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Monday, August 6, 2012

The Downside of Positive Thinking



Compulsive positivity à la Rhonda Byrne (The Secret) is a big fat downer, argues Barbara Ehrenreich (Bright-Sided)  
By ANNA OLSON 
Rhonda Byrne could be called the “queen of positive thinking,” with sales of The Secret (DVD and book), The Power, and now The Magic reaching into the stratosphere, making Byrne one wealthy woman.    
The Secret (Simon & Schuster, 2006) started the gravy train rolling. Claiming to have discovered an age-old secret, the law of attraction, it hooked millions with its "yes you can;  think positive and the world is yours" mantra. 
The law of attraction says that like attracts like. If you think positive thoughts, you’ll attract positive people, abundance and power. Vice versa for negative thoughts.
The Power (Atria Books, 2010) came along to tell us about the power of love. Each page beautifully ornamented, it exudes love and happiness, success and fulfillment, power and glory. Still aligned with the law of attraction, Byrne emphasizes that love is everything, the be all and end all, the alpha and omega, the one emotion (real or forced) that will get you everything you want.
“Without exception, every person who has a great life used love to achieve it. The power to have all the positive and good things in life is love!” Byrne’s definition of a great life is having "power over your health, your wealth, your career, your relationships, and every area of your life.” 
It all starts with imagination, Byrne says. “History has proven that those who dare to imagine the impossible are the ones who break all human limitations.” She says we need to imagine what we want, picture it in our minds in detail; then feel love for what we’re imagining. We must see ourselves mentally receive the item, person or position, pretending that we already have what we desire and “never deviate from that state of being.”
Now we are graced with The Magic (Atria Books, 2012). Byrne has rewritten a passage from the Gospel of Matthew to include gratitude.
"Whoever has gratitude will be given more, and he or she will have an abundance. Whoever does not have gratitude, even what he or she has will be taken from him or her."
What sets The Magic apart from The Secret and The Power, is the inclusion of 28 days of exercises to get you going on the road to success. You'll learn to be grateful for what you have now and in the past (12 days), for what you want in the future (10 days), and for your ability to help others, dissolve problems and improve any negative situation (6 days).

If you are a business owner, take note that the value of your business will increase or decrease according to your gratitude. According to Byrne, "It is when business owners stop being grateful and replace gratitude with worry that their business spirals downward." 

Fantasize or analyze – or both
You can read the gospel according to Rhonda Byrne in two ways. The first way is to pretend the books are fairy tales. Float through the words, letting images spark your imagination or highlight a problem area in your life. Does anything inspire you? Anything you feel like trying? How can you give and receive more love? Can you increase your attitude of gratitude?
The second way is to take a critical look at Byrne's concepts – and at Byrne herself. 
Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks, two experts who were originally part of The Secret film, clashed with Byrne when they asked that two cautions be included. The first one, Gay recounted in a Huffington Post blog, is that “unless you combine the law of attraction with impeccable integrity, you can attract a peck of troubles along with anything positive that comes your way.” The Hendrickses also wanted to point out the “upper limit problem,” which Gay describes as “the tendency to sabotage yourself when you experience a rapid upsurge in success.” Why, you may ask? “If you haven't built a solid foundation of integrity under you,” Gay explains, “a rapid upturn in your fortunes can bring forth old self-esteem issues that cause you to bring yourself back down to your more familiar lower level of success.”
At one point, the Hendrickses realized that Byrne did not want anything negative in The Secret; it was to be a totally positive cheerleading effort with no pitfalls acknowledged. Asking that their interview footage not be used in the DVD, the Hendrickses bowed out.
Validating the “peck of troubles” concept, Drew Herriot (director of The Secret) and Dan Hollings (The Secret's Internet marketing guru) sued Byrne for breach of a verbal contract when she refused to share the mega profits of The Secret (one source suggests $300,000,000 in sales in the first nine months). Although Herriot lost his court case, Hollings settled out of court. 
It's a puzzle: Byrne has refused media requests for interviews about The Power and The Magic. Could it be she doesn’t want to deal with questions about The Secret lawsuits?  
Nor has Byrne commented on these lawsuits – at least nothing I've been able to find. But in The Power, she claims: “If you feel you have done something that wasn’t right, understand that your realization and acceptance of it is absolution for the law of attraction.” Some would argue that apologizing and making amends would be a more sincere way of redressing a wrong.
Also problematic is that Byrne appears to be using the law of attraction to encourage consumerism. Her emphasis is on having everything you want, rather than focusing on character development or learning to live simply. In The Power, she maintains “there is no lack anywhere in the universe.” Those who worry about vanishing species or diminishing resources are worrying needlessly. According to Byrne, “Quantum physics tell [sic] us there are infinite planet Earths and infinite universes that exist, and we move from one reality of planet Earth and a universe to another, every fraction of a second. This is the real world emerging through science.” This dubious take on quantum physics is Byrne's proof we can consume all we want.    
“Bright-Sided” shows the dark side of positive thinking 
In Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America (Picador, 2009), we learn that respected intellectual Barbara Ehrenreich, an author with 16 books to her credit, had a jarringly personal introduction to the world of positive thinking. During a routine check-up, her doctor found a lump in her breast that proved to be malignant. Ehrenreich descended into a maelstrom of panic, confusion and painful medical procedures. Not trusting alternative medicine, she surrendered to the mainstream modalities of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. 

