Archive for December, 2010
Organic: The New “New and Improved”
Free-range Christmas trees? Organic potholders? What in the name of all that is rational is going on here? Are there people out there basing their Christmas tree and potholder purchasing decisions on whether the item is “organic”? Seriously?
This whole organic thing has gotten out of hand. I thought this a few years ago when I started seeing organic cleaning products, organic cosmetics, and the like. And as ridiculous as the idea of a “free-range” Christmas tree is, conjuring images of a playful sapling gamboling about in a sunlit field, it was the potholders that put me over the edge; this was when I decided I needed to say something about it.
First of all, “organic” as a consumer label applies only to food, and is defined quite specifically (in the US, anyway) by The Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA), enacted under Title 21 of the 1990 Farm Bill (you can read the details of this here if you’re interested). So when products like cosmetics, soaps, cleaning agents, clothing, Christmas trees, and potholders–basically, anything not ingested–claim to be organic, it’s difficult to know what this means. The only certainty is that the label does not carry the same meaning as it does for foods.
While some organic certifications for non-food items exist, they are vague, often arbitrary, and generally not held to any one cohesive standard. “Organic” can mean many different things, and it is often associated–to the advantage of the product being sold–with things such as concern for the environment and a reduced carbon footprint, fair trade and business practices, and small family and/or local farms, none of which are directly associated with the organic label, particularly when that label is not applied to food. As fashionandearth.com, an organic clothing site, put it, “There are a variety of organic and eco certifications in the market place which can add to consumer confusion. Many of these so called certifications are simply attempts by corporations to label their textiles in such a way that allows them to take advantage of the organic movement. Many of these certifications are not legitimate, lead to consumer skepticism, and have resulted in the term ‘green washing’.”
I have no doubt this is true, except for the consumer skepticism part (which I’ll get to in a minute). When the organic label is applied to non-food products, especially those made in a factory (which is pretty much everything), how can such a label be anything other than a marketing ploy? Factory-produced goods like cosmetics and soaps contain dozens, sometimes hundreds, of chemicals, most of which are produced synthetically. Even if the sources of each one of these chemicals could be traced back to organically grown components, which is doubtful, this still leaves us with the simple truth that these products are made in factories, with modern manufacturing processes. The massive quantities in which they’re produced require a lot of energy to make and inevitably create by-products that have to be dealt with. And this doesn’t even consider the packaging materials these products are put into, which is an entirely different industry that in itself uses energy and creates by-products. So, there is good reason why “organic,” as applied to non-food items, is little more than a marketing label intended to evoke a specific reaction in the consumer: the nature of the manufacturing processes (not to mention the packaging and shipping processes) prohibits it from being any more substantive.
Yet it seems to work. If anything, consumers should be more skeptical. If people are doubting the organic terminology, good for them–but the proof that they aren’t is everywhere: witness organic potholders and Christmas trees. That is to say, if the label didn’t work, it would fade into oblivion, and it hasn’t. Instead, the organic label is now a ubiquitous staple of American consumerism. Indeed, “organic” has become the new “new and improved.” But disturbingly more effective, because its implications are vastly further-reaching: buying “organic” products means doing what’s good and what’s right for yourself, your loved ones, and the environment. You don’t mind the higher cost because it means you care about the planet and about future generations. It makes you feel good to buy “organic,” like you’re making a contribution; you might even feel remorseful if you don’t buy organic.
“Organic” makes “new and improved” look like child’s play.
The truth, of course, is that buying “organic” goods doesn’t necessarily mean a positive impact on you, your loved ones, or the environment. It might, but there is no way to know for sure without doing some research. The supply chain that results in consumer products getting to market is phenomenally complex, and it is silly to think that the packaging label tells the whole story. In fact, that label’s primary intent is often to obfuscate that story and deliberately misdirect the consumer; this is one very important task of marketing departments, particularly in consumer goods industries, where there is often very little difference between competing brands. So “organic” could mean products originated in a third-world shithole void of modern technology and the marketing department is kicking themselves for not thinking of this angle sooner. Or it could mean the product has a carbon-hydrogen molecular structure, which is the original definition of the word. Or it could be an outright lie–without regulation, this is entirely possible. There is simply no way to know without doing the research.
