"A yoga teacher of mine was describing a class he held for girls struggling with anorexia. He asked them to stand hip-width and was shocked when all of them were standing with their feet as wide as the yoga mat. Their physical bodies were much thinner than what their mental perceptions told them. It isn't something that just afflicts these girls -- all of us fall prey to believing labels that define our self-image. The problem isn't in the labels themselves, but in how conscious we are of them. Labels are just a mental shorthand for leveraging past experience, and preparing us for what lies in store. But when I am unconscious of these labels, I start believing them to be the full truth, when in reality they merely reflect my own conditioning. Then, instead of giving me a head start on gaining more information, labels collapse my experience and actually limit my opportunities to grow." On the neurobiology of labeling:
