proof of relevancy!

I was just in line at the library behind a woman who was checking out the self-help classic, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People! (I was going to snap a quick photo on my phone but decided that would be too creepy.) As to whether she is a reader of The Blossom Risk, we can only assume...

sugar and spice and advice

The advice column is the beloved cousin of the self-help book, which is why I’d like to direct your attention to this chatty but charming little piece in the The New Yorker: “The Advice Columnist We Deserve.”

It’s a (rather brief) retrospective of the history of the advice column, which reportedly had its start in 1691 and continues today with one of my favorite contemporary writers of all time at the helm: Cheryl Strayed. The name sounds familiar, right? Until her awesome memoir, Wild, landed on the best-seller list, where it’s stayed put for 20 weeks, she was better known as “Dear Sugar” who writes the advice columns for The Rumpus website.

Why is Strayed so damn good at her job? Because, as the article mentions, she listens and empathizes—instead of actually offering advice. Which I would argue is just as—if not more—effective than the more traditional columnists.

Modern advice columnists (Dear Abby, E. Jean) evolved by being willing to tackle more controversial topics that were previously taboo to discuss.  But Strayed goes even farther than that: Instead of counseling readers as to how to fix their problems, she provides comfort merely by admitting to her own taboos and imperfections. She’s sort of post-advice, if you will.

Which really makes you wonder if the self-help genre will soon follow a similar progression. So many of the books are so-called “experts” presuming that only they have the right answers and, therefore, readers should automatically follow their advice and prescriptions. Maybe the future of self-help will involve the author’s willingness to lay all their own shit on the table a prerequisite for becoming a respected authority on the topic. (Or is this just another way to describe the “memoir”?)

Are you aware of any self-help books that provide comfort more than they do concrete advice?

new book!

It was difficult for me to read Mireille Guiliano’s French Women Don’t Get Fat without frequently rolling my eyes. For example, read this line and try not to let out an exasperated sigh:

(Some context: She’s talking about how French women appreciate and revel in the art of food preparation and enjoyment—in this case, of bread—which is but one of their many secrets to remaining so thin.)

“It’s a willingness to reap the pleasures of food at its most elementally wonderful. French women don’t eat Wonder Bread. Try baking some bread this weekend.”

Bake bread? Sure! Right after I churn fresh butter and beat my clothes clean on a rock.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate artisanal culinary and domestic pursuits. But is there anyone on earth who has a full-time job, a rescue dog, AND time and energy for such delicious endeavors?

Guiliano is the former President and CEO of Clicquot, Inc., which is the company that makes Champagne Veuve Clicquot (the one with the yellow label if you're shaky on your champagne producers). She grew up in France but married an American and spends her time between Paris and New York. Which makes her qualified to write a book comparing the healthy attitudes of French women and American women.

The crux of her book is essentially this: A balanced relationship with food and exercise is key to a healthy mind and body. As it turns out, French women are nothing if not skilled in the practice of moderation. And American women? Yeah, apparently we suck at it.

If you’re noticing a slight hint of sarcasm creeping into these sentences, then thank you: You’re actually reading (versus skimming or skipping to the end) and I’m forever grateful. But why I am focusing on a book that annoyed me more often than it gave helpful advice?

For one thing, things were getting a little heavy around these parts after Chodron’s book, and I wanted to explore a lighter side of self-help. More important, despite her penchant for frivolity and poking fun at American women, Guiliano has wisdom to share.

On its surface, this book is simply about becoming more healthful by taking a detailed inventory of your attitudes toward food and exercise and then recasting your vices, pleasures, and discipline in a more moderate way.

But what happens if you use this strategy of self-reflection and adjustment not only with respect to food and exercise habits but with life more generally?

You might discover something in your life that needs to be profoundly changed—which is exactly what happened to me.

fully awake for the martini

Have you ever met someone who so impressed you with their knowledge and passion, but after spending some time together you just wanted to mix her a strong dirty martini with blue cheese stuffed olives and say:

"You're awesome. But my goodness, lighten up a little!"

