The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane

Labels and Identity: Shifting From Limitations to Possibilities | Ep. 130

Fiona Kane Season 1 Episode 130

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Labels and identity can either hold you back or help you grow - it all depends on how you use them. In this episode of The Wellness Connection Podcast, Fiona Kane explores how labels, diagnoses, and personal stories can become excuses that limit our potential, or tools that guide us toward resilience and growth.

Through real-life examples and reflections, you’ll learn why it’s important not to let labels define who you are, and how shifting your perspective can move you from feeling powerless to empowered. This conversation is all about reclaiming your agency, breaking free from victim mentality, and embracing possibilities beyond your limitations.

Jackson's Instagram (the toddler who has inspired me): https://www.instagram.com/jacksonsnm_journey/

Music by Josh from Pixabay



Outro: Music by Musinova from Pixabay

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Fiona Kane:

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast. I'm your host, Fiona Cain. Today I wanted to talk a little bit more in regards to what I see a lot, and I've seen this in myself and I see this in others. So, by the way, when I talk about this today, this is not a judgment. It's actually just an observation and a discussion about what I see a lot, and what I see a lot is people giving away their agency. They're giving away their power, and I'll explain to you a little bit more about what I mean. So what I'm talking about here is when we turn our labels into our identity. So, and we use our labels as excuses. Instead of just knowing that there's an explanation, we use labels as an excuse. So I'll give you an idea of what I mean.

Fiona Kane:

So it could be, for example, that someone has been diagnosed with something right. So something that's really popular at the moment is ADHD diagnosis, and I'm not saying anything negative about that's real or anything like that, not saying that at all. It is real. However, there's a difference between getting a diagnosis that you have ADHD and then learning what that might mean and whether or not that might mean that there's different ways for you to structure your day or structure your life or whatever strategies you need to use that support you to do things you know do to do. Well, right? So you know, for example, even just something like I'm an audio learner, I like to learn sort of with audios as opposed to the written word, as opposed to reading, and you know so that that's a useful thing for me to know that if I want to learn, audio versions are better for me, right? So it's kind of like okay, I know that I find it harder to read than I do to listen, and so I know that that's a strategy for me, right, is listen to things where I can, and which is which you can do these days, which is great. So it's kind of like just knowing okay, well, I know that I've got these specific issues. I struggle to learn this way, or I struggle to stay on time when I do this, so what are the strategies I can use to do that better? So that's one way of managing any kind of diagnosis, right?

Fiona Kane:

Another way is saying, oh, I've got ADHD or insert other thing, I'm not just picking on that issue, but I've got this thing and that means that forevermore, I'll always be late and I'll never be able to organize myself, and it's not my fault, right? So there's a difference between sort of saying that yes, there's an explanation here. The explanation is my brain's wired a little bit differently, or I've got this health issue or disability, or whatever. The issue is that you might be struggling with, or it could be something to do with your childhood. You've had a terrible childhood, something's happened to you, maybe you've had a terrible experience All of the things that could mean that we have challenges in our life. Right, there's millions of reasons why and they're valid, right, it's valid when you've got issues and when you struggle with certain things. So I'm not saying none of it's valid, because we have a whole bunch of reasons that are very valid that we could use to sort of say, well, this is why I can't do this or why I struggle with that, whatever, and so not saying at all it's not valid. What I am saying, though, is when we turn it into our identity, our whole identity, it does actually take away our power, and it also can stop us from achieving things, because we've kind of decided we absolutely decide what our limitations are. So we say I've got X, y, z. That means I've got these limitations full stop, end of story and we don't go any further. And again, this is why this is kind of discussion rather than a I get understanding limitations and I get understanding reality. I think that a lot of people don't understand reality and that's not helpful either. So, understanding that there's a certain level of limitation, you know, like for me, understanding I think I've said it before right, I'm five foot tall, got lots of issues with my muscles. I'm 54, whatever, I'm never going to be a basketballer, not that I ever was going to be, even when I was young. But you know, it's good to understand certain limitations Sure, fair enough. At the same time, when we absolutely reside in our issue and our belief about our limitations, we can really really limit what we can achieve. So, yeah, I'm not going to be a basketballer, but it doesn't mean that I can't function. So I'll give you some examples of what I mean here as well. So I talked about this on the last episode.

