Brave New Kitty

So I got an invitation on Facebook to an event called Red Fridays. Starting this Friday, all Americans who “support our troops” will wear red to show that support. When I last looked, more than 1.3 million people will be attending. Wow! That’s a lot of people!

I will not be attending, and I’d like to explain why.

The appeal for Red Friday started with a heartwarming story about a little girl in an airport who asks a soldier to give her daddy, who is in Iraq, a hug and kiss for her, how he promises her he will, and how the display made everyone watching cry from the tenderness of it. The story ended with this:

RED FRIDAYS —– Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing red every Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the ‘silent majority’. We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers.

Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday – and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that.. Every red-blooded American who supports our men and women afar will wear something red.

I hardly know where to begin. The completely non-rational emotional appeal? The straw-man argument that people who “support our troops” are silent?  That this “silent” majority will no longer be silenced? That their voice, expressed by wearing red on Fridays, somehow communicates something significant?

I understand the ceremonial nature of it. People want to show their respect for soldiers. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s important. In fact, it always has been important, and with the exception of a few wrong-headed war protesters in the Vietnam era (who have since rectified their positions, with apologies), I don’t think anybody will dispute that. This is why we have Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day, as well as Freedom Day, Flag Day, Silver Star Day, V-E Day, Military Spouse Day, Armed Forces Day, Maritime Day, Military Child Month (April), National Military Appreciation Month (May), and too many more to name. If you want to honor the military, there are many, many opportunities to do so. Perhaps the people who think they’re doing something worthwhile by wearing red on Friday should look into other ways to show support, ways that actually accomplish something useful for the soldiers they profess to honor.

But none of that is really the point. Why not create another ceremonial showing of respect, if people feel strongly about doing so? In principle, it’s fine. But I think Red Fridays has a deeper agenda, or at least a nasty presupposition, that we should consider before jumping on this patriotic bandwagon.

First of all, I don’t think the spirit of Red Fridays is very respectful. The maudlin emotional appeal is insulting and unnecessary. I don’t need to have my emotions stirred to understand that soldiering is a difficult job that can result in the ultimate sacrifice. I don’t need to envision a cute little girl being comforted by a strong young soldier to know this. I don’t need to be reminded that young people who join the military are, in general, less selfish and more thoughtful than those who don’t. This raw emotional appeal, unnecessary as it is, detracts more than it adds to respect for the troops. It has the feel of trying to sell us a product we don’t really need, like a new deodorant or floor wax, when in fact we do need the military and we do need people willing to serve. And in serving, they earn respect, period. No pulling of heartstrings necessary.

Then there’s the statement about the silent majority, at last speaking out for “God, country, and home.” Now, when have people ever been silent about love for their country, their god, or their home? From “Proud to Be An American” bumper stickers, banners, yard signs, ribbons, and T-shirts, to radio programs, television shows, books, speeches, and political action committees, I hardly think this is a cause that has suffered in silence. I hardly think it’s a cause at all, as people have always spoken out for their god, their country, and their home; this is why we’re a majority. I’m not sure a majority group can have a cause; in fact, I’m pretty sure we can’t.

Furthermore, being a majority, the underlying victim mentality belied in the language (”no longer silent,” “showing solidarity,“ “sending a deafening message”) makes no sense. Statements like these are used by oppressed peoples standing up for justice. Red Fridays does not fit this bill, nor do love for country, god, and home. There is no oppression going on here, no matter how much people who believe everyone should have the same worldview—theirs—think otherwise.

I think this is starting to get at the core of what I object to most: This guy’s overt message, which is a plea for patriotism, is very different from his covert message, which is one of victimhood and accusation and “decaying” American values. What he’s really saying, I think, is that he believes in the war effort, that those who do not are un-American, and that all good Americans like him are victims of the subversive sentiments of others. Or in other words, that true patriotism is blind–that it means unquestioning support of the government and a “my country, right or wrong” attitude.

This is a very, very dangerous idea.

No, you might say, he just wants to honor soldiers. Maybe. But if this is the case, then you have a classic case of slacktivism, in which people’s efforts to support a cause involve the smallest amount of thought, effort, and discomfort possible, which kind of makes the same point. Slacktivism, hugely popularized by the Internet and especially social networking sites, can sometimes produce some results, but it usually has a lot more to do with people’s desire to feel like they’re doing something than with actually doing something. It doesn’t get much more slack than wearing a certain color on a certain day: no money, no time, no effort, yet you can feel like you’ve done something useful. At least you can if you don’t look at the whole issue too deeply.

Red Fridays is slacktivism at its finest. It is more about people wanting to do something about their own feelings of frustration and disillusionment than it is about helping soldiers (because, as already mentioned, many opportunities to show support to soldiers already exist, and most offer established, organized means to do so). In a way, this is fine, because there is a lot to be frustrated and disillusioned about; you can read it between practically every line of the “Red Fridays” piece, and it is a belief I sympathize with. But rather than make it about patriotism and supporting soldiers, which are really kind of red herrings for the deeper issues, I wish people would be a little more intellectually honest and a little less maudlin in their calls for change. If they were, maybe actual change might actually occur.

“Support our troops” has become a kind of code for this idea that blind patriotism is the only kind of patriotism that counts. But it is not un-American to question your government’s policies, nor is it un-American to disagree with things your government does. If this were the case, then where is freedom? Our country was founded on principles of dissension, of man’s basic right to question and reject government policies that don’t serve individual rights. The Founding Fathers knew the dangers of blind submission, as well as of a government with too much power (the second amendment exists solely so citizens will have the means to challenge a government that gains too much power).  Everything these great men created was for the sanctity of individual freedom, including, they hoped, a citizenry that thought critically enough to understand and sustain this crucial idea.

These ideas are so important and so necessary to our personal freedom. I take them very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that I find maudlin appeals to my emotion insulting and utterly beside the point. No; it actually goes beyond being beside the point. In such appeals, the point is lost, diluted and negated and sullied. By muddying the issue, it takes people further away from an honorable patriotism borne of understanding America’s founding principles rather than closer to it.

So no, I won’t be wearing red on Fridays. Not because I don’t love this country or have respect for its military, but because I do. Or rather, because I love the idea of individual freedom and a government that upholds it, including a strong militia, while I hate the idea of people thinking they’re honoring that when they’re really just making a statement about their own beliefs and nothing more. I’m glad I live in a country where people are free to do that, a country where soldiers have died for their right to do it. But I’d much prefer if people took more interest in truly understanding the principles they think they’re defending, rather than in causes that allow them to do the opposite.

A relationship becomes easier when you realize that you don’t have to be the one at fault to be the one who’s sorry. — Robert Brault

A stiff apology is a second insult…. The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt. — G.K. Chesterton

Apologizing well is a useful skill. As I’ve said many different times in many different places, it is the secret weapon, the get-out-of-jail-free card for wise parents everywhere; those that know how–and why–to use it have good relationships with their kids, and those who don’t do not, and never will. This is true for other relationships, as well. Proper apologies have the power to mend, salvage, and heal more relationships than romantic love could even dream of, and are exponentially more important than the ability to make friends and influence people. If you want to have good relationships with the people close to you, knowing when and how to apologize is key.

Why is apologizing well so important? Because we are all human, and we all screw up. And not only do we screw up, but the people we love do, as well. Because of our own unique filters, we all see the world differently, and we are all misinterpreting the actions of people around us all the time. Usually, none of this is a big deal, but sometimes it is. For those times, we must be prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and behavior. And this is true whether the behavior was intentional, inadvertent, or in a confusing nether-place somewhere in between. Yes: I am saying we don’t have to save apologies just for when we were wrong. In fact, if we do, we’re in for a tough road.

This brings me to my first point, which is knowing when to apologize. Sometimes, apologizing is simple. You said or did something hurtful, and you say you’re sorry for it. But the more intimate the relationship, the more complicated this formula tends to become. We don’t just react to what people say, for example, we react to how they say it, or what they don’t say, or what we think they should have said. Because of the messy nature of the human psyche, you might say something hurtful without intending it. Or for reasons unfathomable to you, the person took what you said or did as hurtful. So it is important to remember that you aren’t necessarily apologizing for doing something wrong, but rather, for the hurt it caused, no matter how innocent your intentions may have been.

Knowing when to apologize is more about understanding how your actions affect other people than it is about knowing when you’re wrong. If you know that what you do and say has power, that your words and actions can be both sources of joy and weapons of destruction, then you also know that being fully cognizant over them is an almost insurmountable task. We are all bumping up against each other all the time, mostly trying to be kind, but not always succeeding. If we save apologies for those rare times when we are deliberately cruel or blatantly wrong, then we miss hundreds of little opportunities: opportunities to increase intimacy, to show love, or to simply be kind. Apologizing is a way of saying, We’re in this together. I’m on your side. Committing to this simple idea is a good way to instantly improve all of your relationships.

This is not to say, though, that you should apologize if you don’t mean it. You must mean the apology, or the apology is meaningless. Which brings me, somewhat indirectly, to my next point: how to apologize.

First of all, do not apologize under duress. Wait until you’re calm, if necessary, and wait until you can be sincere. Take time to think the situation through so you know what you’re apologizing for and why. If you’re angry, or the other person is coercing you, out of their own anger, to do something you don’t want to do, no apology will be sincere. You must come to it on your own effort, by your own conclusion, because you understand your part and what you’re apologizing for. People say “I’m sorry” all the time in the heat of anger. It feels hollow, doesn’t it? And if you are the one saying it, you know what you really mean is something like, “I’m sorry you’re such a so-and-so.” So don’t just mouth the words. You have to mean them.

Own your behavior as your own, and not as the result of something the other person said or did. Sure, what they said could have been the catalyst, but the truth is that we always have a choice in how we react and nobody else is responsible for it. Blaming other people for our own choices/behavior is a good way to feel like a victim, and a bad way to resolve conflict. So regardless of the other person’s part in the disagreement–and they have a part, I guarantee it–and regardless of the other person’s willingness to own her part, own your own. You will feel better, even if the other person does not.

Once you’ve owned your part, say you’re sorry for it. Explain what you think happened, if you think it would be helpful. For example, you could say, “I’m sorry I got angry at your remark. I think I did because my mother always used to say things like that to me. I realize now that you’re not her, and you didn’t mean it like she did.” Or you could explain about your bad day, your traffic ticket or your lack of sleep or your tendency to be impatient about certain things. But don’t do any of this unless you mean it. And make it clear that you are not offering excuses for yourself, merely an explanation: “I think I may have been a bit testy because of the rotten day I had. I know that’s not an excuse, I just think it may have had something to do with it. And I’m sorry if I jumped down your throat. I didn’t mean to.”

Do not qualify your apology with any statements about what the other person did or did not do. This is very different than offering an explanation. This is blame, and it will only escalate the situation. For example, don’t say, “I’m sorry I lost my temper, but I hate it when you act that way.” It may be true that the person was rude or thoughtless, and you got hurt or angry about that. But you are not responsible for their behavior, only your own. And by owning your own behavior honestly, you will have a better chance of being heard when you tell the person what you didn’t like. But that must come later; if you try to mix it with an apology, you end up diluting both and probably resolving nothing.

Don’t put a “but” after an “I’m sorry.” Remembering this will go a long way toward conflict resolution.

Finally, don’t waste time apologizing to people who can’t or won’t hear you. Sadly, some people just don’t have it in them to apologize. They equate it with admitting weakness and project this weakness onto people who apologize to them. You can’t change this, so accepting it and putting your energy into relationships with people willing to apologize when they screw up (and even when they don’t) is the best you can do. This can be harder to determine than it might sound, but if you have your reasons worked out for when, why, and how to apologize, then you are less likely to waste time apologizing to people who are unwilling to appreciate it or reciprocate.

Apologizing well is a good skill to cultivate. It is also the mark of a mature, thoughtful person, one more concerned with doing right than with being right. We don’t always get there right away, but if we get there at all, it’s something to feel good about.

Creeds, ritual, religion and different theologies are all derived from man’s yearning for the vast Reality beyond – and flow in the thousand different forms, fertilizing many fields, calming many communities, refreshing tired people and, at last, carrying people to the ocean of Bliss. — Sri Sathya Sai Baba

While I think it’s a good thing that modern culture has grown more secular, I also think we’ve lost some of the important functions that religion provided, and in many cases are floundering because of it. One of the most important of these is ceremony. Many people still turn to the church for the major ceremonies of life, such as weddings and funerals, but this is largely out of tradition or expectation rather than any real understanding of the human need for ritual and ceremony.

Ceremony is important. It serves many purposes to the human psyche. It marks major life passages: birth, marriage, and death. It creates communities, uniting them in shared causes and beliefs. It puts personal events into a greater context, uniting people in their common experience. It calms fears and honors feelings and makes events feel real and significant, personal and non-personal alike.

Without ceremony, events feel open-ended, unfinished, unofficial. We don’t need to mark events with ceremony, but doing so makes them more real somehow. I will always be grateful for a college professor who urged me to attend my graduation ceremony. I thought it was a waste of time and money, with no discernible purpose other than to generate more income for the university; this was my opinion about all ceremonies at the time. But my professor believed otherwise, telling me I should celebrate my hard work and accomplishment, that that’s what the ceremony is for, and that no other chance to do so would ever come along. I listened to him, and I enjoyed that day set aside for celebration and resting, for a brief moment, on my laurels. But I think the most important thing that happened was that it opened my eyes to the importance of ceremony in general, which I had never really understood.

When people think of ceremony, they tend to think of religious rituals. But there is so much more to it than that. Without realizing it, people are creating ceremonies all the time, from light and silly to deep and serious. Having the same meal on the same holidays year after year, for example, as well as countless other family traditions around birthdays, anniversaries, or nothing in particular (one of the few traditions in my family was for my father to put on a white shirt whenever we had spaghetti for dinner). Newlyweds having a song they call their own. People gathering for a candlelight vigil to honor the victims of tragedy. All serve a purpose, and all are performed for a reason.

If you understand that ceremony serves an important psychological function, and if you can see that such a function is useful no matter what event or experience you care to honor, then you can begin to move into more personally meaningful and significant kinds of ceremonies; ceremonies of your own making, for your own purpose, to serve your own needs.

Ceremony is particularly helpful in emotional healing. It can be a powerful tool in acknowledging and accepting disowned feelings and in coming to terms with the impact they’ve had on your life. In Alcoholics Anonymous, the Fourth Step, Made a searching fearless moral inventory of ourselves, and its close companion the Fifth Step, Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human the exact nature of our wrongs, are usually performed in a very ritualistic manner. The Fourth Step is usually written down in a specific format, on special sheets designed just for it. A person usually confers at length with their sponsor about it, and can take several months of arduous introspection to complete. In the Fifth Step, a person selects someone to whom they read their Fourth Step. It is one of the most important events in a person’s sobriety, purging them of festering wounds and guilt and resulting in feelings of lightness and release from burden. It is very common for a person to ceremonially burn their Fourth Step after doing their Fifth to mark the occasion.

This is just one of many ceremonies I know of involving emotional healing. Years ago in my women’s therapy group, we often created little ceremonies around the issues we were working on. One of the things I came up with was a “shame party,” in which we all wrote down our shame issues and threw them on a blazing bonfire. And when my grief was at its worst, I made a ceremony of sorts out of crying. I set aside times for it, turned off the phone, put on some sad music, lit candles, curled up with a soft towel, and let the tears come and come until there were no more left. I hadn’t really thought about it as a ceremony at the time, but I know now that it was, and that making it a ceremony somehow created an atmosphere of acceptance and healing. I have done similar things around my other difficult emotions too, like anger and fear. Somehow, ceremony allows them a voice in a way nothing else really can. And giving them a voice brings them out of the darkness and into the healing light. And that is the beginning of moving past them into a new, more integrated, more self-loving phase.

I’m not sure why it works, but it works…I suppose nothing says this is important like marking an event with ceremony, so creating ceremonies around painful emotions is a tremendous way to own their impact in your life. Since much emotional stuckness (including depression) stems from repression and an (understandable) unwillingness to acknowledge the importance of the dark feelings, it would make sense that formal acknowledgement might get those feelings flowing. Ceremony works for this; it may even in some cases be a viable shortcut to getting down to root causes and conditions. The work still has to be done, but ceremony somehow makes it a little bit easier.

So when healing from grief and other emotional issues, consider ceremony. Do it small or do it large, make it a party or make it private and personal; it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you honor yourself in the best way you can, that it feels right, and that it moves you along your path. That’s really all ceremony is intended to do, anyway.

Feelings are tools that allow us to know when we’re fulfilling our needs. — John Bradshaw

If you’ve ever been in therapy, then you know that the most frequently asked question of you is “How are you feeling?” There were many times that I did not know how to answer this question. When I tried to identify my feelings, I would mostly just feel numb–then anxious about not being able to describe what I felt. Then shameful about feeling anxious and confused. Sometimes I was able to voice this shame, and sometimes I would simply answer the question with a guess as to what I thought I should be feeling. When this happened, I often left therapy sessions feeling worse instead of better.

It wasn’t the therapist’s fault. After all, she can only work with what you give her, right? And sometimes, that isn’t a lot. But in my last stint in therapy, I was lucky to find a therapist who dealt with this problem head on. If there was any hesitation in my answer, she would quickly remind me that there were only four choices: sad, mad, glad, or afraid. All emotions fall into one of these four categories, she said. And I have found this to be absolutely accurate.

Maybe it should be obvious what we’re feeling, but often, it is not. Everybody sometimes has trouble identifying feelings. This is especially true if you grew up in a family that didn’t encourage emotional displays. And if you learned as a child that your feelings weren’t important or bothered your parents, then you will have an even harder time identifying feelings as an adult. If you’ve ever gone numb or felt “out of body” during tense or emotional situations (and haven’t we all), then you will understand the difficulty sometimes involved in knowing what you’re feeling.

Why is it important to know what you’re feeling? The John Bradshaw quote at the beginning of this article says it all, I think: Emotions are how we know when we’re taking care of ourselves and when we’re not. If we are in touch with them and trust them, feelings provide a powerful guidance system that will lead us through the toughest and scariest situations imaginable. If we are not in touch with them and don’t trust them, then we lack such a guidance system. Such a lack leaves the intellect on its own to make decisions about things that are often beyond its realm.

I know many may argue this, asserting that the intellect is all that’s required for successful navigation through life, or at least more important than a healthy relationship with your emotions, but neither is true. Yes, you need the intellect. The intellect–critical thinking–is necessary for success in any field. Necessary–but not sufficient. Ideally, the intellect and emotions work as separate-but-equal partners within the psyche, enhancing and building on each other to provide a more complete, more circumspect, more fulfilling life. Intellect without emotions is robotic, while emotions without intellect is chaos. But together, they provide a sum greater than its parts, a wholeness that neither alone can offer.

I am not alone in this opinion. The greatest rational thinkers in the world will all share their great dependence on instinct and intuition in their work, the role of hunches, guesses, visions, and even dreams in their discoveries and inventions. Without a sense of trust in one’s non-rational biases, some of the greatest advancements of science would never have happened.

I’ve digressed a bit. My point is that that tiny voice, that gut feeling, that instinctive reaction, or whatever you want to call it, is real, and it is there for a reason. And the more intimate and trusting our relationship with it, the better off we will be. Knowledge is power, and this is just as true in the inner, subjective world of feelings as it is in the external, objective world of facts.

So when in the throes of confusing feelings, it can be very helpful to calm down and ask yourself, am I sad, mad, glad, or afraid? And listen for the answer until it comes. When you start doing this, it doesn’t take long to get good at recognizing these categories and thus your feelings. And this itself feels good! It’s empowering, centering and grounding; it has the potential to transform you.

I don’t mean to make any of this sound easy. Sometimes feelings are a confusing mix, and it can be difficult to identify them all. And these four categories are obviously very broad, each containing a wide range of sub-categories. It takes practice to get good at identification. But all the more reason for using this shorthand, because it will help you get down to your basic feelings that much more quickly. And once there, you have soooo many more choices than if you had never taken this step.

Finally, a word about the “mad” category. Interestingly, the hardest-to-identify category is usually anger. Bored? That’s a form of agitation, so…anger. Impatient? Also a form of agitation, so…anger again. Indignant? Once again, agitation, thus anger. And when we’re in a tense situation with someone and say, I’m not angry!, we almost always are (what do you think causes the tension?). Anger is the hardest emotion to identify because it is the one we tend to be the most uncomfortable with. So it’s a good idea to keep on the lookout for it–you do not want to miss the experience of having a comfortable relationship with anger.

Sad, mad, glad, or afraid: these four broad categories provide a great way to get in touch with your feelings. And eventually, when somebody asks you how you’re feeling, you’ll be able to make a speedy-but-accurate assessment–then quickly move on to answering the question in your own best interests.

What could be more empowering than that?

All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation. — Sheldon Kopp

“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” — Carl Jung

We all have a shadow–that unconscious junkyard where we dump all the thoughts and feelings we don’t, or don’t want to, recognize as our own. From the time we can take in the world around us, we also subconsciously avoid taking in what we don’t want to deal with. This is a completely normal survival mechanism. Some things are too threatening to deal with, and others just don’t make the cut into conscious awareness because of other priorities. The psychological shadow is as ubiquitous and unavoidable as the shadow cast by sunlight. If anyone tells you they don’t have a shadow, they’re lying, far more to themselves than to you.

We all have a shadow. But, depending on many factors, the shadow’s contents will vary greatly. If you grew up in a stoic family that frowned on emotional displays, for example, you probably have a lot of repressed feelings lurking in your shadow, anger and joy alike. And if you grew up with trauma or abuse, you will not only have repressed feelings, but perhaps large chunks of self-hood that you are completely out of touch with; the greater the severity and frequency of the trauma, the larger the disowned aspects of self are likely to be. This is nothing to be ashamed of, as it is how people survive traumatic experiences. But if you are avoiding looking at these shadow aspects of yourself, you are doing yourself a grave disservice.

It’s understandable, though. The shadow is threatening; many prefer to ignore, avoid, and project their shadow aspects rather than embrace them as viable and essential parts of their identity. But shadow is a viable part of our identity, and trying to ignore it requires a great deal of effort and energy. And also, it doesn’t work. The shadow is there, and it will have its say whether you “let” it or not. So far better to consciously embrace it.

My own experience with one of my major shadow aspects is a good illustration of this whole messy, complex process; that aspect is anger. I am an angry person! I can say that today without shame or remorse, and with a pretty good idea of how it has affected and continues to affect my life–but only because I’ve gone through the process of integrating this most threatening part of my shadow. I grew up in a family where I had a lot to be angry about. My parents were alcoholics, rageful, depressed, and uninterested in parenting. My mother was not nurturing, my father was not understanding. They fought a lot, loud and long and without regard for what their children heard them say to each other. There was a lot of yelling and name calling as well as physical abuse. Both my parents were even somewhat sadistic, seeming to enjoy making my sisters and me feel bad ourselves in ways too many and detailed to go into here. It is little wonder that both my sisters had left home (run away, actually) by the time they were 16; I was gone for good at 18.

If I sound angry in sharing this, that’s because I am. You might think in such an environment, I would be in touch with my anger, maybe even too in touch. But the opposite was true. I was terrified of anger. I avoided confrontation, and when I felt angry I could never, ever own it, always insisting–usually at a high decibel–”I’m not angry!” and engaging in the sort of angry behavior that comes out sideways from lack of acknowledgement: passive-aggressiveness, hostility, rageful crying and carrying on, and projecting that anger onto the people around me, constantly asking them if they were angry about something or, horror of horrors, mad at me for something. In any shape, form, or avenue, anger terrified me.

After a few years of therapy–okay, several–I had nowhere left to hide, and believe me, I had tried. The thought that I was an angry person was completely unacceptable to me, and when I finally had to face it– both my level of self-awareness and understanding about the issues involved made it impossible for me to avoid it any longer–I went through months of grief in accepting this horrible fact about myself. I was angry. I was an angry person. And not only was I angry, but that anger had been at my core, the primary factor behind almost every thought and feeling I’d had and every  choice I’d made thus far in my life. My depression, my addiction, my fear, my lack of self-esteem; all were rooted in this anger that I had worked so long and so hard to avoid.