Sometimes that's how I feel when I'm reading Chodron.

She's courageous and amazingly wise. And she's given me some life-changing advice about how to be present and work through fear, chaos, and pain. But she's soooo intense. Relentlessly so. And I've been so consumed by When Things Fall Apart, that I had to remind myself that life is not all broken hearts and sharks swimming in oceans of suffering and Jodi Foster in the panic room and fiery flames destroying everything in their path. 

There are actually happy times, too.

That might be my one and only complaint about this book: There's little instruction on being fully alive and awake for the good stuff. And while I'm very obviously trained in neither Buddism or psychology, I think that's vital to getting through the bad. 

Chodron is critical of our tendency to numb or distract ourselves from fear and pain. But the sad truth is, we're also disengaging from those flashes of peace and joy and calm and beauty. Isn't the enjoyment and vivid memory of those fleeting moments the best reminder there is that frustration and unhappiness will eventually pass, too?

Maybe it's a friend who found out a medical problem he thought was serious, isn't. Or a fascinating opportunity that arises unexpectedly. Or the new issue of Martha Stewart Living arriving in the mail. (Oh please, you know you love Martha).

We all have good moments mixed in with the bad. Pour yourself a martini and enjoy them.

What's the happiest thing that happened to you lately?

sandwiches

If there's one thing I've noticed about living with a man, it's that I suddenly find myself eating a lot more sandwiches. 

Deli sandwiches. Subway ones, too. Even the classic peanut butter and jelly has been making a frequent appearance in my diet. I'm going to use my amazing female intuition and posit that men love sandwiches (seriously, you have to click on that link) because they are delicious and the most low-maintenance of foods: simple to prepare and even simpler to devour. I'm right. You know I'm right.

Now that I've moved with my boyfriend, we've been eating a bunch of our meals together. If he's eating a sandwich -- and he is a lot of the time -- then I am too.

But it's not just the sandwiches that are different, it's other things, too. Things that are so much more challenging than consistently consuming meals in which no utensils are required.

The thing about living with a roommate who's so much more than a roommate is that you want to be at your very best all of the time. But when you live in the same space with someone (in our case, a very teeny-tiny space), you just can't do that.

Sometimes I'll come home from work and be a total grumpy-grumperson, the very worst version of myself.  You have those days too, right? When all you want to do is commandeer the sofa all night long with a spoon and jar of Nutella, watching enough reruns of Say Yes to the Dress until those women with the questionable priorities start to make you feel better about yourself?

I tend to make these situations drastically worse because I'm embarrassed and mad at myself for being so "off" in front of the person who I love and adore. So I externalize this anger and do things like snap, complain, accuse him of eating the last of the hummus (the other thing he eats beside the sandwiches). Ugh! I get so frustrated with myself when I'm like this!

And that's where When Things Fall Apart has been enormously helpful. Here's an excerpt that I find myself reading over and over again:

It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately filling up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with the fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness.

How does this apply here with the sofa and TLC and all the spreadable condiments?

Because it's helped me to relax. I've recognized my frustration and "restlessness" as my desire to want to be my best self in front of my boyfriend even though sometimes that's impossible. And instead of "filling up the space" so to speak with embarrassment and anger, I've made an effort to pause there on our couch and think: "I've had a really shitty day. I'm going to be quiet and sit here with bad food and atrociously bad TV and I'll be back to my regular self in a little while."

The number of shitty days hasn't decreased, but at least the spiraling out is a least a little more under control.

How do you deal with bad days?

pulling an elizabeth gilbert

In one of the most famous scenes from Elizabeth Gilbert's bestselling memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, she struggles to sit still in an ashram in India and meditate. She's hot, she can't find a comfortable position, she's comparing herself to the other zen people in the room, she's mad at her thoughts that rise to the surface. It's an interesting scene, but an anxiety-ridden one, too. 

I've got to tell you: Even though I love the book, that scene has always bothered me.

You know why? Because it scared me away from meditating for a long time. I wonder, given that practically a gazillion people read that book, if it scared other people away, too. 

