but yeah, I get it.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

I've put on a lot of different labels throughout this five, six year journey.

SPEAKER_02 36:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Everything and everything I came in contact with, and are we what we study to become? Right? So if all of a sudden I train in I don't know, airplane jumping. Hi, I'm Sheila, I'm an airplane jumper. Is that the I am that I want? Because the whole thing is there's a difference between who you are and what you do or how you move through the world, right? For me, completely honest here, I don't know that I can continue to call myself the things that I do in my practice, right? Okay, hi, who are you? I'm Sheila Evangelina, Kashik Records Guide, Reiki practitioner, channel, right? But who am I? I'm still questioning who are you, Sheila? Who are you? And my journey has taken me every few months I go into who am I? Every few months I fall into this. Am I becoming my labels again? Am I performing my labels? Because just because I do something doesn't mean that I am that thing that I do, right? I facilitate space. I channel and conduit light, but I'm not that. And recently, in my latest escapade into who I am, I was like, what is the thing that I am at all times? It wasn't one sitting, it took me like two weeks to get to this, but I realized I am curious. It is not an aspect of this third-dimensional body, this Sheila. I've in the fifth-dimensional meditation space realized that I'm curious. I will turn around and question my guides, you know? Like, I am super curious being is part of my beingness to be curious. So lately, every time I have to address who I am, I say, I'm curious because I identified it as a truth. I'm not performing curiosity, I am genuinely in every space, time, dimension, what have you. I am curious. It was beautiful to identify because I didn't know that before. I didn't know that before this time, which was like two or three months ago, by the way. That's the biggest thing for me. I am not the things that I do, I'm not the things that I practice, I am not the things that were said about me, I am not the stories other people tell about who I am. Then who am I? And how do I communicate that clearly, right? All to say, it's very easy to get lost when you learn to do things and you don't really fully understand where they hit your soul, and you just adopt the label, right? But a lot of people stay within that and don't question it. So the invitation is question it. Are you doing something or are you being that? And what's the difference? What does that look like for yourself? Did you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 39:31

Exactly. And I I appreciate that you're able to check in every now and again, to check in with yourself whether you are performing or you are being true to yourself, are you being authentic in all that you do, all that you are, all that you, you know, are being in that being space. And so I really appreciate that. For me, when you said curious, and I think that is when when I became, and I've always been curious since I was little, and that's why we talk about why, that question, that why, why, why, right? And that's what it is. It's like to ask the more you ask, the more you are given that answer or shown that answer. Um, I personally I realized that who am I without the labels? What do I need authentically? What is it that brings me in my joy? And I think that kind of defines, but that also defines kind of what I need at the time, right? But I know as a soul, I have to move. I have to move, not only move as just walking in the woods, but person that needs to go to different places and spaces, not only in physical, but also in the multi-dimensions to constantly travel to meet people, different communities, different learning and processing and getting deep within yourself, just learning about yourself. Like I think through interacting with other people, that sense of knowing comes within me, that sense of feeling, the similarities or differences, whatever it is. But then the more I focus, it's like the more it just brings me to that oneness. And that just that space right there feels like that without any kind of labels or without any kind of judgment, criticism, or that gate or limitations that we talk about with the labels.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Yeah, yeah, it's really important to remember to just open up to whatever it is that's coming through, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Just because I question my labels doesn't mean I'm asking you to do yours. It's an invitation. The invitation is thrown there. It doesn't mean I'm questioning why you're labeling yourself or your space or your process. I welcome you as you are. Tell me who you are because deep inside of me, I'm looking to connect to that humanness, that beingness, that root essence called Himali. I'm wanting to explore you and your mind in the best way that highlights who you are for me. And I understand labels can be carried for specific time periods in your life. And then you kind of like outgrow them or don't identify with them. And then how do you work on dismantling a specific label? And what you said is how you start. Check in with yourself. Does this still fit? Am I performing it? Do I fit what this feels like for me? Not for the community of what wherever that label belongs in, but for yourself. It's always a self-exploration. A need to question the self about the self, not about the space or the community or the people within it. You're always trying to get to know who you are to your core to be able to move from those limiting belief systems, cultures, collective experiences, spaces that we put ourselves in all the time. When we were talking about meditation, you and I, we had a very similar collective agreement between the two of us, we're a collective, uh of what a meditation person looked like. And we were shocked to see that we had a very similar old man up in the mountain, right? Where I'm getting at is collectively, there is an idea of your aesthetic based on a label, which is why I really didn't want us to have credentials on our bios. Because it's like, no, you don't know who I am. Keep your mind open about me and don't encapsulate me into like this channel person. No, no, no. Like, wait till I get there. But it is incredible how if you shut your eyes and you say, What's a spiritual person? You have an idea of what that should be, based upon the structures of the collective agreement as to what does that look like. Immediately, well, I'll speak for myself, but you start picturing like someone dressed in like neutral colors, very flowy hair, calm, collected, peaceful, peace to all, love. Is always there. High vibes only. You know where I'm getting. And I wanted to touch upon the collective agreements around labels because they carry us beyond our person and our family experience. And to also highlight, just because the collective agrees upon a specific label doesn't mean that that's what that is. I fully spiritual, I do not fit that label aesthetically, right? For a long time there was a struggle, an inner struggle for me with do I have to now throw away all my colorful clothing and just buy neutral colors, right? Do I have to now become vegan again? Do I have to renounce parts of myself in essence in order to fit into this particular idea the collective has for a spiritual person? Have you experienced a dissonance like that in your path, in your journey, when it comes to the spiritual spaces and the labels they hold for us as a collective?