To her surprise, Ehrenreich found that “not everyone views the disease with horror and dread.” Instead, positive thinking and acquiring the pink-ribboned accessories were de rigueur. She noted that there was very little anger, no discussion of possible environmental causes and no criticism of painful treatments. “Positive thinking seems to be mandatory in the breast cancer world,” Ehrenreich notes, “to the point that unhappiness requires a kind of apology.” 

As an experiment, Ehrenreich posted on a cancer message board under the heading "Angry." In it, she complained about the debilitating effects of chemotherapy, recalcitrant insurance companies, environmental carcinogens and the "sappy pink ribbons." She received "mostly a chorus of rebukes."

Trust Ehrenreich not to swallow this positivity pressure without fighting back. She threw herself into learning the history and ramifications of what she calls the “virus” of positive thinking. The result is an eye-opening treatise that will leave the reader in awe of the damage that can be done by a philosophy that on the surface appears as wholesome as a scrubbed and smiling child.


From positivity bubbles to empathy deficits  

Let’s start with the housing bubble in the U.S. with its  resultant stock market crash and worldwide recession. Ehrenreich details how the once sober financial sector hired motivational speakers and coaches to fire up management and employees. Exuberance was rewarded, caution discouraged. One financial expert said, “Anybody who voiced negativity was thrown out.” Some finance companies assumed daredevil debt-to-asset ratios of 30 to 1 in their underwriting of subprime mortgages, confident that positive thinking would keep them afloat. 

“Pumped up by paid motivators and divinely inspired CEOs,” says Ehrenreich, “American business entered the midyears of the decade [2000s] at a manic peak of delusional expectations, extending to the highest levels of leadership.” One financial expert told Ehrenreich that the idea that you can control the world with your thoughts went “viral” in corporate America.

Ehrenreich cites political historian Kevin Phillips, author of Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, making a clear connection between positive-thinking euphoria and the subprime mortgage crisis. Philips “indicts prosperity preachers Osteen, T.D. James, and Credo Dollar, along with The Secret author Rhonda Byrne.” Another writer blames religious preachers who helped low-income people fool themselves into believing “God caused the bank to ignore my credit score and bless me with my first house.”

According to Ehrenreich, one danger of compulsive positivity is an “empathy deficit.”  As an example, she quotes Byrne’s callous response to hearing about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed over 200,000 people: “Citing the law of attraction, [Byrne] stated that disasters like tsunamis can happen only to people who are ‘on the same frequency as the event.’” 

One of the dictums of positive thinking is to rid your life of negative people. Even if the other person may be going through a rough patch and need a helping hand – out they go. Or the negativity could be in a child, co-worker or boss – someone difficult to eject, Ehrenreich points out.

She gives very little advice in Bright-Sided, but here, Ehrenreich responds to the delete-negative-people attitude: “The challenge of family life, or group life of any kind, is to keep gauging the moods of others, accommodating to their insights, and offering comfort when needed.” 

On the subject of manipulative positive thinking in general, Ehrenreich offers a down-to-earth alternative: “One could think of other possible means of self-improvement – through education, for example, to acquire new ‘hard’ skills, or by working for social changes that would benefit all.”

                         * * *** * *

Positive thinking and the law of attraction are valid concepts, and understanding them can enhance our lives. But if the principles are used for selfish reasons or to manipulate others, damage can occur, lives can be hurt. 

I agree with Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks about the "upper limit problem" pulling us down when we attempt to force our thoughts to be strictly positive. Results may appear successful at first, but the underlying resistance usually rears up to sabotage us. I think positive thinking efforts should be balanced with an attempt to be squeaky-clean ethical – and to deal with negative feelings and attitudes, rather than just repressing them with forced positivity.

It’s a fascinating juxtaposition: the sweet, delicious fantasy of Rhonda Byrne’s “change your thinking, change your life” versus Barbara Ehrenreich’s sober “face your reality and deal with it." The Secret/The Power/The Magic – and Bright-Sided; they are worlds apart. Compare and enjoy the contrast. 

Anna Olson (annols@mts.net) is a Winnipeg freelance writer and editor. 

