Three Sundays Unplugged and Why Self Help Books Don't Work (part 1)

Yesterday was the third Sunday in a row that I took my own self-created "Absolutely No Media or Devices Challenge." I slipped a little yesterday in putting on my FitBit when I started working out, just out of habit. I decided it didn't really matter that much and left it on. But otherwise, no computer, no phone, no music. I don't own or watch television, so none of that anyway. 

These Sundays have been an immense, profound blessing. Even just one day like this reboots the system. I find an inner calm and level of spaciousness that simply does not happen for me on days when I am connected. My dreams are vivid, I sleep longer and better. I read print books and write by hand. I can focus on working out when I am doing it, rather than stopping every now and then to check media. 

These days have also made it clear to me how addicted I am to social media and mediated communication. For the past several years, so much of my community and social energy has poured into Facebook and other mediated electronic forms of interaction. Having done some research on why Facebook and other forms of media are so addictive, I don't feel quite so defective in that regard. The shit is designed to be addictive. 

I have pretty much pulled the plug on Facebook and moved to MeWe, which, for the moment, promises privacy. 

I am going to reconfigure many of my other ways of using the internet to try to maximize privacy as well. 

I mean, geez, if you can't have privacy in Hades, wtf?

Part of the way I spent yesterday was reading The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller.  I like the book, although it is at times poorly written and he needed a much more vigilant editor. This is a frequent lament of mine when it comes to "self help" books. Some of my favorite authors in this genre really just are not very good writers. 

The general advice from Weller is: make space for grief, create ritual for grief to be invited to appear, and grieve wildly, openly and powerfully. He includes a lot of the usual weird psychotherapist anecdotes, which always make me uncomfortable because they read like fiction, and he also includes the usual cultural criticism about how bad evil wrong bad wrong evil "modern society" is. Yes, Francis, we are all just emotionally empty zombies addicted to fear with absolutely no emotional resources or soul whatsoever, awesome, very insightful. 

I do generally resonate with the book. A lot of it would be stunningly obvious to anyone who has done any kind of processing work whatsoever. 

The main issue I have with it is not my snarky snipes above. It's that, like so many self help books, it is almost *hermetically sealed*. That is, it is nearly 100% inner. So many stories of people who were all bottled up and sad, went to "grief rituals" and blew their tops and wept and pounded the earth and wept some more, and (huge lacuna) their lives were changed forever. In that huge lacuna lies the shadow. That is— action. 

Behavioral fucking change.

Like, actually changing your life. By making new decisions and choices that lead to new experiences. "Such and such client of mine was wracked by self hatred. She went to a grief ritual and realized all of those stories about how worthless she was were wrong. She grieved and her life was changed." Um, excuse me, but having had similar experiences I know for a fact that I can enter sacred ritual space and have catharsis out the ass but then return to my quotidian life and NOT ONE goddamned thing changes. 

Yes, the inner experience is important and may even be a precursor to certain kinds of life change. But does Weller ever say to his clients: "Okay, great, you got the message. Now you know that you are not worthless and loathsome. Now: go back to your life and change it. Get rid of your boyfriend who reinforces your feelings of worthlessness. Find new livelihood that reflects your inner feeling of self care. Change your diet. Exercise. Get more therapy. Your life will only be brought into alignment with this deep inner realization you have had if you change your behavior. If you start making self-loving decisions that reflect your newfound feelings of self worth, your life will change. Otherwise, it will not."? If he does, he doesn't mention it in the book. 

He repeatedly mentions how much courage it takes to face dark and difficult emotions. In my opinion, while this is clearly true, it takes far more courage to change one's actual behavior. To rearrange one's friendships to include more people who validate exactly who you are. To end relationships that are impossible within a framework of self care. To find ways to transition out of numbing behaviors. To take oneself seriously and to love oneself not only as a feeling state but in action, in decision, in one's very life story. This is the work that takes courage, once the inner epiphany has been had. 

Without it, for me personally, I could weep and pound on the ground and be witnessed in grief and witness others until the last ding dong of doom (pace Faulkner) and not much would change in my actual life. I may even grow resigned and dejected to a greater degree. "I confronted my demons, I had the catharsis! When do I get the golden ring of happiness?" For me, I get it when I get off my ass and make life changes. That's how it works for me. 

The self help books that provide a framework for actual behavioral change are the ones I find myself drawn to now. Making a Change for Good by the wonderful Cheri Huber, for example. Although, even that is essentially introverted, with that same old self help basic theory that if you just reset your inner attitude and treat yourself better, change will be easier. 

Even Pema Chödrön gets caught, saying things like "you can never love others until you love yourself." I see the partial truth of it, and I think self love is a worthy goal, but I think the absolutism is horseshit. In fact, stumbling toward loving others and myself simultaneously, in all of that bloody, messy splendor, seems much more real. The idea that self love is the foundation for being able to love others seems like a weird, false promise. 

For me, actual life change is fucking difficult no matter what my inner attitude is. For weeks now, for example, I have been realizing that I would like to go for a run in the morning, shortly after I get out of bed. In spite of wanting to make that change, which would completely rearrange my day, since running takes a lot of prep (I'm old, I have to stretch a lot) and is a relatively big chunk of time, I have not once even tried it. As the afternoons and evenings get hotter here in Hades, it will be even more appealing. Why haven't I tried it yet? I am not beating myself up about it, I do not need an inner catharsis or big dramatic emotional experience to run in the morning. I haven't tried it because *behavioral change is difficult* even when I am my own best friend. 

This becomes even more the case in the face of addictions, of course. The main thing I love about 12 step recovery is it is explicitly NOT self help. Once some of the minor inner adjustments are made, 12 step recovery is a program of ACTION. Like, in the actual world. Where we live.