I get that Gilbert was trying (and succeeding) to be honest and funny; plenty of people who've struggled to meditate could likely relate to her experience. But for those of us (raises hand!) who were brand new to the practice, it was intimidating. I was left with this overwhelming feeling: Well, if this famous, amazing, world-traveling writer can't do it, there's no way in hell that I can. 

Since then I'm sad to say that I've lived a meditation-free life -- until very recently. Pema Chodron is really big on the practice and so I summed up the courage to try it. 

In When Things Fall Apart, Chodron gives detailed instructions about how to position the body during meditation. One day if I get it together I may actually follow these. But for this first time my goal was simply to be quiet and still. The 15 minutes before my hot yoga class seemed like the perfect opportunity: If you've ever taken a hot yoga class, you'll agree that there's not too much the body can handle when that punishing heat is baring down save for being quiet and still (and sweaty).

I lay there on my mat, eyes and palms open, and cleared my mind. I was actually curious and excited to see which thoughts would arise. It's like those silly but revealing quizzes you always run into online: Which Mad Men character are you? (Don.) Is it love or lust? (Lust, definitely.)Which of the many thoughts floating around in your skull or going to make an appearance this afternoon?

I really don't want to admit my first thought, but I'm supposed to be open and honest here. It was something along the lines of: Yay! I'm finally meditating! I'm just like Julia Roberts!

Then, I started feeling a little lonely and wished that my friend Sally, who sometimes comes, was there next to me. That was harmless enough at first, but then it gave way to anxiety about having not met enough friends since moving to New York.

Then, out of nowhere, this thought bubbled to the surface: What if I never become a successful writer? What if no one ever reads my work? Or what if they do, and they think I'm a hack?

Yikes! I had no idea this meditation stuff would be so painful.

But here's the thing about it: Just because a thought arises in meditation doesn't mean you should judge it or dwell on it. After all, they're just thoughts -- nothing more. Rather, according to Chodron, you're supposed to acknowledge then and then let them go. It's supposed to be practice for real life: We're always going to have thoughts, and some are going to be negative. Instead of letting them consume us, we need to to simply accept that they're there and then move along.

And that's, er, sort of what I tried to do before hot yoga. True, I was a little alarmed and ashamed by what rose to the surface (Julia Roberts, seriously?). But I tried to relax and instead simply be interested about where my mind ran to when I emptied it out.

I was definitely relieved when class finally started. But I'm not scared of meditation any longer.

ms. negative

I'm going to take a break from our regularly scheduled program to direct your attention to a recent article in the New York Times, "The Power of Negative Thinking," by Oliver Burkeman.

In it, he suggests that positive thinking may be more problematic than it's worth. This practice encourages the thinker to ignore or deaden sadness, fear, pain, anxiety, guilt (insert other negative feeling or situation here) when they arise. But this approach renders her completely ill-prepared to deal with these unpleasantries when they inevittable do occur. Wouldn't it be more productive instead to be open to negativity, get in the habit of relaxing when it presents itself, and attempt to learn something about ourselves in the process?

Then we'd be ready for whatever life throws at us! (That last little bit isn't exactly Burkeman; it's more like me getting a little carried away.)

Speaking of feelings, I had a really strong one after reading his piece. It was:

Complete and utter RELIEF.

That's because, if I were to make a list of my talents, the ability to think positively on a consistent basis wouldn't be at the tippy-top. I'm not saying I walk around like Joe Btfsplk. Not at all.

But I do have moments, hours, sometimes even a whole day or two where I find the negative feelings to be overwhelming. Instead of trying to focus on the positive or replace them with good feelings, I just try to ride them out. And I've always been a little worried that this meant there was something wrong with me, because I couldn't just "think" them away.

I think that's why I've had such a strong connection to When Things Fall Apart. Instead of trying to numb the negativity or run away from it, she encourages us to sit with it, relax in the chaos and uncomfortableness, and learn not to panic. There's always going to be bad times, isn't it a good idea to become skilled at tolerating them instead of pretending like they don't exist?