Help Yourself
I started with a new therapist recently, and at the end of our first “getting to know you” session, she remarked that I seemed to have a heightened interest in the dynamics of why I am the way I am, and indeed why all humans act in the bewildering ways they do.
I told her it’s perplexing to me why more people aren’t more interested in this. For example, when I read a news story about Boris Johnson acting like a complete fool, I don’t think about the self-interested political scheming that must be going on in his big, stupid head. I think about the fact that, like most male British politicians who went to elite boarding schools, he is very predictably acting out his early childhood abandonment trauma on the entire nation with escalating displays of how the rules don’t apply to him. I often wonder why the news coverage doesn’t mention this fairly obvious connection.
Similarly, when I read the unhinged comments section on an article about Covid (I realize this is a very unhealthy habit and I need to stop doing it) I don’t see a bunch of people who need more fact-checked information from the CDC. Instead, see a bunch of people who need better options for places to feel belonging and connection rather than a god-forsaken comment section and anti-vax Facebook. I see people who are sad, angry, and lonely and have nowhere else to address those feelings.
When you see life through this prism, human beings’ more confusing behaviors start to make more sense: All adults are frantically running around trying to get their unmet childhood needs met, often in very unproductive and destructive ways. Science now proves that the high that comes from opioids stimulates the same parts of the brain that the warmth of a mother’s love does. That the most intractable addiction we know of is a stand-in for our most fundamental human need should really come as no surprise.
But it’s not just addiction or more obvious mental health issues where you can see this dynamic play out. It’s everywhere and more subtle than that, too. It’s present in the person who overworks to their detriment because they’re still desperately craving the validation they sought as a child; or the person who seeks love from entirely uninterested prospects, hoping one will turn around and finally choose them like their absent parent never did; and of course, in the prime minister who brazenly acts out because a part of him still hopes his avoidant parents will finally pick him up from the mean, cold boarding school and make him feel safe.
None of those behaviors work, of course. The only thing that does work is learning that only you can grant your younger self the thing you’re missing, the feeling you still crave. It’s really that simple. It’s also really that hard.
Sometimes, the weight of this heavily-therapized worldview makes me really sad. Where did we humans go wrong, I constantly wonder? Adding to my despair is the fact that beyond therapy, many of the more accessible and affordable avenues to learning that we can meet our own unmet needs in healthier ways are roundly dismissed by smart, serious, and intellectual people as “new age,” “woo woo,” and “not peer reviewed.” After all, what fool would have the audacity to try and help … themselves? Self help, spirituality, self-healing modalities? Those are for suckers, we’re told.
My new therapist is correct that I think about this stuff — how we heal ourselves, and why we all seem so in need of help to begin with — a lot, probably way too much. And it’s very tricky terrain because, as author Katherine May and I discussed in last month’s interview for subscribers, the answer is definitely not to throw things like peer review and facts and science out the window in favor of letting intuition and spirituality and mysticism run our lives. But I increasingly believe a healthy society needs some measure of both. And, by all accounts, we are not so healthy.
It is my sincere wish that one day the world won’t operate with this catastrophic blind spot. That in addition to educating kids on math and science, we’ll teach them about their emotional, spiritual, and intuitive selves too. That more people will have a basic knowledge of things like the attachment style they may have inherited from their upbringing, the profound power of cultivating self compassion through meditation and mindfulness, and how feeling safe in one’s own body is a skill you can learn. Maybe then, not as many people will need therapy. Or at least it won’t be seen as self indulgent.
Because whether we realize it or not, we’re all just adults in search of something we didn’t quite get enough of. The only way to end the search is to shore up the profound courage it takes to help yourself.
Things I enjoyed reading
Covid has underlined that healing from illness is not a straightforward, automatic process. It’s an active, non-linear, and often mysterious journey that the patient has agency to participate in. [The Guardian]
Should we completely stop saying “pregnant women” in favor of “pregnant people?” I think this is a convincing case that no, we should not. [The Atlantic]
You can keep your monochromatic, minimalist luxury houses in LA and Miami that look like they were furnished last week. Give me a house that’s been “gently nudged it into the 21st century without losing any of its faded, faintly raffish charm.” [House and Garden]
RIP to the great Joan Didion. I read endless tributes to her, but I loved this one about how even Joan, at the end of the day, wrote to earn money — just like the rest of us. [LA Times]
“It’s clear that this romance between California and her citizens was fundamentally unstable, built on a lousy foundation and crumbling for years.” This is one of the best pieces of climate journalism I’ve ever read. [New York Times]
This week I learned that the ancient Japanese calendar separates the year into 72 micro-seasons, which means roughly every five days a new season begins. How reassuring and exciting is that? [Nippon]
“The reason I have been brilliant with money is that, in the 1990s, I never took cocaine. Ever.” It’s such a joy to watch the artist Tracey Emin live her best damn life. [Financial Times]
Want to write well? Make complicated things sound simple, don’t use big words, and write musically, delighting your reader with “crescendos and rests.” [The Atlantic]
Things I enjoyed listening to
The most protected people are the most worried about Covid. The least protected are the least worried. Both groups are wrong. [The Daily]
Actress Kirsten Stewart talks about how acting and making movies is, at its most fundamental level, about being fascinated by how people work and relate to one another. I think you could say the same about all forms of art. [Armchair Expert]
“Suffering and happiness, they are both organic, like a flower and garbage. If the flower is on her way to become a piece of garbage, the garbage can be on her way to becoming a flower.” Remembering Thích Nhất Hạnh. [On Being]
Work with me?
Something I added to my freelance work late last year is a low-key consulting practice. For years as a journalist, people would ask me for advice — on PR, on storytelling, on framing their idea, on personal branding — and I would just … give it away for free. So I decided to start charging money for this same thing.
It turns out that I really enjoy getting paid to give people advice. Here’s a little piece I wrote about what I’ve learned from my very smart and lovely clients so far. Here’s some more info on my website about how you can work with me.
Word soup
“For each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth.” —Arthur O’Shaughnessy
apricity: (noun) the warmth of the sun in winter. Etymology: From Latin apricari (to bask in the sun). Earliest documented use: 1623.
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