SPEAKER_02 45:38

Have you experienced that? Yeah, for sure. And exactly what you said, you know, in terms of this is how I'm supposed to look like. And more like if you look in India, you know, my cousins and they joke about it that next time you come, I'll see you wearing that whole orange garb, like orange, because that's what, right, the saints in India or the Guru Swami wears with the Rudraksh beads or the mala around you. And the next time we'll pick you up from the airport, that's what you will be wearing, or we'll buy you that so that you can wear that. And so, and I myself don't look anything like that, what fits that. But there are some things I want to do or move towards, like eating more of that Vedic satwik food, uh, to bring myself more, come back to that center. You know, that's what it says in the books. And yes, people practicing, they say that you go deeper into practice, but sometimes I feel like I'm able to go deeper into practice without that. So, why, you know, do I really need to go there? Do I really need to do that? That's where that's how I feel around that, in terms of, yes, sometimes it feels like am I being you question, I question myself in terms of am I being inauthentic? Am I being really true to what I feel and I believe? And am I really being in that space of accepting, again, belonging in that space of myself, how I would see it. And and I'm sure you too and myself, it's like we are always at that border trying to go beyond that rebelling. Like, let's just try it, let's just see how it is without this, like questioning everything in terms of practice, in terms of beliefs, how it should or should not look like. We kind of go beyond that, what the society thinks it should be.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

Yeah, absolutely. I think it it highlights a lot, and to begin with, why we sit here and record. Because we've been in spaces where they call upon us to attach a label to who we are and what we do. And what we always come back to or have come back to throughout the years of our friendship is be who you are, question what fits for you, you know, break the norm of what that looks like just to test it. Why not? If it's not hurting anybody, again, if it's not hurting anybody, why not just push yourself beyond the boundaries and limitations you've set for yourself of had others set for you? At the very end of the day, you are what remains when no labels are attached to your being, and that is it. But you will never know what that is if you don't find a moment in time to question what is mine to hold and what is mine to let go of. Am I who I am because of what I do, or am I who I am because that is my essence? Every single time around anything we talk about, there's a bigger invitation here. Explore what's real for you. Let go of anything else, or keep it, whichever way makes you comfortable. At the end of the day, you are what remains without any single label. Do you know what that is? This was a great, great, great introduction to labels, right, Hamali?

SPEAKER_02 49:23

Yes, I agree. It was so good to see you. Good seeing you too, and thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

Yes, thank you for listening and being here with us.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

We'll see you next time. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

If there's one thing to sit with from today, you're not the labels you were given. You're not the labels you chose, you're not the things you do or the roles you perform. You are what remains when all of it falls away. And if you don't know what that is yet, that's the invitation. Question what's yours to hold and what's yours to let go of. You might be surprised by who's been waiting underneath.