The very worst part of buying into the organic labeling is the false sense of security it creates. People think they’re doing something to make the world a better place when it’s far more likely that they’re just succumbing to an image-flattering marketing campaign. If we fall for this, we’re taken further away from the facts, making it less likely, not more, that we’ll truly understand the issues involved or know how to address them. We are no longer contributing to a solution but rather, have become part of the problem.
“Organic” isn’t all hokum. Far from it. In my opinion, there are three valid reasons to buy organic products:
- because you care about the quality of life an animal has before you eat it (and this is really more about “free range” than organic, and is a topic in itself)
- because you care about insecticides, herbicides, and other toxic chemicals getting into the water supply and food chain
- because the products taste better or work better.
The last one is easy to determine, but the first two are not. You must go beyond labeling and beyond what you want to believe to truly know whether or not you’re living up to your own standards. Choosing a product off a shelf because it contains a word that appeals to you isn’t going to get you there.
Being stewards of the planet is important. We should all be conscientious about usage, waste, and the value of life–all life. But even more important is to understand that there’s often a huge difference between believing we’re doing something and actually doing it. So caveat emptor! Don’t be seduced by marketing schemes that have little to do with reality or with solving the planet’s problems. Instead, do the research. Determine your own standards. Then figure out for yourself what products deserve your hard-earned money. Yes, it’s harder, but doing the right thing usually is.
Acting As If
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. — Albert Einstein
Be still, and know that I am God. — Psalm 46:10
I write a lot about trusting your inner voice, that it is never wrong. The opposite can also be true: sometimes you have to ignore what’s going on inside and do the opposite of what you want to do. In self-help jargon, this is called “acting as if,” and it is important to know when to do this and when not to.
“Acting as if” is basically doing what you know to be right even if it doesn’t feel right. Sometimes new behavior is hard, scary, or awkward, and without a concerted effort, it won’t stick. For example, if you know you are a relationship junkie, picking one person after another for the sake of having a warm body next to you or staying in a relationship you aren’t happy in out of fear of being alone, then you know you need to be alone until you figure out some of these impulses, even though it’s the last thing you want to do. Or if you want to lose weight, you know you have to change your diet and exercise more even though you dread the prospect of doing so. Or if you have an addiction problem, then you know you need to go to meetings or otherwise make drastic changes in behavior even though you’ll feel lost and exposed without your drug to calm you.
Personal change often takes a lot of courage and strength, and the will to resist what’s comfortable.
The difference between acting as if and doing what’s comfortable is that one is your inner voice, and one isn’t. When you jump into that new relationship for the umpteenth time, or eat that piece of pie, or give in to your addictive urges, it might feel comfortable, but it doesn’t feel good. An internal sense of remorse always accompanies undesirable behavior; it is that remorse that you need to pay attention to.
In many ways, the process of personal growth is about fine-tuning your ability to listen to those inner warnings, and act on them rather than on fear, impulse, or the urge to soothe anxiety in the short-term. If your self-care skills aren’t very well developed, you’re likely to spend a lot of time “putting out fires” rather than figuring out how to prevent the fires from happening in the first place. In this reactive state of mind, it’s very difficult to quiet down and hear what the internal voice–which is never, ever wrong–is saying. The voice has to rise above all the chaos and drama to be heard, and when it does, it seems like an emergency vehicle siren off in the distance that has little to do with you. Only when it is howling out in your driveway do you start to get an inkling that something needs some attention. And even then, it can take repeated experiences of this before you actually think about making some changes.
But once you start making some changes, some effort to take better care of yourself, the siren doesn’t need to wail quite as loudly. And as you continue making positive changes, you cease to need a siren to alert you to danger; a sharp honk might do. Then just a tap on the horn. Eventually, turn signals and brake lights will be all that’s necessary to get your attention. And you will no longer need to act as if, because taking good care of yourself will have gotten in.
But until that happens, there are some situations where acting as if is essential to change. You must lovingly reject the impulses to put out fires in favor of doing what you know, on a deeper level, is the right thing for you. You may have to get very quiet with yourself for many times in a row to begin trusting that knowledge. You may have to seek third-party counsel in the form of a therapist or other impartial-yet-supportive observer. You may have to take a hiatus from your normal routine or join a meditation group. You may have to do all of these and more, and many times over, before you start to really trust and rely on that inner voice. But trusting your inner voice is the key to all that is good and right, because that inner voice is God.
