Your Advice is Killing Me

Last night I talked to a friend who lamented the unsolicited advice others feel entitled to offer. Her family is going through hard times, and there are difficult decisions to be made. But she did not ask for advice. 

 

I told her I’ve learned there’s one consequence of trauma people don’t warn you about: trauma serves as an invitation to others to peer into your life and advise. Most of it is well-meaning. But it quietly robs you of self-efficacy. It can trigger a spiral of dependence and self-doubt. 

 

Over the last decade, my husband died, my best friend died, and I went from a paragon of health to a double-cancer survivor. The hardest part has been an erosion of my sense of self. 

 

In addition to the Big Things – the death and disease – there were more insidious ways I felt my agency ebb. Complicated relationships. Giving up my work and professional identity to prioritize my children and my health. Moving seven times, not always by choice. Losing confidence that with enough grit, I could overcome all obstacles. 

 

Bedrock pieces of my identity chipped away, eroded by storms beyond my control. And through it all, the voices of concerned friends and family making it hard to hear my own voice. 

 

A few weeks ago I read a New York Times piece titled, “How to Lower Your Child’s Risk for Addiction.” The upshot: Kids need self-efficacy, or a belief in their own ability to succeed, to control or regulate their thoughts and emotions, and to cope with challenges positively. “Self-efficacy is what gives kids a sense of control, agency and hope, even when the world around them feels out of control.”

 

Right, I thought, of course. We all need self-efficacy – especially when the world around us feels out of control. Because truthfully, there is very little within our locus of control. Disease blossoms unbidden in our cells, death stalks us unwitting. The world continues to spin on its axis, indifferent to our joys and our suffering. 

 

Shortly before John died, he and I attended a marriage workshop with a visiting rabbi and his spouse. Their message was simple and emphatic: It’s not what your partner does or says, it’s not about money or dishes or messes or the kids. It’s not about externalities, they insisted: a healthy relationship springs from within, from a constant and conscious self-renewal of love, forgiveness, and generosity. And so it is with everything. Perception is reality. 

 

Needless to say, John “Find Your Inner Smile” Caouette fairly gloated. He’d been arguing this point with me for years. 

 

There are limits, of course, to this thesis. Sometimes my inner frown has real rage to express. But the only way to ensure joy in this life is to create it. 

 

Self-efficacy is not, in the end, about what we actually control. It’s a belief. Once we begin to believe we have control, we create it, no matter how small. The question is, what do we do with that kernel of freedom, that fiefdom within, that is entirely ours? 

 

The other day, as I walked through the sun-snow I enumerated the things I control: 

 

What I eat and drink. 

When I eat and drink. 

How much I get outside. 

How much I move my body. 

How much love and kindness I give to others. 

Where I put my energy. 

What I read. 

What I write. 

How I talk to my children and others I love. 

What I choose to believe about myself. 

What I tell myself. 

 

In short: Everything that matters. 

 

In sixth grade we read Le Petit Princein French class. I loved the mellifluous sound of the words, the magic of those sounds morphing into meaning as I gained fluency. “Il faut arracher son jardin.” The imprint remains in my brainstem, along with an image of a lone figure watering a small plant on the edge of a planet. 

 

One must tend one’s garden. There is always something to be cultivated, and in the act of nurture, we create. In the act of giving, we assert agency. In growing things, we grow. 

 

Sometimes the best gift we can give others is to enable them to give, to create, to discover their own strength. And the best advice we can give others may be to say: Listen to your inner voice. You know yourself best: trust yourself.

 

Alder getting ready to drop into Icy Gulch behind Gold Ridge yesterday

Sunset skin up Eaglecrest's frozen wasteland 

The joys of a good pallet fire

Eaglecrest threw me a birthday party on closing day

I can't get enough of the beauty of the world