It is so true that if you don’t own your feelings, they own you. The process of accepting my anger was not easy, but it was probably the most important self-discovery work I’ve ever done, or ever will do. Through it, I was able to embrace a major part of who I was. How sad to think of going through life not having done this! It would be like knowing only half your self, and not even the interesting half, at that. For this is the true gift of embracing those parts of yourself that you’d rather ignore: they are your power, your dynamic energy, and your vitality.

I could only see my anger as a terrible curse, but it turned out to be exactly the opposite. I had always had anger and power fused, and only in owning my anger was I able to begin owning my power and getting in touch with my vitality, my drive, my dynamic energy. These I also had to repress in order to survive my childhood, and they all got lumped together into one very threatening ball of psychological clay. If I had not done the work of embracing my anger–which itself is a source of power–I would never have unearthed all of these other wonderful gems.

Shadow work is ongoing. We never get at it all, as the unconscious is integral to the conscious and serves a necessary purpose in the psyche. The crucial part is embracing the idea of the shadow, to honor and make room in your life for it rather than push it away or deny its existence.

How tragic to think of all the people out there who, in avoiding the threatening parts of themselves, live only a weak, stilted version of the life and self they have the potential for. I am so grateful I stumbled upon my shadow, and that I had the wherewithal to stay with the process of bringing it into the light. I shudder to think what my life would be like if I hadn’t.

A Facebook friend posted a link to this article: Why Is It So Hard to Lose Weight? on Alternet.org. It starts out with this question: Most fat people who try to lose weight aren’t successful. Does it make more sense to blame fat people for lacking self- control… or to change public policy about food and health?

Hmmm. Let’s look at this.

The article begins by setting up a dichotomy between blaming fat people and blaming external factors by saying, “If you genuinely think obesity is a health problem that people ought to do something about… telling people that they’re lazy slobs who just need to straighten up and fly right isn’t exactly being part of the solution.” True. And yet, this seems to me kind of a straw man argument. It’s like saying “telling kids they’re stupid isn’t going to help them learn.” Duh. But this is the tone the article sets–that where to place blame is a crucial element in the war against obesity, thus priming people to believe that all the information they’re about to read is a rational argument that such blame ought be placed beyond the realm of the individual.

I am going to address each section of the article to explain why I vehemently disagree with this premise.

Physiology and Evolution
The article makes all the well known points about evolution and how we instinctively overeat to prepare for times of famine. Then it makes the comparison that “Blaming fat people for getting fat and not losing weight is like blaming people in the Middle Ages for getting the bubonic plague.” This is an astonishing statement. Plague is spread by a microorganism, while being overweight is the result of eating more calories than you burn. There may be more “hidden calories” in processed food today–or just more processed food in general–but it is still a personal choice to eat that food and how much of it to eat; comparing this to an airborne pathogen is not rational.

The article goes on to ask, “Are you going to blame kids for not having the willpower to reject the food their parents and schools are feeding them? And are you going to blame the adults they grow up to be for having had the bad luck to be fat kids?” Blame? No. But hold accountable? Well, yes, I think so, in a kind and supportive way. This goes for the parents, too.

The section ends with this: “Yes, we live in an obesogenic food environment, one that makes unhealthy food choices easy and cheap and available everywhere, and that makes healthy food choices scarce and expensive and a pain in the butt. But why do we live in that environment? What created it?” It then goes on to answer these questions by looking at corporate greed, public policy, and economics. (And interestingly, in relation to economics, without once examining the idea that obesity is a side-effect of abundance and the core, primary issue when talking about why more people are getting fat in the U.S.).

Corporate Greed
Here the article begins “…You want to know who else knows, in intimate and thorough detail, everything I’ve been saying about human food psychology, about hunger triggers and satiety triggers and so on? Multinational food corporations who are using this information to make themselves obscenely rich, by selling us food we don’t need and that makes us sick.”

Well, yes. Food corporations, multinational and otherwise, do do extensive research into what food people want–because this is their business; this is how they make their shareholders “obscenely rich” (which is the point of a business, by the way). Whether or not consumers need the food is beside the point; we want the food, and that is not something to be blamed on anyone or anything else. It would be like blaming Las Vegas because people like to gamble. Or blaming wine because some people are alcoholics. Or blaming television because people watch too much of it. Or…well, you get the idea. I know this is a popular mindset these days, but that doesn’t make it right, rational, or useful in examining the problem.

A friend of mine once had a “multinational food corporation” as a customer. One of the executives there told him that their goal is to “get as much fat into a product as possible,” because that is what makes food taste good–and good taste is what makes people buy the food. Now you can see that as evil, but the executive didn’t see it that way; he saw it as a sound business strategy. After all, if your products don’t taste good, nobody’s going to buy them and you’re going to go out of business.