Fiona Kane:

There's a child that I've been following his account. His name is Jackson, and little two-year-old boy, and he's got some sort of muscular disease that essentially meant that when he was born he was having trouble even swallowing his own saliva. Right, he's choking on his own saliva. So his muscles are so badly I don't know just not functioning that he struggles with the day-to-day things. So apparently his parents were told when he was born that he would never eat. So he is fed through a tube through his stomach and they were told he would never eat at all. And he is eating. He's still being fed through the tube in his stomach, but he's eating actual food now, right, and they were told he would never walk and he's not walking yet, but he's certainly walking with the help of a walker and starting to be able to stand up with assistance, that sort of thing. So I mean a lot better than what they thought would happen. And I think they were also told he would never talk. You know he's talking and now he's.

Fiona Kane:

He's two years old, he's not at the level of maybe another two-year-old, but the fact that he can do any of those things is amazing, right, and and it's really really hard work, obviously by the family and therapists and whoever around them and the child himself, but it's also just proof that you know, if they had have accepted the limitations and said, all right, well, he's never going to do any of those things. We're just going to leave him lying in a cot and just feed him through the tube and just accept that and just leave it alone and not try, right? That's the situation that they would be in. But they've said, all right, we understand there's a reality here and the reality is this you know, there's a whole bunch of things that might not happen for this child. But okay, now we understand that reality, let's just do our best and try and do the best we can and use whatever strategies that we need, like I was talking about before with me with my own strategies. Use whatever strategies we need to support our success, right?

Fiona Kane:

So it's not about saying that people don't have excuses or reasons or they're not valid, absolutely. There's a whole bunch of reasons why life is hard for a whole bunch of people and they can be really valid and really, really hard, and you know, I'm not denying that in any way. However, if it's how you identify, if it's kind of you know you walk around the world from the point of view of kind of going life is hard for me because and I can't achieve, because and it's you know, and everyone's out to get me, because that's just going to take away your agency and it's really going to limit your life. So sometimes you know, things can be true and sometimes two things can be true at the same time. So the truth might mean that I have got this issue or that issue which makes life really hard for me and it's not fair, and it was something that was done to me or that happened to me and I'm completely innocent and it happened to me and it's really terrible, really hard and really awful. That can be true. But it can also be true that if I walk around just living in that space, I can really really limit myself. So it could be true that I can accept that but still say, okay, but I'm going to get on with it and these are the strategies I'm going to use to try and help myself. Or it can also be true that you say these things happened to me and therefore I am going to use to try and help myself. Or it can also be true that you say these things happen to me and therefore I am going to not do anything, because I can't right and completely understand, when really horrible things, big things, happen to people, why they might respond to that way. All I'm saying is it's not particularly helpful and it really limits you, right. But no judgment for people, the way that they do these things. But you only have to read books of people Like. The other day I was listening to a podcast and I heard of someone who was a quadruple amputee and this guy has started up a business where he's actually helping people rehab who've had those kinds of injuries and illnesses and soldiers, whoever it is, people who've experienced those issues where they've lost their limbs. He's actually created a successful, thriving business to help people with those issues. Right Now most people would say that if you were a quadruple amputee, even if you had one amputated limb, that that would be a really, really good excuse to kind of just drop out and say it's all too hard.

Fiona Kane:

And I imagine I'd be one of those people that would say, oh, it's all too hard because I find things challenging. Like I said, I'm owning it that I'm guilty of sometimes identifying things and kind of talking myself out of the ability to do things because I feel bad or feel like life's hard. But when you look around and you look at people who have it a lot harder than maybe what you do, they find a way just to get on with things. And it's like I said before, it's not about not being in reality, because they're very much in reality. If you're a quadruple amputee, you're very much in the reality of that every moment of every day.

Fiona Kane:

But the ability to say, all right, I know that this is my situation, hey, but what can I do? Right. And it always comes back to that what can I do? Thing right. So sometimes what we do is we tell you what we can't do, or what we think we can't do, and we don't look at what we can do. And while you can have a reality about where you are right now, about what you can't do, it's also important to sort of say, all right, right, this moment that's not possible, but hey, let's just have a go, or let's just do the things we can, or let's just work on that, like this child I was talking about, let's go and do the work that will enable me to maybe strengthen my muscles to the point where I can actually eat Right. So it's just just a mindset when you kind of say, all right, well, what can I do? I know I'm being realistic, I'm not being, you know, I'm not pretending that, it's not what it is, but if I can sit here forever in this place of feeling like a victim, or feeling like life's unfair, or just counting all the things I can't do or all of the bad things, or I can say, all right, I'm really really well aware of that. Now, what can I do? What strategies are there? What can I do to change things?

