You Can’t Be Nice If You’re Dead

Don’t protect the feelings of people who trigger your survival signals.

Photo Credit: Engin Akyurt on Pexels

Like many today, I like to believe that we’re all fundamentally good but every once in awhile, I’m proven wrong by some grisly crime in the news — or by binge-watching Obsession: Dark Desires on Netflix.

As animals, violence is a part of our existence and thanks to nature, our bodies have a complex system of protective mechanisms to avoid danger or fight against it. Unfortunately, social norms inhibit these mechanisms and make us especially vulnerable to violent attacks.

Gavin DeBecker, a security specialist and author, has made it his life’s work to refamiliarize us with the intuition which we are taught to ignore because of the societal pressure to be kind and receptive. Though violence affects all sorts of people, women are particularly at risk thanks to harmful gender schemas.

“Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death.” — Gavin DeBecker

In his 1997 bestseller, The Gift of Fear, DeBecker uses his extensive experience working with victims of violent attacks to educate readers and encourage them to be more proactive about their personal safety. We are all equipped with the tools to detect and escape from danger but we have to know how to recognize the signs and let instinct take over.

Is human behavior unpredictable?

The scariest thing about violence is how suddenly it seems to occur. It’s easiest to assume that human violence is somehow beyond our understanding and unpredictable as this belief absolves us of any duty to explore it and be proactive. We’re so afraid of being wrong when in fact, we make accurate predictions about others’ behavior every day.

Crossing the road, we sense that a driver will let us by, and other times, we suspect something unsafe, like the person looking down at their phone and we wait. We are all equipped to employ the same perceptive power when violence occurs.

An American Murder: The Family Next Door, a popular Netflix original documentary told the story of Shannan Watts, her two little girls, and her unborn baby. They were all brutally murdered by seemingly devoted husband and father, Chris Watts.

Shanann had a feeling that something was going on and she openly expressed this to her supportive girlfriends. Everyone tried to reassure her but an intuitive sense that something was seriously wrong persisted. Despite some difficulties in their marriage, Shanann loved her husband and was willing to fight for her family and since there was no history of domestic violence, it’s hard to know whether she was afraid of him before the murder. Nonetheless, as she shared with those closest to her, suspicion was building.

Naturally, many were offended by the media’s desire to read into the case and find a motive. They say there’s no reason for committing such a heinous crime and no one should try to understand the intentions of a monster like Chris Watts. While I agree that the public should be sensitive to the victim’s loved ones and avoid giving the murderer undeserved attention, I believe that gaining a better understanding of violent attacks and publicizing this knowledge will ultimately save lives.

“The human violence we abhor and fear the most, that which we call ‘random’ and ‘senseless’, is neither. It always has purpose and meaning, to the perpetrator, at least. We may not choose to explore or understand that purpose, but it is there, and as long as we label it ‘senseless’, we’ll not make sense of it.”

— Gavin DeBecker

Don’t ignore the “Hmm…”

I ignore my gut instincts all the time because I assume they’re mostly wrong. While it’s true that some interpretations of intuitive messages are false, according to DeBecker, intuition is always correct in two ways. First, it always communicates with us in response to something, and secondly, it always has our best interest at heart. Intuition is a built-in survival mechanism after-all. It will help us survive if we let it.

How do we know that our survival signals are going off? With so much buzzing around in our heads, we can be completely oblivious to red flags. Often, no sirens are blaring but just a quiet inner voice that says: “hmm…” or “that’s strange”.

DeBecker identifies what he calls the Messengers of Intuition. When they stand out, it’s time to pay attention and act on those impulses that seem to come out of nowhere. Nagging feelings, persistent thoughts, humor, wonder, anxiety, curiosity, hunches, gut feelings, doubt, hesitation, apprehension, suspicion, and fear should never be ignored.

Think back to a time in your life when you weren’t making the best decisions for your well-being. Perhaps you were pursuing the wrong career just because it makes your family proud or stayed in a relationship with the wrong person to shelter them from heartbreak. Likely, the decision to finally adjust your circumstances wasn’t a sudden impulse even though it might have seemed that way to others. Your intuition could have sent you a pit in your stomach or generalized anxiety yet it may have taken you a while to realize that it was time to make a change.

Making the right decision for yourself can be very uncomfortable for several reasons. One reason is our innate desire to protect the feelings of others. This occurs in relation to going down the wrong path but also to life or death situations. Because of the human expectation to be sociable (that is amplified in the case of women), intuitive survival signals are missed or simply ignored and people who want to harm us can take advantage of our dedication to being a nice person.

