BOXED IN

Since my blog last week on Caged Hearts, I have had a lot of people talk to me about how they have been put in boxes or how they have been labeled by others and how very hard that is to deal with on a daily basis, so I thought it needed to be blogged about some more and in particular the dangers of being boxed in.

When we label someone because of something that has seemed to draw attention to a likeness or similarity in that person, we don't realise the impact that we are having on someones life by emphasizing it, or even causing someone else to think that way as well. Take for instance, an alarming fact that this boxing in happens very early in a child's life, it can be over some small incident that happened because of forgetting a lunch box 3 days in a row, or I have even heard of someone wetting their pants on the first day of school and the other kids still referring to it after 5 years, now we would think that these things are just small events and they should be, but to someone who gets labeled this way, it can turn into something quite horrifying.

What about when we are in the workplace and our boss labels us on a bad day and we struggle for months trying to get them to see a different picture, to replace the one that they have in their head, or just as often, we label our bosses, our parents, our neighbours, our politicians.

When we do this, we paint a picture inside our head that could be very very different to the truth and when I was thinking about this I was reminded about a time when a few years ago when we were visiting a Church that had a theme night, one of my sons was asking me a question that went like this...

SON -"Mum, what did you think about the ladies who were dancing erotically at church"

WELL, I have learned with this child not to answer too quickly, just to feel my way around some questions and this was the perfect example.

ME - "Ummmm, what do I think, about the ladies.... dancing erotically ... at church, Well, that's a great..... question, I guess that I think ..... I would think the same as if the ladies ..... were dancing erotically anywhere.. " (by this stage I was pretty certain he just had his words mixed up but my creative, fun filled mind wanted to know where we could go with this, I do love an opportunity to laugh through life!)

ME - "Sooo, what do YOU think about the ladies dancing erotically at church?"

SON - " Mum, do I have the wrong word?"

ME - "Quite possibly, you wanna give me an example of this erotic dancing?" hahaha

Well, we figured out that as a 9 year old, He actually meant erratic , that they were just all doing their own thing - not even or regular or in time with each other - as he thought they should be.

This conversation has given us many laughs, Just the other night He said to me "Hey Mum, What do you think of my erotic dancing"?

But now we use this as an example when someone puts us in a box or puts a label on us, we know we don't fit the small mindedness that boxing people in does, we need to shake it off and not agree when we know we are created for much more. And we also need to be aware of our own ways of labeling others, allowing them to grow through life and not adding to their hard times.

MUM - "I hate it when people make up their mind about me without finding out who I really am"

SON - " Don't worry Mum, they just think you're dancing erotically!"

special thanks to the lady in the picture, she is campaigning against human trafficking!