Until then, act as if. It’ll get you where you want to be.
On Trusting Other People
I wrote in my last essay that once you begin trusting yourself, healthy trust of other people comes naturally. While I believe this to be true (at least, it has been true in my experience), I want to clarify that this trust does not always happen automatically. As with learning to trust yourself, it is a gradual process and also a very personal one. But it will be helped along by awareness of what it is you’re trying to do, which I think can be summarized as learning to accurately evaluate the information people disclose to you and take appropriate action based on that information.
The problem is never in gathering information. People’s words, actions, and body language are fertile sources of information, bombarding you with all the evidence necessary to make good decisions about how close to let them get. Every human interaction is potent with details that disclose intentions and ideas about what we want, what we value, and how we view the world. Even if people act evasively, or even if you catch them in an outright lie, that too is information—information that for whatever reason, they don’t want to be forthcoming with you (and figuring out the reason for the dishonesty/evasiveness is far less important than how you decide to deal with the person displaying it). The evidence is always there for the taking. It’s learning to interpret it correctly that takes some skill. This is not magic or rocket science: policemen, salespeople, and fortune tellers are just a few examples of people who’ve honed their information-gathering skills to a high level. But everyone is capable of doing so.
Learning to evaluate this information accurately is easier than you might think, too, even if you grew up with a great deal of cognitive dissonance (see my last post), even if you have a lifelong pattern of letting the wrong people in and keeping the right ones out. This is one situation where you just need to make the effort to change behavior, no matter how foreign or awkward it might feel. Here are a few suggestions to help get you started.
Pick a few shining examples of both trustworthy and untrustworthy people to compare everyone else to. Struggling with trust doesn’t mean you’re completely incapable of knowing what to do, it just means you’re not good at applying it in your own life yet. Giving yourself “awareness-building projects” in this area will help you do that. One simple project is to pick the most trustworthy person you know and make a list of his attributes so you develop a concrete idea of what trustworthiness is. Really put some time into analyzing the traits and behaviors of this person and how being around him makes you feel. Then do the same for an untrustworthy person. Eventually, your trust meter will become more accurate, and recognizing these traits will become almost second nature.
If you can’t think of any examples from your own life, don’t worry; there are plenty of others to choose from. Examples of trustworthiness include Jesus Christ, the Buddha, Mother Theresa, just about any TV dad from the 50s or 60s, and countless heroic literary and movie characters. Examples of untrustworthiness also abound; Satan wouldn’t be a bad place to start. No, most people won’t be as saintly as Jesus or as sinful as the Devil, but so what? The point is to cement the traits firmly in your mind and feelings, and caricatures are at least as effective in doing this as real people, if not more so.
Learn to pay attention to behavior more than words. (I wrote more about this here.) If there is a conflict between what a person says and what he does, always, without exception, pay attention to the behavior, not the words. This sounds obvious, but if your trust issues stem from a childhood environment of cognitive dissonance in which you were expected to pay attention to what people told you rather than what they did, then it is a point that can’t be overemphasized. In fact, this is often the core issue, comprising the bulk of what you’re trying to relearn. So if someone tells you he loves you but treats you disrespectfully, the words are meaningless, and it is the behavior you must respond to. What constitutes disrespectful? Beyond the blatant things—lying, cheating, abuse—it’s up to each individual to decide and set boundaries accordingly. As your trust in yourself grows, so will your ability to know what you want from other people and how to get it. But as you’re learning, burn this into your memory: if something doesn’t feel good, pay attention to it! Don’t brush it off or ignore it!! It may be nothing, but then again it may be something, and the only way you’ll know is to focus on it until it becomes clear. (And this goes for many other issues besides trust, as well; I’ve stated this many times before, but paying attention to our inner voice is a critical component of everything we’re trying to achieve: happiness, peace of mind, self-esteem–everything.)
