Have you ever had the creeping suspicion that if you were genuinely left to your own devices you might turn out to be a terrible person or maybe so unmotivated that you’d never do anything ever again? Maybe it’s just me. (It’s not.) The assumption that my core impulses are wrong is baked into my brain in a deep way that makes it a frequent first thought. I can’t log on to a meeting? I must’ve done something wrong. This morning, I was playing Connections while sitting with my husband who was also playing. I got hung up on a pattern where I knew three of the items in a category, and I kept saying the fourth word in my head, but even while I kept coming back to it, I assumed it was wrong. When he finished the entire puzzle, I said what I was stuck on and what I thought it would be. He said, “yeah, right, that’s it, what’s the question?” I realized that even in this small way I assume I’m wrong.
I’ve encountered the assumption of wrongness so many ways recently, in myself, my social life, and my clients. I was meeting with some experts about a potential house maintenance project that we have to do soon, and because this was on my mind, I noticed how the assumption that I’m wrong is also baked into some people’s business model. For instance, after an inspector told us four years ago that we’d probably need to replace our roof in the next five or six years, I’ve kept an eye on it and looked for signs of a problem after big periods of rain or extreme weather. I spoke with two different roofers who said that while it’s time to be saving for it, the roof replacement isn’t urgent.
A third roofing company stopped by unbidden to advertise their services. I talked with the man who stopped by and said we’re in the market for a new roof, but that it isn’t urgent and if he’d like to give me an estimate I’d be happy to consider them. He said that he could see by looking at it that the roof is overdue for replacement. There was part of me that instantly believed him and assumed I was wrong about what I knew. I have compassion for that part of myself for so many reasons, including that I don’t want to mess up something so big about my house or cause other expensive damage, and home repairs are not something that we’ve factored into our budget so they’re always a financial adventure. Anyway, I originally wrote out the whole story of my conversation with this third roofer, but it’s so common that any conversation that includes the question, “is your husband home” is boring at this point. Suffice it to say, I won’t be hiring the roofing company that wants to reinforce my old tendency of making myself wrong. The fact that wrongness is part of my default mode used to feel like additional evidence that I’m not trustworthy, but the more I explore the possibility that I’m not wrong, the more interesting it becomes to practice with other new explanations.
The Wrongness Isn’t For You
Increasingly, I understand that the default sensation that I’m wrong is an echo of the noise of the world we live in, the culture that was made to prioritize the needs of one kind of person who has very little in common with me. The further away we are from the able-bodied, thin, cisgender, heterosexual, white, man, the more the system wasn’t made for you. This means that the sense that you’re not fitting in, for whatever reason, is perfectly natural, even though it’s not your fault.
Doubting yourself is exactly what you’re supposed to do!
The thing is, the assumption of wrongness isn’t wrong either. Having an initial thought that you’re wrong isn’t a new problem to solve, even if you decide to shift how you’re responding to that automatic thought. The first step is to allow this first reaction to be itself without layering on additional judgments about what I’d like it to become. Instead, applying curious awareness, which I strengthen each time I engage in mindfulness practice, allows new neural pathways to emerge with practice and over time. One new idea that has emerged from this process for me is a belief that I first discovered when I started shifting away from diet culture. As I clarified my values and began thinking deeply about the relationships people have with their bodies, I thought “I believe all people are fundamentally worthy of human dignity.” That thought inspired a more personal one, “I want to believe that I am inherently worthy,” and eventually knowing that wish for myself made room for it to emerge as the truth.
What if your body isn’t wrong either?
Despite what you may have learned in school, at home, and in the world, what if your body is not a problem to be solved because it is not wrong? If your body is not too tall, too short, too dark, too light, too bumpy, too sick, too young or too old, how would you describe what it is? These external comparisons to some “ideal” other are not how the body works, even though our minds are inclined to get caught in this sort of comparison. It doesn’t help that there is always someone on the internet ready to tell you what’s wrong with everything about you, from your pore size to the shape of your features. I have been working on writing a new version of the story of my own assumed wrongness with regards to my body for the last decade, and ahead of a recent doctor’s appointment, a new understanding emerged.
