ILLICH 11

tired of being the bigger person

I get tired of being the bigger person.

I could be the biggest person, the fittest person, the richest person.

I'm admired for being more wired

than a business person.

That hires and fires the working person.

but I'm tired,

of being the bigger person.

I'd rather be the person that's worse than

a pig

in person

a wicked person

who casts aspersions 

on this disertion

as a subversive incursion:

The coercion of aversion as a diversion from the exertion I spent in this immersion of perversion.

I'm a bitter person!

Watch my conversion into disparate dispersion

my submersion in reversion

to a state that's immersed in

sin

I could be the tallest at the show, bro.

But don't you know, I'd still be tired.

Tired of being the bigger person.

Excerpt from the self-help book I'm writing

from "The Healthy Emotion Expression Handbook."

Preface

“Healthy Emotional Expression.”

What a wholesome sounding phrase!

We would all want what is healthy for us, of course, and yet embedded in the idea that there is a “healthy” way to express our emotions is also the suggestion that there is also an “unhealthy” way to express them as well.

I imagine that way is something that we’re all very familiar with. We have all been exposed to unhealthy emotional expression at some point, and most of us have been guilty of it ourselves. Shouting, berating others, blaming them for how we feel, making judgments of them, calling them names, being vicious or even violent. These are all tragic ways we try to express hurt feelings in order to encourage others to change their ways, and yet more often than not they do more to harm than to help.

These approaches to self-expression erode the good will within our relationships, and make it less likely for other people to willingly help us meet our goals. Even if we can convince others to do what we want in these ways they are unlikely to do so happily. They may help grudgingly, with lingering feelings of resentment - and resentment is relationship carcinoma.

If we would all want what is healthy for us why would we continue to express ourselves in these unhealthy ways?

For all too many of us these are the only types of emotional expression we have the chance to bear witness to as children, and if we don’t replicate the model for self-expression we inherited we are as likely to: “If that’s what expressing feelings looks like then expressing feelings is not something I want to have any part of at all!”

Some refuse to express their emotions because they perceive it as a weak thing to do! (Nothing could be further from the truth – sometimes it takes extreme strength to express oneself honestly when it seems dreadfully scary to do so!)

Others don’t like expressing themselves honestly because they feel vulnerable, are afraid of intimacy, or within their history expressing how they felt in the ways they knew how scared potential partners or friends away.

In other cases our feelings were invalidated as children. “Don’t get angry.” “Life’s like that, you take the good with the bad, keep your chin up.” Or, “Stop crying, don’t be a baby” (which is the biological equivalent of telling a child not to urinate, because tears clear impurities out of the system.)

Or perhaps the feelings of our primary caregivers took precedence over our own, and our needs were seen as an inconvenience, and so we quickly learned not to feel anything at all!

How then may we have learned to identify what was going on inside us so we could express our preferences in ways which would help others to help us to meet our goals? How could we effectively offer others our willingness to help them meet their goals too, and develop the kind of fulfilling relationships that arise out of reciprocity, mutual trust and respect?

In the worst of circumstances, it holds true that in an abusive situation it is often safer not to feel anything at all than to feel all the effects of our abuse there and then. This is the mind’s defense against hopelessness. It learns to master the emotions by turning them off, and in doing so ensures its safety in the short term.

Sadly though, when we grow older and have the ability to remove ourselves from abusive situations these defense mechanisms do not always deactivate themselves lightly.

It seems all too true that if we were not shown a model of healthy emotional expression to follow then it is something we need to learn of our own volition, as adults, in the same way that were we not exposed to French as children it is something we would need to take it upon ourselves to learn.

Often our feelings are there to keep us safe, to teach us what we want out of life and about the way we think, to warn us away from those who might harm us, and draw us towards those who are nurturing and make our lives wonderful.

We are better not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This book forms a concise guide on how to use your emotions rather than let them use you. 

Why doesn't beef cost 7 times as much as grains?

If it takes 7 times as much grain to create the same amount of beef, so why isn't beef 7 times as expensive as grain? Because the vast majority of farming subsidies go to meat and dairy farmers. In other words we are forced to pay for the mistreatment of animals whether we can conscience it or not. Fruits an vegetables have increased in price faster that other products and they are the building blocks of health, while confectionaries have gone down in price in real terms and they destroy the quality of life. If we could end these subsidies the whole society would be healthier, we would also save NHS money on preventable illnesses that could be allocated to those who still needed it. What is more, Western agricultural subsidies for domestic farmers have been a horrendous catastophe for the poor in the developing world, because excess produce is dumped there putting their own producers out of a livelihood and building their own economy. Crazy world we live in, where money is shifted from the people to self-interest groups at the point of a gun, despite the harm it does to the whole of society.

To Your Friends on Spanking

Dear friends. You have talked to your friends about the injustice of war, I am sure. And you've talked about gay marriage. And you have talked about austerity measures and cuts. Have you spoken to your friends about the effects of spanking on children? Many of your friends share the same views with you on politics, and none of us are policy makers, but many of us will have children or care for children. Are they aware that 93% of studies on spanking agree that it is harmful to children, which has been referred to as"an almost unheard of consensus" in child-rearing studies? Are they aware that according to the last 20-30 years of science children who are physically punished even mildly:
- Tend to have a lower IQ and are less able to reason effectively.
- Have a poorer relationship with their parents than those who are reared non-aggressively.
- Are more likely to resort to violence as a means of solving problems and even become chronically defiant.
- Are more likely to smoke and twice as likely develop alcohol/drug addictions.
- Are more likely to develop anxiety disorders and depression and show symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
- Are more likely to display anti-social behaviour and abuse their spouse or children later in life?

So they know that spanking ups the risk of major depression by 41%, drug abust by 59% and mania by 93% amongst other effects.

We can really make the world a better place by bringing up these questions in our social circles with references to the scientific evidence and also speaking about the alternatives to spanking which have been proven to be of psychological benefit to children and sociological benefit to society. Thanks, and please consider this before you next go out for a pint with your pals.