Get feedback from people you trust. As always, in learning new behavior it’s always wise to check out your thoughts and ideas with someone you trust. If you have a friend you feel totally safe with, consider yourself fortunate and use her as much as you’re able. Otherwise, a therapist or self-help group devoted to these issues are invaluable resources. Change is difficult, but without external counsel it’s almost impossible, or at least far, far slower than it needs to be.
Err on the side of caution. One effective way to learn something new is to exaggerate the behavior you’re trying to learn; overdoing it until you commit it to memory. If you know you have a history of trusting the wrong people, one way to stop doing this is to deliberately go the other extreme. For example, if you tend to overdisclose, telling too much too soon, make a point of not talking about yourself at all for awhile. If you tend to jump head first into new relationships (romantic or otherwise), make a point of holding back. Most of all, if you’re not sure about a person or situation, take it slowly. Ask questions. Make observations. Reserve judgment. Whatever you give of yourself, make sure it’s reciprocated in some way before you decide to give more. If you’re not sure how to gauge that, all the more reason to err on the side of caution.
It is never, ever a mistake to test the water before jumping in. Doing this well is the key to having trustworthy people in your life, as well as to being one. And if you’re not sure how to do that, stay out of the water as much as possible until you are. This is how you learn to protect yourself–a skill you will never regret being good at.
Believe that you deserve good treatment, or act as if until you really can. People who grew up in an invalidating environment often have the core belief that they don’t deserve to be treated with respect and kindness (I certainly did), often so deeply ingrained that they’re unaware they have it. If you feel stuck, numb or disconnected when you think about this stuff but know in your head that you should be doing it differently (and this applies to many things, not just trust), this is a good time to “act as if.” This idea is so important, I’m going to devote an entire post to it. Stay tuned!
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Finally: taking actions like those listed here can help you change your behavior, and that’s an important part of the journey. But it’s even more important to remember that these are stopgaps, and that your primary goal is to do these things automatically, from a default view of self-love. Once you’ve reached that place, no other guidelines will be necessary.
On Trusting Yourself
Trust: Reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence. — Dictionary.com
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. — Goethe
As is so often the case for people who grew up in invalidating environments (meaning they weren’t properly valued, which can take myriad forms along a wide scale of awfulness), a basic issue like trust can take years to figure out. First, you have to figure out that it’s a problem, which usually happens after repeated painful experiences of both not trusting yourself and trusting un-trustworthy people; this can go on for decades. Once blessed with the awareness that something is not right, then you have to figure out the exact nature of the issue; this can take quite awhile too, largely depending on how much external help you seek and the quality of that help. Then, you have to figure out how to do things differently, which tends to be the most difficult part. Even if you undertake these processes somewhat simultaneously, which thankfully is what most of us do, understanding your trust issues is a formidable task. This is probably because trust is to the emotional realm like oxygen is to the biological realm: so fundamental that we don’t really think about it until its lack causes serious problems. Add to this the feelings of grief, loss, and anger that are going to come up as you delve into your trust issues, and you have a recipe for a messy, complex struggle. But a necessary one if we are to, as Goethe put it, know how to live.
Why is it so hard to figure out trust is a problem? The simple answer is cognitive dissonance, which is “the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time.” According to ChangingMinds.org, cognitive dissonance “increases with the importance of the subject to us, how strongly the dissonant thoughts conflict, and our inability to rationalize and explain away the conflict.” If a child grows up with untrustworthy parents but is repeatedly in the position of having to trust them, and in many cases is told outright to trust them and that her perceptions are wrong, then she is going to grow up with skewed ideas about trust. Children have no choice in this matter. They are in the unfortunate position of ignoring their fears and anxieties to survive. So they push down their doubts and teach themselves that their perceptions are wrong. In this way, they learn to not trust themselves, and to trust un-trustworthy people. And because this begins pretty much at birth, before we have language to identify it or a conceptual framework to put it in, we literally do not know what’s going on, and it can take a long time to put those pieces together as an adult.
The degree of cognitive dissonance a child endures will directly affect how hard, and how painful, that process is. If your parents were kind but fallible people, your level of cognitive dissonance will be small, and your trust issues will be small; if your parents were abusive, addicted, or otherwise emotionally unavailable, then your level of cognitive dissonance will be large and your trust issues will probably be large, too.
