LabelLess Living

what label might define your life right

now and if you’re kind of thinking what

do you mean by labels let me run a few

by you old

young

gay straight married single

fit

sick you kind of get the idea right what

i’ve noticed in my life is that

labels sometimes come into our neurology

without us even noticing they go

underneath the radar and what happens is

they kind of affect how we show up in

the world

being told you have cancer is not

anything you can really ever plan for

and yet in 2014 i was diagnosed with

kidney cancer

and with that came three labels really

quickly one was cancer patient one was

cancer victim and the other was cancer

sufferer

now at some level the cancer patient

kind of serves because it allows you to

be put into a box medicated and treated

which i’m really grateful for but the

cancer sufferer and cancer victim

definitely not

what i decided to do was develop

something that would allow me to decide

what labels would i accept and what

labels would i delete and i’m going to

share that with you in a second

what i decided to do once i was

diagnosed with that disease was to

embark on it with a label of being an

adventurer i’d never been into hospital

before let alone had surgery so it was

kind of like how do i want to view this

i went in with the eyes of an adventurer

and i asked the anesthetist on the

morning of surgery if i could go down to

the operating theater and see what it

looked like she agreed and was really

pleased she did

we went in and i met the team the

operating theater was like super super

shiny it was like walking into a star

wars movie and the table that they were

going to operate on was so tiny i was

like how i’m on earth am i even going to

stay on there and she was like oh don’t

worry we’ll strap you down

so learning to have that label was

really helpful to me because it allowed

me to experience it totally differently

now let me share with you how i use the

delete button the very first time

whilst i was in hospital a lady came to

visit me and she was telling me about

this documentary she’d seen where

another lady had given away a kidney to

somebody that really needed it

she also shared with me that apparently

when the human body loses an organ

then the human body can go into a deep

decline and become really depressed and

i am like at what level is this serving

me and i use my delete button and this

is kind of how it goes you imagine the

big red button you imagine the white

lettering across it that says delete and

this is what you do inside your head

delete delete delete as loud as you can

inside your head and imagine that button

kind of lighting up each time you’re

actively and consciously deleting the

label that you don’t want to accept

it’s important you do it inside your

head though otherwise that would be kind

of a bit weird i imagine that you come

home from work you’re absolutely

exhausted and your six-year-old comes up

to you they’re really excited to see and

they want to play

and you’re like i need to do a few

emails and then i’m i’m totally there

for them you remember that in a magazine

you were flicking through earlier that

day there was a map of the world so you

rip it out you tear the map of the world

up into tiny pieces you put it on the

floor and you’ve made like a little

homemade jigsaw

you give your six-year-old the tape to

stick it back together again and you

make it fun for them and you say when

you’ve done that i’ll be totally here we

can play a game you see life is a little

like that it’s deciding which pieces do

we want to stick together so that it

becomes the fabric of our life with the

labels that we choose to have

i remember a time when i didn’t have my

delete button i was working for estdale

order in rackham’s bradford selling

lipsticks and fragrance i had a lovely

time but one of the things i wanted to

do was to have a career with them i was

19 years of age i was told i was way too

young

but yet i got a job working as a

training executive

i was the youngest training executive in

the estee lauder corporation to be

promoted at that time

and

at some level i always believed that i

was a little bit too young even though i

excelled even though i did a great job

i often wonder

what life would have been like if i

hadn’t had that label installed another

time a label affected me when i didn’t

have my delete button was when i met and

fell in love with keith

i was told he was way too old he was

older than me and even though we got

married and we had this wonderful life

together at some level i believe that

that was true at some level i believed

that he was too old

i do a lot of things for charity and

some crazy events and one of the events

that i did was run across portugal which

is a marathon a day for seven days and

you get a sense the type of labels that

were sort of installed or attempted to

be installed was you’re going to get

injured you can’t do that it’s too hard

for you not at your age i was 41. so you

can imagine delete delete delete none of

that serves you when you’ve got to run a

marathon every single day for seven days

the other label i got was crazy lady

which i kind of quite liked so i didn’t

delete that

now

when i was in hospital in christchurch

if somebody tapped me on the shoulder

and said a year tomorrow

you’re going to lose your husband keith

i would never have believed them

and yet a year and a day later i lost my

beautiful husband keith and a new label

came with that the label of a widow

delete delete delete that did not serve

me people treated me differently people

looked at me differently people didn’t

talk about the future

it was a label that was definitely not

going to serve me i was running around

the lake here in queenstown beautiful

lake hayes with my gorgeous friend vicki

and as i’m following her she stopped in

her tracks i practically ran into her

and she said amanda your life is like a

beautiful canvas one half of it has been

painted it’s rich it’s textured and

that’s up until the point that keith

passed away and the other half is

completely blank you can put whatever

you like on that and trust me i got my

designer label kit out and i started to

put in labels there like magician i

wanted to have some magic in my life i

want to go to burning man i wanted to

fall in love again i wanted to be a

hopeless romantic

now somebody that has had three

long-term relationships won 10 years

with a really hot fireman

one five years and then sadly divorce

and then won 19 years with beautiful

keith and all with men

would have the label of being straight

right

except this time i fell in love with a

woman

and the immediate label i was given was

oh you’re gay

delete delete delete i’m not gay i’m not

straight i’m amanda i just happened to

fall in love with a soul that happens to

be attached to a female body

and therefore

being in control of those labels really

allows you to navigate your life on your

terms even my lovely mum said to me

amanda you’re not gay you’re grieving

delete delete delete

at no level is that going to serve me

creating your life on your terms means

you get to choose which label you want

to have in your life sarah and i got

married in portugal in 2016. beautiful

wedding at a vineyard there we even went

to burning man for our honeymoon which

was absolutely epic

and then we decided we wanted to have a

family now

when you’re 52

and you start to share with people that

you’re gonna go on an ivf journey and

have children trust me that label of

you’re too old comes right into place

delete delete delete at no level is that

going to help us the ivf journey another

label that’s hard delete delete delete

doesn’t serve us at all and yet we

embarked on that journey and the label

we chose was an adventure that was fun

that was eventually going to get us what

we wanted and boy did it

on the 9th of may

2019 two beautiful baby boys noah and

jasper were born in invercargill new

zealand

we were a family and with that came a

new label

same sex family sarah and i were a

little bit too busy with twin boys we

didn’t get out the delete button we

didn’t delete that

and questions we got asked were

who’s the dad

every child deserves to have a father

we’ve used our delete button so many

times

to navigate our life on our terms

to create the fabric of our life out of

the labels that we want to include and

delete the ones that we don’t want

i’d really encourage you to do the same

thing

now that six-year-old finishes that map

of the world so quickly you’re like oh

my goodness how did they do that so fast

you’re not even through your first email

and you say my goodness you put the map

of the world together and the

six-year-old looks at you and says no

it was really easy

all i needed to do was stick the lady

that was on the back of the map stick

her back together and once she was back

together

the world took care of itself