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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

"do one thing every day that scares you" and "find the beauty in the mundane", particularly when I'm wiping butts or scooping cat litter, just make me feel angry

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

- Too blessed to be stressed (making me guilty for not being happy enough with all that I have if I’m bummed about one area of life)

- Life is for the living (the idea that we need to optimize every second or time / our life will be wasted)

- We know better now but in the 90s, it was “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Living in the moment because that may be all we have. It can feel fatalistic and that if we don't have everything we want right in this moment, thats it! Too bad! I also found it stunted my planning ahead for things. I actually really enjoy having something to look forward too.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Probably indicates what I'm going through right now, but the stance of "If he wanted to, he would" This simplistic approach makes it look that if my relationship isn't going the way I envisioned it going, it's because my partner is just simply NOT THAT INTO ME, and not that life can be challenging and nuanced and being a grown up is stupid.

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—If you don’t have it you must not want it enough

—anything with the phrase “stinking thinking”, anything that assumes language/intellect is necessarily avoidance and physical processing is necessarily holy

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

I think I must have a special gift for managing to turn potentially very helpful things against myself; like the time I tried to eat a square of chocolate mindfully, and ended up teleporting myself into the middle of a binge-eating session in high school (oh, yeah, the vending machines DID have that exact brand, didn't they). Or when I took the idea of 'responding' rather than 'reacting' and made it into 'think about what you'd like to say then say what the other person wants to hear even if it kills you a little'. Or literally any anti-procrastination tool. It's a talent I have, it appears.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Forgiveness and [giving up the] victim mentality are concepts that can be very harmful in my experience. I didn’t ask to be abused and neglected by a narcissist mother. I didn’t ask to become the co-dependent in her alcohol use order. I‘m better off without her in my life focusing on my healing and recovery and relationship with my daughters. It’s not necessary to forgive and it’s important to acknowledge that you were victimized if you want to be a cycle breaker in your dysfunctional family.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

This is not really a theme or mantra but I've found that being on social media, even if it's sobriety based where others are posting their day count of being AF just throws me into a dither, esp. when mine is so puny. Yes this is me comparing myself to others but I just hate those "counters".

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

“If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love someone else”

Anything like this where someone is made to feel that they have to perfectly accept themselves or love themselves to be deserving of love just makes me mad.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

The idea that "you can't think yourself out of this", when it comes to addiction (and any other "issues")... no, actually, my intellectual understanding of what happened to me (including generational trauma, brain science, etc. etc.) was immensely helpful... it killed the shame and allowed me to get on to the business of healing deeply. With everything I deal with, I recognize my rational knowledge and understanding of whatever it is, is incredibly useful. Don't tell me not to "intellectualize", it's part of my toolset, and a powerful one.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

I hate memes and social media posts about working out even when you truly don’t want to. I’m sick of violence against bodies, paranoia of rest. I have lasting damage from punishing my body with grueling workouts and I’m the least punished (by society) for having a body b/c I am a cis-het white woman. If even I have been indoctrinated against my own body—forced to attempt to contort myself into some sort of arbitrary standard—what is the suffering of merely having a body among folx who are oppressed/subjugated/marginalized?

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"Writers must write everyday." This is such nonsense and simply isn't practicable for most humans- especially women humans. Writers must think and observe and participate in being human in the world every day. As for writing? Maybe 2-3 times a week at best.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

That which doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. And This too shall pass. Both of these quotes bring up fear, lack,anger, and shame for me.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Well-meaning people who say, “why don’t you just cut down?”

I’d love to, but how do you do that when one is too many and 10 is never enough?

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

I have a neurodivergant brain and self help has told me to “just let go” and “don’t be so tied to your watch/schedule/calendar” or “you should be intrinsically motivated.” I wish all self help came with a disclaimer that if your brain is not “typical” their advice could be horribly destructive.

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"Manifesting" is a reflection of your spiritual condition. Srsly. So harmful.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

“All relationships take work” was not helpful in the least to someone like me. I understood that to mean try harder in the face of emotional abuse. I understood it to mean ‘change yourself,’ to accommodate chaos. I understood that to mean ‘suppress your needs.’

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Jul 14, 2022·edited Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

This might just be me, but I found the early conversation about "self-care' that just promoted staying in, on the couch and shutting off the world actually quite harmful at a time when what I needed was actually the opposite: getting (slowly) back out into the world and being nourished through friendships and experiences. There are many definitions of self-care depending on the person and/or time in their life.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

“Someone always has it worse” - yes, but this doesn’t invalidate or make better what I’m going through. Someone also always has it better. Does that mean I should never be joyful or at peace?

And -

“You have to love yourself/be fully healed before anyone else can love you.” I 100% believe a part of healing can be learning from someone else that you’re allowed to be imperfect in a container WITH them.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Everything I’ve ever read about dieting, especially “clean eating.”