Sometimes, identifying the nature of childhood cognitive dissonance can be quite difficult. I have heard many, many people claim to have had wonderful parents when it is obvious they did not. In fact, if someone declares how wonderful their childhood was when there is no clear reason for making such a declaration, I am immediately suspect that it wasn’t, and that this person is preemptively fending off the grief and loss she will inevitably have to deal with if she faces the truth.
Even when we don’t know, we know. But we don’t want the pain of believing it, so we put a lot of effort into not doing so. As a child, it was the only option available, and it got us through a tough situation. But as an adult, it holds us back, and we must, must, must face the truth if we are to move past it.
Why is it hard to figure out how the exact nature of our trust issues? This is the legacy of cognitive dissonance: even when we begin to sense that something’s wrong, we struggle to believe our own perceptions. And nowhere is this more true than with trust. It’s a double whammy, a vicious cycle, a tragic truth, that when we don’t trust ourselves, as we learned not to to survive, it can take a loooong time to trust that we don’t trust. A long time, and relearning to listen to our guts and believe what our senses are telling us. Yet another level of whammy–a triple whammy, if you will–is that not only do we not trust our guts and perceptions, but often, we seek out untrustworthy people, people like our parents, because it is what we know, what we’re comfortable with (even if that comfort is misery, it’s a misery we are familiar with), and because seeking out trustworthy people creates a new cognitive dissonance when we haven’t yet sorted out the one from childhood yet. If you’ve ever claimed to be bored by “nice guys” or fall in love with “potential” or “projects,” know that what you’re really doing is keeping your cognitive dissonance to a minimum. And in the process, keeping yourself stuck in a no-win cycle. This is why it’s so important to seek outside help in the form of therapy or support groups, to seek out people whose primary purpose is to help you re-learn trust. You can’t trust yourself, you don’t know how, so you need help from trustworthy people until you can. Reading can help, introspection can help, but there is no substitute for the feedback and counsel of people who know what you’re going through and are completely on your side in your quest for change.
How do I learn to do things differently? You do things differently by learning to trust yourself. This is the key issue, because once you trust yourself, your gut feelings and your perceptions, then most of your trust issues with other people, which once seemed so unfathomable and insurmountable, will just kind of evaporate. And again, the best way to start doing this is to have a person in your life who validates your thoughts and feelings as real, okay, and accurate. It can take a long time for these beliefs to sink in, to become as much a part of you as your lack of self-trust once was. This is normal, and logical that it would take awhile to un-learn deeply ingrained beliefs.
But it is well worth the effort. It will start slowly, with one small epiphany about something that you’d never before questioned. You’ll notice that a person’s words don’t match their actions in a way you hadn’t noticed before, and you might question your observation, but you can not question that you had the observation. Or you’ll notice that an outcome you predicted came to pass, and your confidence will grow a little, and you’ll begin to notice all the places where your gut instincts were right all along and start to listen to them a little bit more and a little bit more. You’ll begin to have experiences that challenge your beliefs. For example, if some part of you has always believed that “all men are scum” or “all women are manipulators,” you’ll begin to notice nice men and straightforward women where you never had before, almost against your will (I wrote about my experience with this here). One day, you’ll notice that you’re no longer drawn to emotional distance, projects, and people who are, in general, not good at being present with you. You’ll be amazed by this realization, but it will be true nevertheless: where once they drew you in, now they just bore you. You may or may not have relationships with them, for whatever reasons, but you will set realistic expectations, and you will no longer expect these people to meet your emotional needs as you once did. You’ll have other people in your life for that, people who can actually do it. It will happen slowly, but it will happen.
And one day, “I don’t like this” will be enough of a reason, and you will be free. This is not to say that you won’t still engage in an introspective process about what you want and why, because you will. But it will come from a place of confidence rather than a place of self-doubt. And it will feel wonderful.
We are human and fallible, so we will always make mistakes and have shortcomings to deal with. But know that it is possible to make mistakes and have shortcomings, and to not see them as evidence that our lack of self-trust is justified. It never is. The gut has power beyond words and it will never lead us astray. Once we learn this, trust becomes what is was meant to be all along: our most powerful tool for figuring out what’s right, what’s wrong, and most of all, what we want.