"First it's Shirley MacLaine, now Anne Bancroft. Who next?!" an editor of the Yoga Journal once exclaimed to us. She did not realize that she was actually talking about Deb's mom, who is the author of a bunch of books, including Women in Search of the Sacred and Modern Mystics and Sages. She also shares the same name as the legendary actress: Anne Bancroft. As a result there have been many amusing moments of mistaken identity, such as the time she was invited to give a talk in London and when she arrived there was a mass of paparazzi waiting for...the other Anne Bancroft.
The best moment was when a magazine asked if she would write an article based on her book about Zen. She sent them the article and thought no more about it. But when the magazine was published, the article -- Zen, Direct Pointing to Reality -- was illustrated with photographs of the other Anne Bancroft taken from her movie The Graduate, frantically smoking a cigarette and looking anything but Zen-like.
Deb's mom has a remarkably ego-less attitude to all this. She is not concerned in the slightest that people think she is the Anne Bancroft, or that they give the credit for her books to the other more famous one. She does not need to identify herself as an author, or to think of herself as anything special, as she is genuinely content with herself.
Thinking about this, we began to take note of all the times we identify with our 'labels' as being who we are or that reinforce an image that makes us appear special -- "I am a single parent/ recovering alcoholic/ cancer survivor," or "I am an American/ Russian/ Christian/ Jewish/Muslim." In the search for an identity we hide behind our title, profession, illness, or religion and become attached to the story the label creates, even introducing ourselves as a label, or only relating to others who identify themselves in the same way. We feel a separation from, if not hostility toward those with a different label. As a result, race and religion are great dividers of humankind, causing untold suffering and conflict.
A while ago we were on a flight from India to the Middle East. As Ed walked through the plane he met the captain, who was from the US. Together, we were the only Americans on the plane. When he learned that we had written a book with Richard Gere, Paul McCartney and the Dalai Lama, he was so impressed he invited us to sit in the cockpit. He said that we were very lucky as his co-pilot was a Saudi prince. All he wanted was an autographed copy of our book for his wife. It made us wonder what would have happened if Ed had said he was a vacuum cleaner salesman!
We gain our identity through our work. As children we are constantly asked what we want to become when we grow up, the emphasis being that our work becomes our identity: "I am a doctor/ teacher/ dancer." Alongside this is the sense of failure, guilt or unworthiness if we do not become what was expected of us, if we do not succeed at our work label.
These are the big labels through which we find our identity, but there are also many smaller ones, the more personal and hidden labels, the ways in which we negatively see ourselves, such as: weak, unworthy, stupid, or hopeless. Recognizing all these ways we identify ourselves -- all the masks that we put on in order to be thought of in a certain way -- is vital in our journey to understanding ourselves.
Do we switch from one to another during the day, keeping the real one hidden? Beneath the masks, who is there? Do we know this person? Who are we without the labels? Do we so identify with the masks that we have lost sight of who lies beneath them? The labels are only a part of us, not the whole of us, and we need to honor our whole being.
What are your most well worn labels? Do you know who you are without them? Do leave us a comment. You can receive notice of our blogs every Thursday by checking Become a Fan at the top.
Ed and Deb Shapiro's new book, BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman, with contributors such as Marianne Williamson, astronaut Edgar Mitchell, Michael Beckwith, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jane Fonda, Jack Kornfield, Byron Katie, Ed Begley, Ellen Burstyn, Dean Ornish, Russell Bishop, and others, will be published November 3rd 2009 by Sterling Ethos. Deb is the author of the award-winning book YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND. Ed and Deb are the authors of over 15 books, and lead meditation retreats and workshops. They are corporate consultants, and the creators of Chillout daily inspirational text messages on Sprint cell phones. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com
Follow Ed and Deb Shapiro on Twitter: www.twitter.com/edanddebshapiro
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Thank you for a great post on labels. They seem to function as a resume for our lives in thes society. But when it comes down to it, they do restrict us. Though it seems impossible to fully understand who we are in our entirety, I feel a need to understand how my history has shaped me and how I can use the positives to help me find the attitude to give love even when I'm feeling a need to be loved. Your posts regularly equip me with tools I can use to let go of my ego needs and be the friend someone else needs rather then seeking my own gratificat
with love,
little brother
They are still in England! Having a wonderful time, even though they are without high speed Internet access. Imagine :)
I so wish I were with them, hanging tight with Deb's mum, the real Anne Bancroft. Alas, my identity, my labels keep me here, in NYC (Harlem - a neighborho
Ed and Deb will return. I promise you! Probably in about a week or so. After their next post.
Spread the word ... NOT the icing,
Janice
(the voice of Our Lady of Weight Loss, the patron saint of permanent fat removal)
Few people can get what is behind the words another speaks, so one uses what is available - labels. Our society is designed to keep people from going/bein
The following anecdote speaks directly to this.
A philosophe
Buddha kept silence.
After a while the philosophe
When the philosophe
Buddha replied: "A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip!"
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hope you both are enjoying London.
Send the queen my best.
Most Sincerely,
Brad Pitt
My husband and I were recently having a converstio
I feel so much true & deep inspiratio
THANK YOU ANNE BANCROFT..
And thank you Ed & Deb!!! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to you both and to Anne!!!!
Let me quote you; "We gain our identity through our work......
Alongside this is the sense of failure, guilt or unworthine
become what was expected of us, if we do not succeed at our work label."
This is fear of success. How do I live up to my talk, you mean I have walk
my talk or my families talk. But it goes further than this. The word personalit
comes from persona which means the masks that we wear. And we wear
many of them, that makes up are personalit
All I have to say is I AM
Until then ...
Ed and Deb are travelling in England at the moment and are unable to respond to your wonderful comments. They will do so when they return.
They really appreciate your comments and thank you very much for them.
But yeah, it brightened my day to see Anne in the MSM, and then to have such a lovely article follow it.
And I'm curious if your mom ever got mistaken for the Anne Bancroft who was the first woman to go the the south pole?
The practice of truth (Sacca) is important. We have to be truthful to ourselves before we can be truthful to others. Those who have problem telling themselves to give up smoking, drinking and other harmful vices loses the will to do so when the crunch time comes. When you are not truthful to yourself then you will always wear a mask. We acknowledg
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Nice blog, but Deb, she is your mum, not your mom- let's get the labels right! Love you all.