Don’t fall for Type-casting

In recent years, I’ve been on a mission to care less about what others think of me. It’s been rough and spoiler — I’m still quite preoccupied with people’s opinions. DeBecker’s insights have given me a great reason to keep minding my business and quit worrying about impressing strangers because many predators rely on their victim’s concern for social conventions to hurt them.

Type-casting is a reverse psychology tactic used to guilt victims into engaging their attackers. It often has a nasty misogynistic tone. Here’s an example that might feel familiar to you.

As you approach the bus stop on a quiet night, you notice a man watching intently. You make eye contact and smile nervously hoping he will look away but he refuses to break his gaze and begins to approach you. Because it’s dark and he’s a stranger, you’re quite reluctant to engage and your feet move you backward.

“Aw come on!”, he says throwing his arms into the air. “I just wanted to know what time the bus was coming.”

You’re at a loss for words and still nervous.

“I suppose you're too classy to speak to someone like me.”

He attacked your character to make you feel obligated to indulge him. For a moment, you might feel bad. You’re a kind person and would hate to make someone else feel rejected just for asking the time. Maybe you should just talk to him for ten minutes while the two of you wait for the bus. He could actually be a nice guy, who are you to judge? No. Silence is the best response to this kind of treatment.

If you feel unsafe there’s probably a reason for it. If you actually do make a misjudgment, someone’s feelings might hurt for a little but if your initial instinct was correct, something more valuable than another person’s positive perception of you could be jeopardized.

*Originally posted on my Medium blog. If you want to get to know me better, follow me on Medium. That’s where I connect with readers and get personal.

Your Childhood Trauma Is Killing You

Literally.

“Yeah, obviously”, you might be thinking. I’m sure we can all agree that childhood trauma reeks all kinds of havoc on a person’s life well into the adult years especially when it goes unresolved. You drink, smoke, or eat your worries away and you get sick, right? It seems pretty simple but our evolving understanding of how childhood adversity affects the developing brains and bodies of children shows that trauma has a more complicated relationship with long-term health outcomes than we may think.

The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study

A couple of years ago, I was assigned a written reflection on Dr. Nadine Burke Harris’s 2014 TED talk: How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime. As a pediatrician, Burke Harris, sought to address trauma in her practice after being introduced to the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study. In 1995, Kaiser Permanente and the CDC asked 17 500 adults about their history of exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) which include physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, physical or emotional neglect, parental mental illness, parental substance dependence, parental incarceration, separations, or domestic violence. Each adversity counts as a point on a person’s ACE score. The data was then correlated to long-term health outcomes. Here are the results.

• 67% of Americans had at least one ACE making them very common.

• 1 in 8 Americans had 4 or more ACEs

• For a person with four or more ACEs, the relative risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and hepatitis increases by 250%

• Depression was 4 and a half times more likely for those with 4 or more ACEs

• Suicidality is 12 times more likely for those with 4 or more ACEs

• 7 or more ACES meant triple lifetime risk of lung cancer and three and a half times ischemic heart disease, the number one killer in America.

None of these health risks are solely the result of a person ‘giving up’ on maintaining a healthy lifestyle or being a ‘snowflake’. Exposure to childhood adversity affects numerous parts of the brain in a way that makes us vulnerable to an assortment of social struggles like addiction and learning difficulties as it affects the pleasure and reward centers of the brain associated with substance dependence as well as inhibits the prefrontal cortex, responsible for executive function and impulse control. All of these factors explain why a person with ACEs might seek out risky behaviors. But even without risky behaviors, there’s an increased risk of developing heart disease or cancer. Why is that?

Dr. Burke Harris explained that humans are equipped with the fight or flight survival response which can save our lives in the presence of danger. Stress hormones come to the rescue by preparing the body to do whatever is necessary to survive but this effect is not meant to continue for extended periods of time. Repeated activation of the body’s stress response system as a result of childhood adversity affects developing immune systems, hormonal systems, and the way DNA is replicated and as we‘ve seen in the data, the resulting health outcomes are devastating.

Dr. Burke Harris found the study eye-opening and expected the medical community to invest time and money into attacking ACEs proactively, before their dangerous effects cause long-term health problems. But as you can probably guess, like many people who care about making a difference, Burke Harris didn’t get the response she was seeking as others in the field were not as moved by the data.

