giving self help books a bad name
So I picked up a few books which fall into the category ’self help’, lent to me over the last several months. You know, now that I think of it I haven’t read a book that I’ve gotten a lot out of that fits solely in the ’self help’ category. As I wrote this title I had in mind many of the books in which I have found a lot of useful perspective, but now that I think more about it, pretty much all of those would be categorized primarily under another label, such as metaphysics, psychology, spirituality.
So what’s the difference? It seems the difference is that with books that are most helpful and interesting, the information was presented either objectively, as in data presented and perspectives of said data explored, OR the information was clearly qualified with the author’s statement: here are some of my experiences.
What about examples of ’self help’ books (of the first type)? Well, not to pick on only 2 authors, but just what I picked up recently were ‘The New Earth’ by Eckhardt Tolle and ‘You Can Heal Your Life’ by Louise Hay.
As for ‘The New Earth’, I found some parallels with some of my own perspectives on ego, mainly collective egoic entities, but really found it hard to want to read on when he goes on about ‘mind’ almost synonymously with ‘ego’ –and even the whole demonizing ego spiel gets quite old. Granted, perhaps these exercises in ‘what is ego’ or ‘the pros/cons of ego’ could be very helpful to someone wanting to explore those notions and aspects of themselves, but again, I can’t help but notice that more objective works on psychology would be….. errr more objective. The ones Tolle dishes out seem connected to many ’should’ implications, as in a healthy person should be like this or that, and it’s not healthy to [generalized statement about the 'bad' aspects of ego].
Then with ‘You Can Heal Your Life’, the author makes a point of talking about how should statements are the most potentially damaging because they’re basically a way of saying we ‘have been wrong, are wrong, or are about to be wrong’. Interesting, considering that, to me, the vast majority of the little snippets and chapters of this book are precisely that: ideas of what you and I should be like and think like, if we are to be happy and healthy. This book is quite beautifully illustrated and each page has bright, vibrant colors. Much thought has been put into illustration and typography –the aesthetic presentation. Such that one wonders how much conscious thought was put toward how they would sell the textual information, regardless of the value of said information.
One idea found in many self help books that really irks me because of how it’s portrayed in such extreme ways, is the concept of everything in life manifesting from our thoughts and beliefs. Hear me out. Actually, I have found this to be true, and do believe this. Yet the ways some authors present this is, IMHO, not true, and a disservice to their readers.
Let’s choose a tough one for our example. For example, let’s say that someone is persecuted and tortured. This person has done nothing to warrant negative attention, he/she has been for the most part a kind person who believes in the kindness of his/her fellow human beings. By the logic of many of the extreme self help / law of attraction gurus, the persecution and torture of this person, happened because one of a few possible things were present: 1) negative beliefs about one’s experiences and fellow beings (i.e: they’re all out to get me), or 2) This is just something he/she needed to learn.
My point of contention and something I’d like to clear up, as found in my own experiences, is that there is a vast difference between the connotations of ’something they needed to learn’ and ’something they wanted to learn’.
The first one implies that it is some kind of punishment for a shortcoming left too long unchecked. This version of seeing life’s experiences as opportunities to learn is what I’ve found too often in self-help books. For someone adequately personally responsible, trying to look at life’s hardest experiences with this lens in place, makes little sense, tends to cause self doubt and, basically, makes the painful experience that much more painful.
The second version: ’something they wanted to learn’, is more accurate and useful. I believe this is more accurate because there are infinite possibilities when it comes to existence and experiences, also, whichever lens helps us gather more meaningful perspective is generally the ‘right’ one to use. Using our example again, perhaps the person in question set out to gather experience in compassion. Maybe she/he had been here and experienced what life as a compassionate person was like. The person gained insight, yet the curiosity and yearning for a deeper understanding of compassion created a desire to experience something akin to a ‘more advanced lesson in compassion’. What better way to understand compassion than to attempt empathy with those who show little in the way of compassion themselves.
In short, experience is additive, there is no reduction, and so likewise, there is no need to try and ‘remove’ past negative experiences, nor is there a need for anyone to be punished for past negative behavior. As far as the idea of punishment for great misdeeds (think Hitler, etc), I think that such nefarious chains of experience equate to, essentially, a lop-sided set of experiences. Eventually, in order to progress, a person who has committed heinously malicious deeds would probably become more and more inclined to experience a ’rounding out’ set of experiences which would seemingly include experiences on the ‘other side of the fence’ from that of ‘evildoer’. Whether that means experiencing some of the same things he/she acted out upon others firsthand, as the receiver, or some other perspective of similar negative actions… I’m sure this is more complex than eye-for-an-eye and unique to the given person and their set of experiences.
To self-help authors, dude, at least throw in a ‘it seems to me’ or ’speaking from my own perspective’ or ‘I’ve found in my own experiences’… EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE. I mean some people take your shit seriously and without a grain of salt –then again, for those of you lacking these qualifiers, these ’seekers’ are your target audience, in which case you’re right up there with fundamentalist religion.