Fiona Kane:

And it might be I've talked about before on this podcast lots of different things like glimmers versus triggers, even just having an awareness of good things around you, because sometimes we only look at the negative things and we don't look at the good things. So labels are there to help us understand our situation. So that might be the label of a diagnosis, or the label it could even be. You know, the other place I see this happening is even in just labels, in regards to whether it be things like sexual identity or those things, right. So again, that's another area where you know there might be a certain label that you might say, okay, well, I know, I understand, that's why I'm attracted to this way or that's why I feel that way, fine, okay, that's great. But what we're doing is we're dividing people up into groups now and we have to label everybody as some name, and it's quite funny because it's it's like.

Fiona Kane:

This whole idea is that, uh, what I hear is like we're we're we're defining things too much and we need to be more fluid and we need to use more fluid language, and blah, blah, blah. Then there is a label for every single thing. Within that it's like, okay, all right, there's labels for everything, but not only that, but what we do and this is probably getting the more political thing but what we do is we label different groups, victim groups, right, and that's not helpful either. So it is useful to know. It's useful information to know that historically, this group or that group or whoever it is, have been treated badly or whatever the situation is. And that's okay, it's useful to know, and we need to be in reality and we need to understand history Absolutely. But at the same time, it's also useful to know that in Western worlds, a lot of these same groups are not. That's not true. It's not true anymore, right, but what I see is I see people who make money and do well out of being activists.

Fiona Kane:

I see those kinds of people who get a lot of energy out of their activism really deliberately trying to put people into victim classes and really trying to push the well you are, you know you've got this identity, or you look this way, or you've got this racial identity, whatever. That means you are a victim and everyone hates you and there's this whole systemic thing out to get you and therefore you're not going to do very well. And again it's like you see people who just ignore that and get on with it and they do fine, but it's the people who really buy into it that have the trouble right. So if you say, because of whatever racial identity I have or whatever sexual identity I have, I can't do well, I can't get on with life, I'm going to be treated badly, blah, blah, blah, that will be your experience. You'll really close yourself into that experience, whereas if you say, yep, there is these things and that there is such thing as you know, I'm not saying that. Also, I'm not saying that racism doesn't exist or people aren't in any way bigots or any of that kind of stuff.

Fiona Kane:

People can be cruel and sometimes people get all people actually, but sometimes people get picked on or there's certain groups that get worse treatment and all of that. And I'm not talking about historically, that's a whole other conversation, but I'm just talking about now, in the Western world now. So I'm not saying that stuff doesn't happen or people don't get picked on or things aren't hard. I'm just saying that again, if you use some identity that you have as an excuse to opt out and miss out, opt out of things in life or miss out on things in life, all you're doing is actually letting the bullies win. So you're letting the people who are bigots or bullies win.

Fiona Kane:

If you say this means I'm some sort of, you know, victim category and that's my excuse for not doing anything in my life, you know, all you're doing is taking away your own agency, right? So I'm not talking about what is true or not true for you, just more how you respond to or how you talk to yourself about it, how that can. Sometimes what we do is we don't get where we want to go in life because we kind of just have this oh well, I'm a victim, therefore I can't life, because we kind of just have this oh well, I'm a victim, therefore I can't. And that is a real, that's a real challenge as human beings on this earth for us to kind of have these challenges and have these. You know that, like I said, that are your identity or your diagnosis or whatever it is is information, and it could be information about a certain challenge that you're going to have. That's more than somebody else.