Do corporations make people want processed foods and other junk foods through advertising? Sure; that’s what advertising is supposed to do. But this is true for all non-essential goods; the entire consumer economy is based on it. And it isn’t so much that they strive to make people want fattening, unhealthy food so much as they strive to make us not feel guilty about wanting it–that’s where the propaganda issue lies. Because we already want fattening, unhealthy food. Why? Maybe because we’re biologically wired for it, or maybe because it’s cheap, or maybe because it’s easier to make and eat–but definitely because it’s yummy. That’s just a fact. Broccoli and salmon will never catch on as fast food, not because they’re healthy or harder to prepare, but because they just don’t taste as good as food high in saturated fat and/or sugar. When people eat for pleasure, there’s just no getting around that fact.

I know corporations are responsible for many reprehensible things. But accurate market research and selling products that people want to buy are not among them. And frankly, I’m sick of hearing about all the evil and greed of corporations being responsible for the choices I’m supposed to make for myself. Do they obfuscate those choices and make it harder? In many cases, yes. Does that excuse me from making the effort to determine my own best interests? No.

Public Policy
The article says this about public policy: “Think about all the tax money that subsidizes the big agribusiness production of cheese and meat and high-fructose corn syrup. And think about what our food environment would be like if, instead, that tax money was subsidizing farmer’s markets. Or companies that deliver organic produce to your home. Or small farmers who sell primarily to local stores and customers. Or even just, for heaven’s sake, growers of fruits and vegetables. Think about what things would be like if it were cheaper to go to the farmer’s market instead of McDonald’s; if it were cheaper to get oranges and yogurt delivered to your house instead of pizza. Think of what our food world would be like — and what our bodies would be like as a result.”

First of all, I think it is in most cases cheaper to go to farmer’s markets than to fast food restaurants; I’m also pretty certain that in most urban areas of the U.S., you can now have groceries delivered.

Although those are mostly minor points. Now, I agree that subsidies for dairy and corn farmers have created some serious issues. But those issues are not with the products themselves (both of which are perfectly fine in their own right); they are with the policy of subsidizing. “Subsidy” is just another name for protectionism–that is, government interference in the market so as to favor one product over another by unfair taxing, regulating, and whatever else governments do to bottleneck competition. It is typically thought of as a tactic to protect domestic markets from foreign imports, but any investigation into domestic market competition will uncover vast sectors of subsidizing and other forms of protectionism (one of the most reprehensible of all perhaps being the Wall Street execs running the Treasury Department–that is a really evil version of kids running the candy store).

Thus, I do not want to envision a world where different farmers/products receive subsidies. I much prefer to envision a world where there are no subsidies at all. When the government gets involved in the market, the lowest common denominator always seems to go a little lower: rather than making a living, people want handouts and favoritism and for the government to fix things in their favor and screw their competition. And generally, if enough money changes hands, the government is happy to oblige.

If the prevailing mentality is that public policy, made by an organization as contradictory and bureaucratic (and yes, corrupt) as the federal government, should have a significant impact on our decision-making processes, I can’t help but believe that we are, as a culture, doomed.

Economics
About the economics of weight loss, the article says, “Then there’s the connection between money and time. Successful weight management takes time: time to shop, time to cook, time to clean up the dinner dishes. And lots of poor/ marginal/ struggling Americans are working two jobs, or have long terrible commutes, or are juggling work and family and other commitments. Given all that, it’s hardly surprising that many Americans subsist largely on fast food and convenience food — food that makes us fat.”

And also: “There’s a famous saying that fat is a feminist issue. It is. But fat is also increasingly a class issue. Staying fat is cheap. Losing weight is expensive. There’s no two ways around it. It’s not about being lazy, or weak-willed, or undisciplined, or anything like that. For a whole lot of people, it’s about struggling to make ends meet. And unless you want to start blaming poor people for being poor, it doesn’t make any sense to blame fat people for being fat.”

To the first point, yes, weight management takes time and effort, eating healthy takes time and effort. And that effort is harder to muster if you work a full-time job. But as harsh as this may sound, I think the time/effort thing is mostly an excuse. The average American finds time to watch four hours of television a day, and that’s dropped from six largely because of the Internet. And we’re supposed to believe this average person doesn’t have time for meal planning and shopping?

And even if it were the case, here’s the thing: Eating healthy food is a different issue than overeating. Overeating means that you take in more calories than your body can burn, period. So whether you’re eating fast food or fish and steamed vegetables, if you eat too many calories, your body is going to convert them to fat. Of course it’s true that it’s harder to overeat if you’re eating nutrient-dense food rather than fat- and sugar-dense food, but the diet itself is not the issue and the number of calories is. So even if you don’t have time to plan meals, you can still be cognizant about your calorie intake. Even if you live in an inner city area and are poor and unable to access farmer’s markets or other healthy food, you can still maintain a healthy weight if you are eating fewer calories than your body burns. If you doubt this, read this article about a nutrition professor who lost weight (and improved his cholesterol!) on a Twinkie diet, or consider people who live in high altitude climates like Inuits, Tibetans, and Laplanders, who eat a diet almost exclusively of meat and blubber.