It’s hard to pinpoint why trauma has been avoided so much by the medical community even though the facts point to a direct connection between adverse childhood adversity and health. Human beings are self-centered and perhaps there’s an assumption that those with trauma only belong to underprivileged or poor backgrounds, that the issue is a distant problem (like COVID in December 2019). In reality, while certain circumstances, like a low SES, create higher ACE scores, and need our immediate attention, trauma is a universal experience.

Trauma affects nearly all of us

The original ACES study was done in a majority Caucasian and college-educated population, privileged we could say. To tackle childhood trauma, we must stop marginalizing it as a problem for ‘those’ children, who look ‘like that’ or live ‘over there’. All children need healthy, nurturing environments to thrive, and when these needs are denied, regardless of a family’s wealth or social status, the results are detrimental to general well-being.

If we haven’t experienced it ourselves, we all know someone who was caught in the middle of a nasty divorce as a child or who had been abused. As mentioned, children and their bodies are extremely sensitive to the effects of adversity. It doesn't take a Dr. Phil worthy upbringing for a little person to be profoundly disturbed by negative life events.

In my previous position as a childcare worker, I had the chance to travel all over the city to different schools and neighborhoods. Of course, I noticed class-based inequality, schools in affluent areas being prioritized over others, and touting less behavioral problems, but at every school, I noticed children who seemed preoccupied, anxious, and melancholy, like life was weighing on them every day. I wonder how much more we could have done for those kids if we knew their ACE scores.

The negative effects of ACEs can be reversible

Reading the data from the ACEs study feels depressing at first since it seems like the damage is done. I know that studying trauma in school made me think that there was no hope of feeling normal but I see now that trauma is extremely common as it affects the majority of us.

Even more comforting than the fact that no one who suffers trauma is alone in their struggle is the fact that there’s a lot we can do to reverse some of the negative effects. In an article published by Berkely’s online magazine, The Greater Good, Dr. Burke Harris answers a series of questions on ACEs and their influence on our lives.

When asked what an adult with ACEs should do now, Burke Harris highlighted the importance of simply understanding your ACEs by getting your score. It’s also important to decipher whether your stress response is overactive and what may trigger that for you.

“I don’t think forgetting about adversity or blaming it is useful. The first step is taking its measure and looking clearly at the impact and risk as neither a tragedy nor a fairy tale but a meaningful reality in between. Once you understand how your body and brain are primed to react in certain situations, you can start to be proactive about how you approach things. You can identify triggers and know how to support yourself and those you love.”

— Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, The Deepest Well

In terms of actionable steps, evidence-based strategies like regular exercise, getting enough sleep, and meditation are beneficial. Many have also found inner child healing to be effective in addressing needs that sometimes go unmet in childhood, causing us to live with deep voids well into our adulthood.

Inner child healing is a journey to self-discovery that involves unearthing the wounds that we repress in order to survive. It can be done alone or with a licensed professional depending on each person’s circumstances. The first step is identifying and acknowledging the inner child. Are they fearful? Are they lonely? As an adult doing this kind of work, you must let your younger self know that their pain is not their fault, that they tried their best, that they are worthy of love.

Benefits of inner child healing include the ability to release child-like behaviors that keep us trapped in the past, self-compassion, the ability to feel after years of numbing emotions for protection, and the ability to establish boundaries on your own terms. All of these benefits are extremely stress-relieving and certainly wouldn’t hurt your chances of reversing the negative health consequences of your childhood trauma.

Childhood trauma is a far-reaching pandemic with deadly effects and it has gone ignored for too long. Instead of facing the issue head-on through the great work of people like Dr. Burke Harris, as a society, we often choose to blame many health issues on individuals who we deem too sensitive or weak to handle everyday life.

The science proves a direct link between adverse childhood experiences and some of the most fatal illnesses out there. The options for treating childhood trauma are vast and if you still feel haunted by your own, rest assured that there is hope.

*Originally posted on my Medium blog. If you want to get to know me better, follow me on Medium. That’s where I connect with readers and get personal.

3 Things To Try Instead Of Going On A Diet

Photo Credit: Diogenes Sousa on Pexels

Now that I’m home more than ever before, it’s harder to get my steps in. Thank God for this embarrassing habit of walking around the apartment listening to music through my headphones. Otherwise, I would probably never move. Pair that with the fact that there are snacks all around me (Jesse and I tear up the grocery store) and the fact that I’ve been feeling stressed (more compelled to devour aforementioned snacks) … I don’t feel my healthiest.

