
Where you can stick your labels...
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Hi, I’m Jess aka Loadofolbobbins a straight white woman, about 5ft 7”, UK size 16/18 (depends on the style), British, European (I’ve done the DNA test thingy and as well as Dutch, Irish, Scottish, there’s a mysterious Finnish element too), 37 years old, spiritual but of no fixed religion, love a bit of history and science, me and mental maths have occasional falling outs but I do my own accounts quite happily, textile artist and illustrator with a love of nature, books and a penchant for pigeons! Now do any of these labels mean I’m innately wonderful, no, to be honest they don’t, quite interesting maybe but nothing more, nothing less. What does make me an alright kind of person, aside from my sparkling wit and ability to make a nice bit of cake, is my empathy for others, I treat people with respect and kindness. If I snap at someone because I’m fed up or tired, I say sorry and I’ll do my best to help people when I can. So why then are some people so obsessed with mine or anyone else’s labels?
Our over reliance on these labels/categories/boxes, whatever you want to call them, has meant some of us have started to neglect how important it is to see the whole person. Being a woman, ‘biological’ or otherwise, doesn’t mean you’re automatically caring or empathetic – I’ve known some pretty shitty women to be honest! Likewise if you’re a man it doesn’t mean you’re innately emotionless, ‘tough’ or whatever cliche of macho they like to throw at you. My own dad Patrick is one of the most caring, kind and lovely men I know, not in spite of this but because of this, he is also one of the strongest too, if you try and hurt anyone he cares about….well just don’t, I’m lucky, my mum’s just the same. As a family our openness and empathy with ourselves and others is our strength, it can be flippin’ exhausting at times, especially when people take advantage or try and manipulate. But what’s the alternative we shut down, close off and start looking for others to hurt like we have been? NO, ta you can shove that!
But, I have experienced the flip side, being treated badly, by people from all sorts of walks of life and sitting on different places on lots of different spectrums. Did them being unkind or cruel have anything to do with them being women, men, non binary, black, white, from this country or another, of this religion or that, not specifically no, they just chose to behave like that, maybe venting their own crappy experiences, I don’t know, but that doesn’t make it OK. I get it, we’ve all got our ‘stuff’, people may have treated us abysmally in the past but that doesn’t mean we have carte blanche to do the same to others! If our ‘stuff’ overwhelms us and temporarily takes control of our actions, own it, apologise for it and don’t expect anything in return. Let’s not pass on a quite frankly crappy inheritance of trauma to others, that’s how we get the power back from those who have hurt us!
If you want to talk about ‘Deeds not Words’ let’s do just that, let’s talk about how someone behaves to see what they’re like as a person. Beyond any word about their gender, ethnicity or religion…are they kind, are they empathetic, do they know how to say sorry when inevitably they might mess up – to err is human after all! Then good, that’s fantastic, we’ve got the makings of a wonderful community. We’ll never be perfect…perfection is just another myth to keep us feeling crap about ourselves, but if we work to the principle of empathy and kindness I feel like that’s a pretty good starting point. If any of us are a bit crabby, maybe it’s a misunderstanding, or maybe our ‘stuff’s’ temporarily trying to take control again, either way just apologise, mean it and see what happens. This way when we all see those people who refuse to apologise continue to treat people badly, we can look at each other and acknowledge their crapness, help whoever they’re hurting and walk firmly in the other direction.
So hi, I’m Jess nice to meet you, I’m a lot of different things and they’re all me, but although I may get crotchety and crabby sometimes, I’ll never wilfully set out to hurt someone. So if you’re empathetic and kind then why not pull up a chair, there’s lots of us out there and we make the best cake!