I do think obesity is a class issue to some degree. Poor people are generally less educated and are more likely to have unaddressed emotional issues (anxiety, depression) that cause overeating, and less incentive to change their behavior for basically the same reasons. And yet, in a country so rich that being poor still means having access to a far more than ample supply of food (do you see how backwards that is? Can you see how obesity is a good problem to have??), it is also true that most poor people have access to free information resources such as libraries and the Internet, not to mention self-help groups and even, in many cases, subsidized psychotherapy. It may be harder to be a healthy weight when you’re poor, but that is more about emotional issues than it is economic ones.

Losing weight is hard. It is time consuming–planning meals, counting calories, developing self-awareness about your relationship with food, avoiding temptation spots, etc. But I don’t think it is, for the most part, expensive. If you claim you can’t lose weight because you “can’t afford good groceries” or “can’t afford a gym membership,” for example, take a deeper look. I don’t think you’re being entirely honest with yourself. There is a difference between wanting to be thin and making the effort to do so, regardless of what economic strata you happen to fall into.

The Difficulty of Personal Change (Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?)
The article wraps up by bringing weight loss back into the realm of personal choice–sort of: “Of course personal choices are part of the equation. The reasons that weight loss is difficult and rare are legion, including economics and politics and biology and more, and all these reasons are intertwined… but personal behavior is part of that intertwined equation, too. And at the moment, until public policies and so on are changed, personal choices are what we have the most power over. I absolutely encourage anyone who cares about obesity as a health problem to get involved in reforming public policy about food and health. But until those policies are changed, if you want to take your body back from the people who are trying to sell you quadruple-patty hamburgers and Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick, you are, alas, ultimately going to have to do it yourself. (Hopefully with the support of your family and friends.)”

My answer to this is, “And even if and when public policy changes, you will still have to do it yourself. And it will still be an uphill battle, because, just like anything else worth having, doing, or being, losing weight is hard, and it always will be.” (And if public policy has the power to change this universal rule, I am sincerely curious to know how.)

***

Overall, I thought the article did a good job of bringing to light the many and complex issues involved in how people view food and weight issues. These are important to know–but only to the extent that this knowledge can help us make better informed decisions for ourselves. The conclusion that public policy change, agriculture industry reform, or for that matter, any external factors, can have significant impact on whether or not people lose weight–much less that they should–is baffling to me.

I’m not sure why, but most people overlook the fact that obesity, like any addiction, is a secondary problem. That is, it is a manifestation of emotional issues rather than a cause of them. Like other addictions, food addiction is a way people self-soothe their anxiety, their depression, their fear, their loneliness, and their feelings of inadequacy. Until these underlying issues are addressed, and a person finds other ways to make herself feel better, no dieting tactics are likely to work, much less public policy, advertising, and the like, which are that much more removed from individual consciousness. External factors certainly contribute to shaping our ideas about food and body image, but if they had the influence suggested in this article, wouldn’t every woman in the country be anorexic? Wouldn’t the shame of being overweight have more pull than it seems to, psychologically speaking? But because overeating has underlying causes, external factors can have little more than a minor effect. Behavioral change is a difficult and complex phenomenon but, having spent many years in 12 Step meetings and therapist offices, I do know one thing: after the dust settles, the impetus for it must ultimately come from within. Nothing else works.

The far more egregious error in reasoning that this article makes, however, is that people should somehow want or expect an institution like government to have any responsibility for what goes on in their personal lives, that this is a desirable situation. It is not. The result of such a mentality is ever-increasing intrusion into our private affairs, and special interests bribing lawmakers to strong arm people into doing what they want. Whether guns or abortions, agriculture or wall street, the results are the same: unfair laws, less personal freedom, and decreased awareness about how critical it is that we know how to think for ourselves. That people think it’s alright to legislate trans-fat content and salt usage in restaurants, as is now going on in New York City, or that people think it is the government’s place to author supportive and encouraging weight-loss policies, is chilling evidence of how far down this road we’ve traveled. The only useful policy change would be to have less thought-influencing policy.

So, to answer the original question, does it make more sense to blame fat people for lacking self-control…or to change public policy about food and health? In this light, the only rational choice is to “blame fat people.” But I’d prefer to reframe it entirely. Rather than make it about placing blame, which does little to solve any problem, what if we made it about information and understanding, not only about food but also about personal motivations and increased self-awareness in general? How about empowering people with knowledge and understanding so they can make their own rational choices? And how about following that up with giving people the dignity and respect they deserve, even if their choices might not be the ones we’d make for ourselves? Forget blame and forget trying to legislate your own idea of morality. If you want to create an environment where true personal transformation is possible, these are the only “policy” changes that will work toward that end.

As the old saying goes, give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for the rest of his life.

And very likely, won’t get fat doing it.