It’s nothing too crazy. I don’t hate my body (anymore) but that toxic little alarm in my head is going off. It’s the one that pokes at me when things fit just a bit tighter or the twin sisters are rubbing together more than usual with walking. On one hand, I welcome the extra softness and even enjoy shaking it around when I’m alone. On the other hand, controlling my appearance through strict diet restrictions gave me a twisted sense of accomplishment at one time and in brief moments, I feel tempted to start dieting again.

Whether or not you’ve struggled with maintaining a healthy weight, you’ve probably experienced pressure to diet. I remember being shocked in Doctor Lubel’s office where he told me I was about five pounds underweight during a checkup at age sixteen. I wanted to lose double that.

For me, eating healthily (which meant eating less) and exercising had nothing to do with leading a healthy lifestyle and everything to do with a twenty-four-inch waistline. Even though I knew I would never look like the girls on my thinspiration page, I liked the subconscious pat on the back that came with trying to get there anyway.

“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.”

— Naomi Wolf, The Beuty Myth

The misery of self-deprivation seemed bearable until I inevitably lost the motivation to count calories, abstain from my favorite foods, and obsess over carbs. A couple of years ago, I dumped dieting after realizing I dealt with my body from a place of punishment and hatred and that corporations are waiting open-mouthed to capitalize on my self-loathing.

It was depressing to feel a pang of guilt with every meal that didn’t look like a cornucopia of superfood. A change was long overdue but the change would not come in the form of a new weight loss program. A complete mental and emotional shift regarding food began.

Letting go of dieting hasn’t meant ignoring my health. The opposite is true. Diet culture promotes a poisonous narrative about bodies that may do more harm than good. Popular weight-loss interventions fuel hatred for the body you live in right now and encourages you to strive for the better, more fit body you could have if only you just stopped devouring food. Indeed, bingeing every day isn’t a great idea health-wise but flogging yourself over food is arguably worse.

According to traditional ideas about healthy eating, there are good foods and bad foods. We feel proud of ourselves when we eat a head of lettuce but we’re plagued with guilt when we eat a slice of cake. Following a strict rabbit food diet for a week will obviously cause weight-loss but finally, after fighting cravings and being pre-occupied with your eating choices, bingeing behaviors are likely to return and so will the tsunami of negative emotions that only makes you want to self-soothe with food even more.

Neutralizing food, approaching it as neither good nor bad, is the first shift I would suggest for breaking the binge, guilt, repeat cycle that dieting creates. For me, letting go of food-related guilt was difficult because I thought that without it I would lose control and eat cookies until I couldn’t feel my legs.

Now that sweets have been accepted as a normal part of my diet (as they’ve always deserved), I don’t blackout when I eat them to numb the shame I feel for loving them so much. I savor each bite and allow myself to feel satisfaction. I find myself eating more moderately this way and I don’t hate myself after every snack.

Now, my primary goal is to eat mindfully with an in-the-moment awareness of the food I buy, the way I prepare it, and how I consume it. That doesn't mean I eat the perfect assortment of foods or the perfect amount but I’ve managed to curb compulsive eating for the most part.

Sometimes I still turn to food when I’m stressed but knowing when that’s happening nudges me towards seeking other methods of feeling better. This awareness leads to less guilt and more self-care. Mindless eating is the real danger because it turns into compulsive eating very quickly. If we are oblivious to our eating habits, it’s impossible to alter them.

Eating mindfully has helped me love foods I grew to resent when I was dieting. The sweetness of carrots, the fresh earthiness of spinach, and the bursting acidity of tomatoes come to life in my soup when I select each ingredient carefully before watching them slowly bubble together in my pot with warming flavors from my spice rack. I smear soft butter on toasted bread. The whole experience is so satisfying that one bowl is more than enough.

I’m able to resist the occasional temptation to obsess over food by incorporating a set of mindful habits into my everyday life. Admittedly it took a long time for these habits to stick and I still have my struggles (Exhibit A: Pandemic-induced snacking) but I am in control both mentally and physically. I don’t let my insecurities drive the way I treat my body yet I manage to stay at a healthy weight (Yes! Even though I jiggle a bit).

Losing weight might be a welcome side effect of adopting a more intuitive, mindful approach to your eating but allowing your food to truly satiate you is a result you can enjoy today. I hope the following suggestions from my experience will give you some new ideas or encouragement.

