When do I get to call myself a writer?

How much thought do you put into choosing the identity labels you attach to yourself, endorsing some and rejecting others?  And what are the criteria you use to make those determinations?  

Questions around identity are potentially a thorny mess for me to wade into, given how much violence - mental, emotional and physical - occurs based upon the labeling of humans as belonging to one identity group or another (race, gender, class, sexual orientation or preference, etc.) by people who feel separation from, animosity toward, and superiority over a group of which they don’t consider themselves a member, not to mention all of the harm meted out by those who refuse to acknowledge or are unintentionally blind to (knowingly and/or out of ignorance) their own biases (often including me, as a cis-gendered, white, heterosexual woman, and probably also true for most of the people reading my thoughts on this). All of this is to say that I wouldn’t feel comfortable writing about identity at all without acknowledging how pervasive and damaging this labeling (and subsequent mistreating) of others is, and it’s also not a subject I feel educated enough about to intelligently debate.  It’s also not what I’m intending to discuss.

I’ve been chewing on the question I posed on IG last week: “When do I get to call myself a writer?” And in order to answer the question, I’ve been thinking about how I go about choosing or rejecting identities for myself -  and what I fold into my thinking.  Musing about my own thought processes made me curious about how others make these choices as well.

So what happens when I suggest that you think about the roles with which you identify?  If you are a parent, like me, that’s almost certainly where you will start.  And If you have children, and that’s not the first place your mind goes, I have some questions about you, but that’s a conversation for another time.  Perhaps you are a spouse or long-term partner (I used to be one of those, but that didn’t end super well - also a conversation for another day.).  You are also someone’s child, perhaps someone’s sibling, and let’s hope, many people’s friend.  

Almost all adults will also quickly consider their professional personas.  Truthfully, many people would probably mention one or more professional identities before even thinking about the personal - though as a woman who spends most of her time these days studying and talking about healthy relationships, I hope that’s not you.  

Professionally, I am (or was) a doctor, though I no longer actively practice medicine, so uttering that label out loud has gotten more and more uncomfortable over time, and frankly it no longer makes much sense. Honestly, it never really felt like it fit, so I always struggled on some level, even as a faculty member at a well-respected medical school, to fully own it. Now having happily left traditional medicine behind, I have become a coach and a hypnotherapist, and I’m delighted to wear those identities and share about them when asked. Whatever your profession, I hope for the sake of your overall well-being that the associated identification label rolls off of your tongue with ease.  If sharing who you are professionally feels like it doesn’t match your self-concept in one or more important ways, if you dread having new people ask “What do you do?” or the words catch in your throat when you try to speak them aloud, staying put will likely only grow your dissatisfaction and angst. I remember those days.  It was a heavy, and often lonely, place to be.  

Beyond the framework of identities in our personal roles and professional endeavors is where I think this gets more interesting.  What other “bonus” identification labels do you choose? Are you a runner, a cyclist, a climber, a healthy eater, or a weight-lifter?  What about a heavy drinker, a pot smoker, a junk-food afficionado, or a couch potato?  A dancer, a puzzler, a pet-lover, or an amateur musician or  photographer? 

Which of these  identities do you happily claim whether your behavior is consistent with them or not, and which do you know truly represent the choices you make despite your desire not to put them on or have them stick?  

How often does one need to “do” a role for it to apply? How fully, or fervently do the behaviors need to be performed?  How well does the thing need to be done, and who gets to be the judge? How often can we act in contrast to what the label says about us and have it still fit?  If it is something others do as a profession, and we don’t earn any money from it, do we still deserve to claim the identity?  

When we adopt a new positive identity, such as “I’m a healthy eater,” even if our choices don’t necessarily fully support the claim yet, viewing ourselves in the rosy light cast by the new identity can help us be far more effective in making the desired change in behavior.  How does  it work? Saying “I’m a healthy eater” and then letting all the organic vegetables from the farm share rot in the fridge while you gorge on your favorite comfort food creates cognitive dissonance. The internal whisper that says “As a healthy eater, I don’t eat this junk.” will then nudge you away from the nagging internal tension that the comfort food binge creates and push you instead in the direction of the spinach and bok choy. 

Well meaning people often assert that labels are uniformly bad and should be thrown out - and I agree that there are lots of great reasons to eschew assigning identities to anyone other than oneself (see paragraph at top for a huge one).  There is usually minimal clarity about when a label objectively applies (Who gets to decide if Aunt Sally is a dancer?), and there is tremendous likelihood of causing hurt feelings and/or more damaging consequences when anyone tells another person who they are or get to be.

So for me, as a practice, assigning identity to others is out, and there is also a strong argument to be made that choosing “negative” labels, even for ourselves, is a very bad idea.  World famous hypnotherapist, Marisa Peer, often says that “the mind believes whatever you tell it, good or bad, so why not tell yourself a better lie?” If you wanted to quit smoking, continuing to think of yourself as a smoker definitely wouldn’t make the task easier.  And why in the world would you want to create cognitive dissonance around making the choice you know is better for you?  Even if you smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day, it’s still not wise to think of yourself as a smoker unless you have no desire whatsoever to quit (and I’ll keep my thoughts on that to myself).

But I’m ok with optimistically choosing new “positive” identities (and the associated labels) for myself. They may actually help me grow into the person I most want to be.  And I have at least one book (or maybe more) to write.  So because it’s my choice, I’m choosing, starting today, to say “I’m a writer.”