All the things we call ourselves.

I had an experience in a thought experiment the other day. I was building a gazebo from a kit and I was doing it in the hot sun, and as I went along, I tried to focus on the things I was telling myself, internally.
Before I started, I could hear my mind saying "You're going to need help with this."
As I got going, I could hear, "You'll get this section done, but you'll need someone to hold the other bit, while you set it up."
On and on, as I built it, I focused on my internal dialog. When I had finished the roof structure, I kept thinking how hard it was going to be to lift it up and that I would need help. But there was no help forthcoming, and it needed to be done and I did it.
Once it was complete, I stood there feeling a bit proud at how I had managed to do it all myself, with no help, despite the internal words I was telling myself.
This made me think. If I tell myself I cannot do a thing, but forge on, does that make my internal dialog useless, or less powerful?
What about the things I think about myself, the labels I apply to me? Do they, too, fall away, after I've proved them wrong?

Here's an experiment: Think about the things you've labeled your life with. Words like, Republican, Democrat, Christian, balding, chubby, slow, out-of-shape, short, too tall, impatient, grouchy in the morning. Think of all of those things like they are little items you can set on a shelf or desk, like I take off my glasses or watch. You're still you, but now, you're just you without all the other labels you have applied to yourself.
Without those labels, what do we know about you? About me?
Well, for one, I know that I am alive. I am a human. I feel emotions. I get hungry and full and have other physical needs.
Now, imagine that each of us eliminated all those labels from our lives, except the very essential ones. What if, as a moment of thoughtfulness comes over us, and we can look around and remove the labels from those around us, as well.
I look around and I see other humans who get cold, or hungry or tired, and who feel incompetent in some ways, etc. It's not hard, if you do that, to see in them some really endearing qualities. Qualities that make them all together similar to ourselves. We are all one species after all.

Some of what I tell myself is just me remembering some of the things I heard when I was younger. People doubted me because I was younger, or for being too rambunctious or too talkative.
Those doubts, and impatiences with me, have stayed with me. In a way, they have become me labeling myself as not very good at something, because I doubt myself.
But, as I move forward, I will look around at the gazebo and think about how much I had to fight against my doubts internally. I will think about how much I was able, over the years, to improve and get better and do things, despite my own internal dialog. Part of that, was a father-in-law who would not limit me to what others thought about me, or what I thought about myself. He encouraged me to try, anyway.
But, in the end, it has helped me to loosen the grip on all the labels I have applied to myself. So that I can see that we're all basically humans who struggle with things day-to-day, and that it's easier for me, when I allow myself to not be defined by those negative labels and all the things we call ourselves.