Author of Before the Labels · Creator of HCP: Human-Centered Philosophy™
Siobhán Bridget Kennedy
A practical philosophy for questioning the beliefs we were handed, the boxes we sort each other into, and trusting the innate feeling that connects us underneath it all, our humanity.
Siobhán Bridget Kennedy writes and speaks about the things people think about constantly and bring up rarely - lying, death, judgment, forgiveness, faith, divorce. Spoken with, rather than spoken at.
The writer
About Siobhán
I wrote Before the Labels to start a conversation. The subjects it covers - lying, death, judgment, forgiveness, faith, divorce - are the ones people think about often yet bring up rarely. The book gives them a way in, and leaves the conclusions to the reader.
It is about human interaction: how we see things, how we behave when we have to be around each other, and how we are when we're left alone with ourselves. That covers your closest relationships and the stranger you exchange two words with.
I use my own life and what I've watched in other people's lives to support the points, not as the points. Some of the uncomfortable parts are what I chose to leave in, and I try to land them softer, in an attempt to make them easier to speak about.
I am the third of four children and I was considered the quiet one until I flipped a switch somewhere in adolescence. That's when my mother began saying "Siobhán, your silence is deafening...", and back then I never really knew what she meant. I’ve since learned what she was alluding to... she noticed I had begun forming my own opinions, and the times I kept them to myself were louder than the times I didn’t.
“I didn’t write this book to prove a point or to have anyone agree with me. I’m hoping something in it sparks a response - in a conversation with someone else, or just in your own head."
That's the operating idea behind everything I write and everything I talk about. The subjects do the provoking. I stay relatively neutral - that's what lets a room actually talk.
“Fear is contagious... but so is calm.”
The Book
Before the Labels
Before the Labels looks at the ideas most of us inherit and rarely revisit: the labels we accept for ourselves, and the ones we hand to each other. Across 23 short chapters it takes on lying and honesty, judgment and forgiveness, faith beyond religion, divorce, death, intuition, and the line between enabling someone and supporting them. The voice is conversational rather than instructional, and each difficult subject is carried through to a calm, grounded place.
"By the time we're old enough to question anything, most of us have already been handed a religion, a politics, a set of rules, and a few strong opinions about people we've never met - and they about us. Almost none of it was our idea."
In conversation
Speaking Topics
Six curated starting points, each built for discussion rather than delivery from a stage. Format: a prepared opening, then the floor. Moderated / two-chair conversations also welcome.
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For Podcast Hosts
Before the Labels opens twenty-three topic entry points - faith, honesty, divorce, death, conspiracy theories, free thinking. Send over your show's focus, or work from the full chapter list, and we'll point to the subjects that fit your audience best.
Pitch a Show / Book SiobhánFor groups
A book that gets a group thinking, and talking
Twenty-three short chapters on the things most groups have opinions about and rarely talk through. Read the whole book, or pick three or four chapters for a single evening; each one stands on its own.
For educators
Before the Labels in the classroom and on campus
A book about which of your beliefs you chose and which you were handed, in twenty-three short chapters. Written in plain conversational language for first-year seminars, introductory philosophy and ethics courses, and common-read programs.
Bookings & media
Get in Touch
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