Don’t cut out foods — add new ones

In the past, my natural reaction to overeating and weight gain was eliminating full food groups from my diet. Now I realize that to feel satisfied with my food, thus not craving an excessive amount, a variety of nutrients and flavors are needed. When I add enough healthy, delicious meals and snacks, cravings are not as strong or frequent.

When I explore the grocery store and grab something new, there’s excitement. I like to buy with both heath and enjoyment in mind to make sure I experience the new ingredient positively in every way. Over time, I’ve noticed a natural balance between snack foods (not bad!) and nutrient-rich foods which makes me feel enthusiastic about nourishment, replacing the cycle of guilt with a cycle of exploration and satisfaction. Focus on the positive and realize that indulging comes in many different forms.

Love your body

Some people are distressed by the body positivity movement because of the belief that it enables an unhealthy lifestyle. Unfortunately, they would rather bully those who don’t fit society’s ideals assuming self-hate will motivate people to be healthier. Clearly, they are projecting their own dissatisfaction onto others under the guise of concern. It is vile.

Self-hate motivates us to seek solace in harmful coping mechanisms (like unhealthy eating). It’s just absurd to think that negativity will produce positive results and research shows that promoting a strong body image contributes to better health outcomes.

There’s no shame in wanting to change your physical appearance but the only way to meet your goals is to treat your current body well. Part of that is love and acceptance. It might be valuable to evaluate your desire to ‘improve’. Sometimes we hate things about ourselves that society senselessly deems inferior even though they are a beautiful part of human diversity.

I used to feel too fat-legged, too curly, and even too black. Dieting wouldn't soothe any of that self-hatred since my fat naturally lives on the bottom half of my body, my hair will always be kinky, and I am very clearly a dark-skinned black lady. I don’t want to change any of that just because society doesn't like it. Aspiring to inhabit a body I will never have is empty and destructive so instead, I aim to love everything I’ve been gifted every day.

Intuitive eating

“We define healthy eating as having a healthy balance of foods and having a healthy relationship with food.”

— Evelyn Tribole, Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works

Intuitive eating is an approach to nutrition that involves trusting cues from our bodies to guide our food choices. The name can seem a bit deceptive to many because we’re often taught to ignore bodily signals but practicing will pay off with time. Intuitive eating is notably sustainable according to research compared with traditional dieting which is known to produce the yo-yo effect.

The philosophy is made up of ten principles to establish a healthy attitude towards food and bodies. Here they are.

1. Reject the diet mentality: dieting goes against intuitive eating as it encourages us to disregard what our body is asking for.

2. Honor your hunger: depriving the body of the energy it needs can trigger a desire to overeat.

3. Make peace with food: food is on your side. Take guilt out of the equation and permit yourself to eat.

4. Challenge the food police: You might believe that there are good foods and bad foods as discussed earlier. Challenge diet culture’s ideas about what you should be eating.

5. Discover the satisfaction factor: Strive to feel satisfied after every meal. Pay attention to what you like seeing, smelling, and feeling when you eat. Create that for yourself.

6. Feel your fullness: Respect your body’s signals telling you that you’ve had enough to eat. Pause during meals to evaluate how you feel.

7. Cope with your emotions with kindness: food will never fix our emotional problems. Honor and deal with your feelings without involving food.

8. Respect your body: As discussed, society approaches bodies in a dangerous way. There is a pervasive idea that only a certain type of body deserves dignity. This is not true. Accept the genetics that make you unique and learn to love them.

9. Move your body: Notice how you feel when you exercise. Many use words like energized, flexible, strong. Focus on those feelings and you might feel more inclined to move more. Make exercise enjoyable not militant.

10. Honor your health: Make choices that will contribute to your overall health. Consider everything when you choose ingredients — both your enjoyment and your wellness.

This year has been traumatic to say the very least. Yet, online, all I see are people (like myself) lamenting about how much our bodies have declined since the quarantine began. Whether you’ve put on two pandy pounds or twenty, stop beating yourself up. Following another restrictive diet is not the healing you need.

Mindfulness has gained a lot of popularity in recent years and many have been compelled to explore it as a way to deal with the stress of living in our world. I think that most associate the practice with meditation but it can be valuable in so many different parts of our lives, why not food? Eating is certainly a facet of life that deserves more intention and less micro-managing.

*Originally posted on my Medium blog. If you want to get to know me better, follow me on Medium. That’s where I connect with readers and get personal.