Fiona Kane:

Somebody else is going to have a different challenge by the way, everyone has different challenges but it's whether or not you completely identify to the point that you use it as your way of opting out of life, as justifying your behavior, as justifying your reason to not change or not grow or not learn, because that's another thing that's happening now, too, in this sort of basically, like the mental health industry is, we've had this situation and I've been watching some videos by Raquel the capacity coach. She's actually really good and she talks about this like how okay, isn't it great that we are talking about mental health more, as far as, like you know, once upon a time we didn't talk about it. We just shut people away without you know really good strategies for helping them and we didn't understand the reasons that, why people might you know they've been traumatized or they've had this problem or that problem, and so, like it is great that we can identify that there are mental health issues with being a human being and look at what they are, and strategies and all of those things. So that's a really, really good thing. But the problem is, like all good things, they sort of go, sometimes go to the nth degree where it's like, okay now, rather than just having an awareness and doing something useful and productive around it.

Fiona Kane:

Now what we're going to do is we're going to pathologize normal struggles. Now what we're going to do is we're going to turn everything into a pathology. That means that we have an excuse not to do life right. So essentially, what we're doing is we're basically justifying our reason why we have to stay the same and justifying why, you know, I don't need to grow, I don't need to build my capacity, I don't need to learn how to manage myself in the world. I'm just going to sit here and say, no, I can't do that because I'm some category that is not able to. And again, I suppose it's a choice, but you're not going to get very far in your life and you're going to really limit yourself and you are putting those limitations on you. So it's not the world putting those limitations on you, it's you putting those limitations on yourself.

Fiona Kane:

So sort of be aware of that, you know, and the other part of this too is you know I suppose getting back to the different identities and things is, you know when we need to have external validation. So once upon a time we understood it was an inside job. It really is an inside job to build up your capacity and build up your strength and build up your ability to manage in the world and not have safe spaces created for you, but know that you'll manage in whatever space you find yourself in, that you'll have the capacity and you'll be able to do it. So once upon a time we had that understanding, we knew that. But now what we're doing is we're just sort of saying oh okay, yeah, you've had this thing happen to you. You're fragile, you can't build your capacity, you don't have capacity. We have to protect you. So here you are, we'll put you in this victim class. We'll tell you that everyone's out to get you. We'll tell you that you're.

Fiona Kane:

You know that you're being harmed by words or by someone not affirming you or by someone not accepting you, and that's damaging to you, that's physically and emotionally damaging to you and poor you, and we're going to protect you instead of just saying, hey, you know, the truth is that we can't rely on the world to validate us. We can't rely on other people, you know, like someone not validating me, not liking me or not accepting me shouldn't be threatening my emotional or physical well-being, right? Because the truth is that's going to happen in life. No matter what, no matter who you are, no matter what your identity is or where you're from, whatever the truth is, you're going to have people in your life who don't like you. You're going to have people in your life who are mean or who treat you badly or pick on you or they don't acknowledge you. Whatever it is, that's just the reality of it. That's just life.

Fiona Kane:

So if I say to you that, well, you know, if people don't acknowledge you and if people don't validate you, and if people don't love you and celebrate you, that they're harming you, how is that helping you? How is that helping you, right? So, as human beings, essentially what I'm trying to say is we need to build capacity to be in this world, to survive in this world and to manage in this world. And if we perceive ourselves to be perpetual victims of everything, perpetually fragile and unable to manage, we've got all the excuses to not grow and not build capacity and not function in our life. It's just like the get out of jail free card that we're not. It's not none of it's my fault. Everything just happens to me. Nothing in life is my responsibility or my fault. Okay, it might be an excuse and you might get out of stuff, but is that going to be helping you? Is that really helpful? And that's sort of. I suppose that's my question. And, look, I asked myself the same question in regards to some of these issues as well.

Fiona Kane:

I'm not having this conversation to point the finger at people or pick on individual people or individual groups. Just to say what we're doing in this world is we are creating a whole bunch of perpetual victims and we're encouraging people to stay in a victim mindset. And people might be doing it for other reasons that reasons that benefit them, because they like being, they like protesting and they like being they, they like making money off some of these things as well, because you can make money off some of these things, and they like being angry and they you know they enjoy some of this stuff, right? Be aware that sometimes certain people are being told that they're victims because it benefits other people around them, right, so you can choose to identify in some sort of victim class, or you can choose to label normal emotions as some sort of pathology. You can choose to stay in the victimhood of whatever has happened to you and whatever's gone on for you, or you can can choose to say what can I do? Right, and I'm not saying that. Go from being in a really bad situation to, oh, I'm fine the next day. You might need a whole lot of therapy, you might need a whole lot of physical therapy. There's a whole lot of things that you might need. So I'm not sort of saying that, oh, we can wave a magic wand and everything's okay. Not saying that at all. All I'm saying is, if our mindset is closed off to any ability for us to build our own capacity and any agency, any ability for us to have any agency in our own lives, if we're completely closed off to that and absolutely believe that we're perpetual victims and life is always going to be hard and we can never achieve anything, well, it kind of comes true, doesn't it? So, essentially, what we do, you know, and all you have to do is read any book from anyone who's overcome, and that particularly, you'll see. I mean, go and watch, go to the Paralympics.