I sat in meditation before I left for my pre-appointment blood work, trying to access some stillness or calm at the center of myself before going to the doctor's office, where I often feel stirred up. We are in the midst of yet another crescendo of anti-fatness on both social and mainstream media and as usual I have found myself wondering how to be maximally convincing about fat-positivity. My inner-defender, my most self-protective voice, was running through all of the evidence I’ve encountered about the harm of weight stigma as I prepared to go to the doctor's office. I noticed that something that doesn't need reinforcement from anyone else to be convincing is a simple truth that I know about my body. I know that treating my body like a problem is stressful. I know that this particular stress has been overwhelming quite often in my life. I know that at the doctor's office my body is often treated like a problem. I decided in that moment that I am no longer participating in that treatment. That is a line I can draw. I am not taking on the stress of acting like my body is the problem anymore. I wasn't sure how that would look in practice but I knew that it was true.
When I was called back by the phlebotomist, I smiled with my eyes and tried to be friendly. My default mode of fawning to be likable at the doctor's office kicked in but my new boundary didn't change. When I sat down and removed my sweater and extended my arm, making a fist tight as possible, I knew that she couldn't feel my veins. I remembered the way that this has happened so many times before. Instead of making a joke about my body or talking about how it's always hard to find my veins, I didn't say anything because my body is not a problem. My veins have always been deep, regardless of my size, whether I was thinner or fatter than I am now. It has always been true. My body is not the problem.
I knew what would come next before it happened. I have often been told that if I drink more water before I have my blood drawn it will make my veins plump up and be easier to find. I drank more water in the 36 hours before my appointment than most people drink all week. When she asked if I had drunk water, I responded, “I sure did.”
The thing is, she's not necessarily wrong either. She was probably encountering a situation where she doubted her ability to do her job well. Maybe I represent a situation that could get her in trouble. Maybe it's anti-fatness, but maybe it's a hundred other things. The point is, it doesn't matter. The point is, for many concrete reasons, I have been habituated to blame my body for all kinds of things. My body is not the problem, regardless of my health status or what issues may arise. My body might have a problem, and if that's the case, we should work together to solve it. But my body is not the problem.
Stories Vary, But Some Things Stay True
Your inner-critic may not tell this story of fundamental wrongness. Maybe your inner-critic tells you that you’re too much, or that you’ll never fit in or that you aren’t living up to your potential. Also, not everyone has an inner-critic, but most of us do. Most of us have some version of this harsh inner-voice that interrupts daily life in one way or another by making us feel unwelcome or ill at ease. Once we notice it we can choose to work with it and make our lives more hospitable to our wholeness. While there can be a great benefit in understanding how that inner-voice is trying to keep us safe from the dangers of the world, it can also be helpful to simply invest time and attention in strengthening a more supportive inner-voice.
Self-Compassion Is An Antidote
The particular variety of mindfulness that I practice and teach, where we begin with compassion, is designed to work with the reality of the inner-critic by priming the mind for compassion. Beginning with compassion can create enough momentum of kind attention to withstand the resistance or judgment that the inner-critic may contribute to the experience. Compassion is classically defined as the quivering of the heart when it sees pain. When we allow ourselves to know and name the difficulty of being a person, we point ourselves towards possibility. When we allow our hearts to be open and quivering in response to our own pain without needing to justify it or earn our own care, we are making a powerful contribution to peace in ourselves and the world.
Mindfulness and compassion are practices we develop in ourselves, but they are for the benefit of others who encounter us in the course of daily life. It is my hope that whatever goodness we stir up together in this space goes on to be a blessing in your life, your community, and the world. If this letter was helpful to you, pass it on to someone else and let’s see what ripples we can make together!
If you want to put these ideas into practice, join my free community care meditation practice group! We meditate in community for 15 minutes every Wednesday at 12 EST on Zoom. It’s free, and you’re welcome to join!
This week’s poem was shared by a teacher during my silent retreat last week. It is called Keeping Quiet, by Pablo Neruda.
Keeping Quiet Pablo Neruda Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still for once on the face of the earth, let's not speak in any language; let's stop for a second, and not move our arms so much. It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines; we would all be together in a sudden strangeness. Fishermen in the cold sea would not harm whales and the man gathering salt would not look at his hurt hands. Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire, victories with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade, doing nothing. What I want should not be confused with total inactivity. Life is what it is about... If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. Now I'll count up to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go. Extravagaria : A Bilingual Edition by Pablo Neruda (Author), Alastair Reid (Translator) Noonday Press; Bilingual edition (January 2001)