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

“One day at a time” always felt desperate and depressing to me. I am looking further ahead than that. I am strong and am confident that I will not drink any of the days ahead of me. I don’t need one day at a time. It’s too small for me and annoys me.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

SO MANY!!! I've read hundreds of self help books and realized that by trying to follow every advice on how to "fix" myself I was starting to pathologize my own personality. Some are: you can't love someone until you learn how to love yourself, thinking negative thoughts "lowers your vibration", if I'm feeling down I can "hack" my body into feeling better (cold showers, etc), "just push through". Think of what you want to do and then do the opposite. Then there are all of the personality hacks to make myself fit into the extrovert ideal (aka How to win friends and influence people) when I'm actually a hardcore introvert. And of course all of the AA talk about not being able to trust myself and being powerless...I'm still working on dismantling these beliefs 6 years later.

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Jul 14, 2022·edited Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

That partnered or romantic love (esp. with children) is the ultimate way to relate/be in the world. To combat this, I've found refuge in Rebecca Solnit's writing in The Mother of All Questions:

"One of the reasons people lock onto motherhood as a key to feminine identity is the belief that children are the way to fulfill your capacity to love. But there are so many things to love besides one's own offspring, so many things that need love, so much other work love has to do in the world."

And Solnit quoting Christina Lupton:

"Some of the things [I] relinquished when motherhood’s consuming tasks had [me] in their grasp, including... all the ways of tending to the world that are less easily validated than parenting, but which are just as fundamentally necessary for children to flourish. I mean here the writing and inventing and the politics and the activism; the reading and the public speaking and the protesting and the teaching and the filmmaking. . . . Most of the things I value most, and from which I trust any improvements in the human condition will come, are violently incompatible with the actual and imaginative work of childcare."

I agree with these sentiments but still feel guilty for not being on a traditional path toward a normative domestic life. And somehow, being queer and working against internalized homophobia compounds this...

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Anything associated with “hustle” culture… “good things come to those who hustle.” Many people don’t have that level of energy and frantic activity is generally not the best way to get things done.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

That your work/job should be your passion.

This has made me miserable for years. It made me feel like a failure because 1 what the f is my passion and 2 I’m obviously doing something terribly wrong if I am dissatisfied at work. So I hopped around jobs and have gone back to school, or started, at least 5 times. Spending $1,000s unnecessarily. When really a job is just something I do that allows me to live a life I enjoy. It does not have to be more than that.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

“If you miss one day of meditation you’ve set yourself back two weeks.” I heard this at a kundalini training in April and all the air went out of my tires. I need to be able to miss a day. I need to get away from all-or-nothing.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Something that I have been struggling with this week is both my psychologist and psychiatrist telling me I am so well adjusted and use all my tools well. I feel out of control so how can this be true, and if I’m going to them for help then I obviously don’t have all the tools down. Not sure if it fits for anyone else, but being someone with bipolar and having people tell me they had no idea or that I don’t act like I have bipolar kills me. Between the drs and outside folks I’m dead this week.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Not sure how to say this eloquently, but just the general idea of productivity. Like it's this end-all be-all success metric, when in reality you're likely just doing more for someone else and not getting that much more out of it yourself. It also makes everything you're currently doing NOT GOOD ENOUGH because it could be MORE PRODUCTIVE. Reading "Irresistible" right now by Adam Alter and it is lots of talk about behavioral addiction etc. The altar of productivity was a light addiction for me previously. Read so many books on increasing productivity (v. boring. Glad to read better fiction these days instead) and in hindsight looks like capitalist brainwashing really. My current motto is trying to be "rebelliously content" bc it's hard for someone to sell me on some new thing/idea/activity I need to be better when I'm deciding to be content instead. (not to be confused with being indifferent or accepting garbage or not striving for things - just mostly resisting the idea that I need to buy/do/look like something else to be happy)

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

“Everything happens for a reason.” Okay— thanks— that helped.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Fake it until you make it, specifically with a smile. Now, I understand the science behind it. If you force a smile long enough you're supposed to feel happier. But sometimes you really just need to feel what you need to feel and the whole "fake it until you make it" has lead to some serious suppression of feelings.

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This might already be on here, but if so, deserves a second mention - Everything happens for a reason. Ugh. Gross. Actually, I'm beginning to push back against any and all mantras as well as purposeful self help because it all started to feel like work and made me feel less than and the pull to constantly "grow with intention" rather than "BE with intention" was snuffing the life out of me. But, it's REALLY hard not to get sucked back in.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Definitely the manifesting thing. And the inverse; if bad things have happened to you, you've manifested THAT, too. But/and, I actually do believe in manifesting, and have seen it in my life, but it's not the black and white, almost shame-based "thing" that wellness "influencers" preach. If any of this makes sense......

