Labels, in general, can be helpful or harmful depending on where you are at with association and identification. For example, discovering a label that feels accurate for your sexuality can feel incredibly affirming initially. You might, however, discover down the line that the label has started to feel more like a box you’ve been placed in and it no longer feels validating to identify with the label in the same way. Identifying AS a label is different than identifying WITH a label. As soon as we get too attached to an identity (a label we are identifying as), we suddenly have something to lose. We suddenly feel the need to prove, uphold, and cling the a label that once felt purely comfy. Identifying with something leaves room for change. It’s like saying “I identify with this right now, but I reserve the right to change my mind at any point.” Personally, I’ve cycled through just about every label for my sexuality that exists. Each time I settled on something that felt right for me in the moment, I suddenly felt pressure to adhere to the standards of that label, that there was only one right way to identify in that way, and that something was wrong with me if I didn’t 100% agree with every aspect of identifying as that label. Whenever I got to the point where I admitted to myself that maybe that label didn’t fully encompass all that I was feeling, I felt like I lost a part of myself and that I quickly needed to find a new label that makes sense. It was a long, confusing attachment journey. I learned that not identifying as anything felt most true to me. One of my voice teachers, mentors, and friends Robert Sussuma once shared that when asked about their sexuality, they respond “I’m just sexual.” I love it! I’ve now explored the benefit of labels: finding community and explaining easily and quickly something about myself to others. I’ve explored how to not over-identify as the labels I resonate with in an effort to not limit myself and remind myself that I am not any one thing, adjective, or label. I am. 

Having an artistic gift is a phenomenon. The flow of creativity is a certain kind of magic that belongs to you and only you. Being an artist is daring to share intimate details of an incredibly vulnerable relationship: the one you have with yourself. And, it’s also a lot of pressure. It’s very human to cling to something we have been praised for. It’s really easy to to identify AS a singer. And in a lot of ways, it’s empowering to claim that as an identity once you reach a certain level. I just HAVE to include my favorite quote from sister Act 2 (duh) which is when Whoopi tells Lauryn Hill “If you wake up in the morning and the first thing you think about is singing, then you’re a singer.” That HIT me so hard that I started identifying AS a singer. My confidence went soaring, I thought I finally found the THING that was special about me, and people noticed. And they started treating me differently. And soon enough, me identifying as a singer turned into me needing to be a good singer so I didn’t lose my friends, lose my special thing, lose the thing that I had thought made me, me. The pressure to live up to “good singing” started to weigh so heavily, and we know the emotional, mental, and physical body are all the same thing, so you can guess what happened. I hurt my voice. I couldn’t sing. It was my senior year of college at Pace University, right before I was about to be thrust into the professional NYC acting industry, right before I was meant to sing for agents in the hopes that they would want to represent me. And of course, I was panicked and devastated. I was so angry with myself for “letting” myself get hurt. I took it all as a personal failure and I was deeply ashamed. I feared anyone finding out that I was having “vocal issues,” a phrase I’ve whispered about others in the hallways at my school that I never imagined would include me. The confidence I gained crashed as quickly as it arrived, and I’m STILL on the journey to trusting my body and voice again. And I abandoned myself. I pretended, I shut myself up nice and small, and I whispered into every rehearsal room I entered.

In retrospect, I can see how the confidence I once felt wasn’t true. It was an image. It was put on me when I claimed singing as my identity. The biggest lesson I learned is that if you identify as something, who will you be if you can’t do that thing anymore? It will be a total loss of self. And it will suck. I’m still grappling with how to release the pressure I’ve put on myself to live up to those standards- some I’ve made up and some I’ve unfortunately seen in the theatre community. But, I now ask myself better questions. I now release and broaden things I identify WITH. Instead of saying I’m A Singer, I say: I sing, I act, I feel, I express. I do these things, I am not those things. It allows me to sincerely ask myself who I want to be, how I want to show up in the world, and who I want to serve. It allows me to make mistakes and actually grow from them instead of being mired in shame and therefore immobile. It doesn’t demand I stay the same, it supports change. It’s allowed me to accept and actually admire and cherish my humanity.

They say western culture is the most self absorbed, and therefore depressed, because we’ve been conditioned to believe that having any “negative” feelings means something is wrong with us. Capitalism and hustle culture has convinced us to identify as productivity zombies, and if we can’t live up to that, we’re told we have no value. It’s taken our capacity to feel okay with being human. It relies on on us to identify AS something so that we become afraid of losing it, instead of embracing the fluidity of emotion and humanity. 

I want more than that and I want more than that for you too.