Fiona Kane:

I went to the Paralympics in Sydney and saw, watched some of those things and again, you know, I watched people who were completely blind run and do the long jump and you might think, oh, that's not a big deal. Well, I've got some issues with myself where I'm partially blind and I, when I first had my stroke I was, I lost all of my peripheral vision for the first few hours. Just living for a few hours with no peripheral vision was kind of terrifying. And you know, it really is hard when you can't see, to have the confidence to move forward. When you see someone relying on a cane or a dog or something like that to walk forward and to have the courage to do that and not know what's in front of them, that takes a hell of a lot of courage. If you're doing the long jump, if you're not only just willing to walk forward but willing to run and jump forward, wow, that's a lot of courage in that right.

Fiona Kane:

And there's people doing that sort of stuff everywhere all of the time and just overcoming and figuring out ways to do things. I had a friend at school who was born with no arms and he used to write with his feet right. So he overcame. He said, oh, you know. He could have just said, oh well, you know, I've got no arms, I'm just going to spend my whole life complaining about that, and he'd have very good justification for it. It's not his fault. However, he just got on with it and sort of said, well, what can I do? All right.

Fiona Kane:

So if you're feeling sorry for yourself or you're feeling like you can't come out of some of these things, look for some of these inspirational stories. Read some, you know. Look at some Paralympians. Read some inspiring books about those kinds of people. Just to kind of, sometimes we need just a bit of a reality check, right?

Fiona Kane:

So, anyway, it's totally up to you, but what I'm encouraging people to do is to find their own agency, and the way we do that is we, you know we might accept that there's certain labels or certain things that affect us and we use that as information, as data, and that's information to help us to navigate our way or to help us figure out the best way to navigate for ourselves, and we all have different needs and we need different support to do that. Absolutely fine, that is all great. So do that, but don't move into your label as a place to live forever in perpetuality, as a way to remove your agency and make life hard for yourself. So it's one thing to use it as information and a bit of a guidepost of, maybe, what support you might need. It's another thing to use it as a well that just means I can't do life right. There's a difference. So that's what I'm trying to say. I hope I made sense. Look, I know I'd like your feedback Again, all feedback as long as it's respectful I don't see the need to be nasty to each other, but just respectful feedback.

Fiona Kane:

What your thoughts on this are, and I hope I explained myself well in that, yeah, not having to go at anyone for how they feel and feeling like a victim or even being victimized it's not about that. This is just about okay, sort of moving forward. What's the best way to do this? And I think that we can. There's a great way to use labels that we have as information and they're useful, but not as a whole identity that might actually cause harm to us or cause harm to our lives or reduce our capacity or ability to have a great life. Anyway, I would love your feedback. Please also like, subscribe, share.

Fiona Kane:

I hear I like to have real conversations about things that matter and that's why I'm having this conversation. Sometimes I think that because we're afraid to step on landmines, we're afraid to have these difficultmines, we're afraid to have these difficult conversations, and I might have not explained things as well as I could have. I hope I've explained things as things well. But we need to be willing to have these conversations and maybe accidentally say the wrong thing or say it the wrong way or whatever. That that's the whole point of free speech.

Fiona Kane:

The point of free speech is that we get better at stuff and we learn, and when we have conversations we can do things better. But we can't do it if we can't think, and speaking is part of how we think. So I'm kind of part of this whole thing is I'm just thinking out loud, so I might have worded things in a slightly wrong way, but it's not intended as having a go at anyone, as just opening up a conversation, an important conversation, because our society is moving more and more towards labels and, like I said, if we use them the right way, they can be fine, but if we don't, they can be really detrimental. So that's the conversation I'm trying to have here and, yeah, I hope that that's the spirit in which you receive it and hope you have a good week and I will see you all again next week. Thank you, bye-bye.

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