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

"Everything happens for a reason" or the "it's all part of God's plan" bullshit. (I used to live in the south and evangelicals love the latter). I don't believe the universe is completely indifferent but it's pretty fucking indifferent about a lot of horrible things.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

The idea that every uncomfortable situation has a ~deeper lesson~ in it is exhausting. It creates this pattern in me where I'm constantly pathologizing every nuanced experience and I also find it distracting from actually just allowing myself to sit with discomfort and do the next right thing.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

Everything happens for a reason.

No, it doesn't. Oh well honey, your toddler just got run over in front of your eyes in a hit-and-run, but it must all be part of the plan. Or, it's a way of dismissing things like war and climate change because people only do what is part of a plan so we just need to accept.

God doesn't give you what you can't handle.

Oh, really? The person who throws themself off the bridge? The soldiers with so much PTSD they can't leave the room?

The most destructive advice bar none I have ever received--and I got it from counselors, Alanon, random people calling me to tell me to do this:

You must make your addicted son homeless. Not only must you bar him from coming home, you must not help him find somewhere else to sleep. He must help himself now and your job is to take care of you. If you disagree, you are a codependent enabler.

I remain traumatized. (Side note: I did not heed this advice. I did not abandon my child. He has been clean since 2016. But I struggle with how my family and husband were willing to do this.)

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Jul 14, 2022·edited Jul 14, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker

‘Find your one true calling and make it your life’s work.’ I’ve found this just generates self-doubt and fear of failure. I’m so glad Liz Gilbert called this out as a problematic concept in Big Magic - particularly for anyone who does lots of yoga and keeps getting served Baghavad Gita-inspired life advice.

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Vulnerability builds connection.

This feels like a set up. Especially when many people can’t hold space for any more stuff and ghost out on tough convos or try to make lemonade and it’s often just not worth it.

And then sometimes it is - but still.

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“You are enough.”

If this were really true I would never try to be a better person, take care of myself, take care of others, or learn from anyone else.

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"Get your house in order" always bothered me. It's aggressive and vague, and it's used as a "Step 1" in a lot of self-help work. Like, I'm here BECAUSE I can't get my "house" in order. You tell me how! 🤣

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Ooh, I love this post. The "good vibes only" general toxic positivity that the internet is saturated with has confused me for a long time. I thought maybe it was just my pessimistic outlook causing me to roll my eyes and feel like I'm somehow failing because I certainly do not have good vibes only. It's immensely comforting to know it's not just me.

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Excuses are the lies you tell yourself. I've seen it in the context of exercise. It's incredibly ableist. And total bullshit.

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Pretty much anything that claims to be universal, without addressing the contexts in which we live and the world our healing exists in. I think the whole idea of a "Before and After" has been difficult for me -- and kept me in a loop of always seeking some other version, an "After" version of myself, while forgetting that the Me and the life that exists right now is the only one there really is.

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Everything having to do with The Secret. I always felt like I could never be positive enough and would shove any negative feelings down. I could never manifest millions of dollars or fancy homes. Ugh!!!

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*So* much of the American Christian dialogue around grief is incredibly harmful to people who are actually grieving e.g. they're in a better place now, at least they're no longer suffering, they would want you to be happy, and so on. Our culture is so out of touch with the grieving process and we aren't taught how to be present for, witness, and empathize with grieving people; we're taught to default to toxic positivity with roots in Americanized Christianity. It's so, so harmful to grieving people, and leads to so many ongoing processing issues around grief.

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Being told that it's "mind over matter" and that I was "just not trying hard enough" to heal when my nervous system was actually valiantly attempting to protect me from things that were previously unsafe. I have had variations of this experience with different healing modalities that don't involve the body (e.g. CBT, the lightning process, etc.- which are all legitimate, just not for complex trauma!).

On the other side of this, trauma -informed/somatic therapies are helping me to heal and have assisted greatly in undoing the shame of not yet being a thriving human with "normal" reactions, allowing me to embrace these tender, very young parts of me with love.

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Girl Boss. Rise and Grind. Hustle Harder. Goal Digger.

I can’t adequately describe how these “mantras” drove me to destruction. It was like pouring gasoline on my fire of self-hatred (disguised as ego), and ever perpetuating my deep feelings of inadequacy. The drinking had always been there… add this to the mix and I imploded. I’ve been sober for 3 yrs now and rest, relaxation and privacy are my trinity.

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Anything related to 'manifestation' and LOA. Where is the acknowledgement of systemic inequity and social privilege? It's like, if we could all just think the 'right' thoughts, maybe things like racism, sexism etc would just poof themselves away and we could all be living the dream? Someone I know posted a vacation photo in social the other day and said that they had 'manifested' good weather. Seriously?

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I lost a lot of peace in my life when “Live each day like it is your last day”, would appear. Talk about paranoia and performance anxieties. Besides, if it really wasn’t your last day, you’re gonna feel pretty shitty the next one. ( hung over, burnt out or hurt.)

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