“What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?” (George Eliot)

Customer NonSupport

I’ve had countless conversations about how “customer support” has dramatically deteriorated in the last four years. It’s maddening.

While it was not uncommon to find ourselves lost in the endless loops of a company’s voicemail system in the past, or to find that it’s impossible to contact a real live person on many support sites, what used to be a sometimes challenge now appears to be the norm. A lot of us are working hard not to let it cost us our hard-fought self-regulation skills. I know I am. How many times have you found yourself escalating pleas of “REAL PERSON. LIVE PERSON. ACTUAL HUMAN. HO! ME! O! SA! PI! EN!” into a voice response system?

As we continue to push past our pandemic trauma instead of healing it, the cracks in our systems, in our thinking, in our biases and in our basic humaning are becoming more obvious. Finding balance in a system that is so out of balance is not easy.

More Funny Wrapped Gifts

You have often seen or heard me quote the belief common to many Native American peoples: “All things in a circle; All things affect all things.” While the stress of the clutchy, grabby, ego-driven community around us is emerging in painful ways, it’s pushing those of us who do not buy into self-absorbed chaos to become more vocal about living in a more sustainable way.

Continually jousting against a culture that infects us at every level like a noxious gas is utterly exhausting. I believe that the more outspoken we are about this other way of being, the more others who live the same way will join together and start to push the needle in the other direction.

An Example

As I’ve been studying the many nuances of Bodyism in preparation for running targeted coaching groups, I’m finding myself more and more worn out by exploitive Capitalism and the short-sighted, narcissistic system that drives it. After all, my whole generation is now contending with significant and seriously under-researched endocrinological problems that are the direct result of the ways that misinformation about food, bodies and nutrition have been woven into our psyches, all in the name of increasing profits for certain industries and individuals.

We are literally suffering so that companies could and can make more profit, and politicians could and can leverage themselves into more powerful positions. What kind of sense does that make? (If you want to get livid, read or listen to Aubrey Gordon’s book, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat.)

How do we find balanced information in a system that is so agendized?

Follow the Money

Whenever we find information, (really, on any topic,) if we don’t vet it, we are likely to keep falling into these traps. When someone says or writes, “studies say…” look the studies up. Who funded them? Did they stand to make money from the outcome? Hold the results with an open hand and intentionally seek out opposing voices. Consider all of the data.

Sometimes the studies, or programs, or courses are useful. Sometimes they are dangerous. Learn to smell agenda, and don't be afraid to go against the flow.

You Are Your Best Authority

Honor your gut instincts and personal experiences as a part of the data as well. Don’t assume that some piece of information is more robust than your personal experience. If your personal experiences don’t line up with what experts are saying, assume they have missed some important piece of data.

There is no one way of eating, exercising, thinking, believing, sleeping, parenting, playing or anything else that is right for every person in every circumstance! We are beautifully unique. This is yet another reason to value the collective of human beings – Together we are much richer, much wiser, and much more effective than we ever could be alone.

Kindness

I strive to be at least polite to strangers. Kindness is free, so why not? It annoys me at times when my efforts aren’t reciprocated. On a good day, however, I choose to sow kindness - To let the brusque, rude person ahead of me in line, or to let someone Bogarting in front of me in traffic have at it. I don’t do it for them. I do it for me.

It’s a lot like my mother never locking the door to our house when I was growing up. Mind you, we lived inside the DC Beltway in neighborhoods where this probably was not the best choice from a safety perspective. When asked, my mother explained that she didn’t want to live in a world where protecting your stuff was more important than looking after people. If someone had taken something from us, she would have assumed that they needed it more than we did.

I used to think that was crazy. While I do, in fact, lock our doors? I understand much better that this was an act of self balance. When we refuse to buy into exploitive Capitalism and its fierce competition for resources, when we are as generous with our time, our talents and our attention as we can be without compromising our stability, we are healthier. The community is healthier.

We find balance, together.

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Are you worn out by the demands of the world around you? Contact Tiffany today. Let’s work on balancing your worlds.