    















John of God (and I) Visit Toronto


By Anna Olson

It wasn’t my idea to go to the John of God event in Toronto, the middle of March of 2013. The push to go started when I was having a Craniosacral Therapy session with Tanis, my therapist for four years. I have a spirit guide who often appears to add her energy and to give messages for me. This time, she told Tanis to tell me about John of God.
When I got home, I looked him up on the Internet and found that the 68-year-old Brazilian healer (spirit entities work through him) was going to be in Toronto, March 15 to 17. Too bad, I thought. I can’t go because I’ll be speaking at a conference that weekend.
Then I looked up the conference website and found the speaker page. There I was, my picture and my write-up. As I read my blurb, the type gradually melted off the screen until there was nothing left but my picture. What?! I scrolled up and everyone else’s material was there. I scrolled down and ditto. Back to my spot there’s my picture but no write-up. Oh, I think I’m supposed to go to Toronto, was my painful realization.
I wrestled with the decision for two days. I was keen on talking at the conference, already planning my speech, and I was annoyed at this interference in my life. But what won out was the appreciation for the spirit guidance I have had in the past. I have learned to trust that good things happen when I follow it, often life-changing in the affirmative. So I phoned the organizer of the conference to explain my dilemma, and scrambled to get ready for TO.
The Metro Toronto Convention Centre 
You can spot the John of God attendees; they are a moving sea of white because the organizers asked everyone to dress in white. Some women are dressed in layers of filmy white: billowing skirts, lacy shawls and white shoes. The “fancy” men are in Nehru-type shirts and white slacks. These are people who enjoy dressing up and like the challenge of doing it in all white. Others have a “cobbled together” look (my type). It’s as if they’re saying, “I’m not spending any more money. This is what I have in my closet and it will have to do.” Some are rebels, wearing cream and beige, as if that’s close enough to white. One fellow had on a cream-with-black-stripes pullover. Those black stripes really stood out. No one else rebelled to that extent.
I was tempted to wear a silky purple tank top under a white blouse with white slacks but I didn’t have the nerve. It was an interesting exercise deciding what to wear: do I dare rebel against the wear-white order or do I submit to authority and wear what they tell me to? I submitted – but my runners were gray with purple laces. That was my way of asserting myself against the demands of conformity!
I guessed about 90% women, some men and a few children. Many canes, a few in wheelchairs. No one on a stretcher. Most looked like white, middle class “walking well.” But it’s hard to tell what anguish lay beneath the placid exteriors. 
There were drawings of the Entity helpers tacked to the front wall of the room. (Capital E is used for the Entities, the spirits who work through John of God. He goes into a trance and the Entities perform the medical procedures: physical surgery at his clinic in Brazil, psychic surgery everywhere else.) A wooden triangle (each side about two feet) graced the front as well, with a big basket on the floor beside it for written wishes. People lined up to interact with this “wailing triangle” (as I called it), to ask for help with their own and others’ health or emotional problems. They would lean their heads against the middle of the triangle, hands on the sides. We were encouraged to bring pictures of loved ones so that they could receive help as well.
John of God (I don’t know if others called him that and it stuck, or he chose the moniker) came up on the podium to speak. He was unintelligible as far as I was concerned. His heavy Portuguese accent made every third or fourth word a blur. Other speakers came through more clearly. One woman got us chanting his name plus “tulo bono” (or something like that) to raise our excitement level. It was like a New Age revival meeting with the purity garb and high hopes for a cure for what ails us. Just before the Entities worked on us, we held hands and said the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary Full of Grace.
Someone had a bottle of essential oil and wafted through the crowd with it.
We were supposed to buy a case of 12 2-litre bottles of water (the label had John of God’s picture on it) to help us with our recovery ($36 per case). The Entities would bless it at the point of sale so that the blessing was special for each of us. I refrained because I didn’t have a means of carrying it.
For eight days after the intervention we were supposed to rest as much as possible. No spicy food like peppers (black peppercorn and chili peppers), no alcohol, no fertilized eggs, and no heavy lifting. Also, we were warned against psychic readings and energy work for eight days. No sex for 40 days! A woman complained to me that she had just started dating a guy and didn’t like that restriction. We were given blessed soup and a sandwich (unblessed) before we were sent off to rest.
My criticism: why weren’t we told no sugar? Sugar pulls down the immune system as much as alcohol.
Our psychic stitches would be removed in seven days, we were told. We’re to wear white to bed, pray to have the stitches removed, put a cup of the blessed water next to our bed, and in the morning drink the water.
My reaction: My skeptical mind had a lot of fun poking holes in the routine. But I trusted the spirit guide who asked me to be there so I tried to keep an open mind.
At the event, I asked for help dealing with a sore on my face that could be cancerous. Maybe there’s a deep root that needs pulling out. My spirit guide wanted me to have surgery here in Winnipeg but I refused. I didn’t believe the surgeon would get it all, and I didn’t want a hole in my face. Refusing surgery is the only suggestion from her I have nixed. But I was willing to travel 1,300 miles and pay $1,500 for the trip (includes the $188 ticket for one day at the event) to have psychic surgery. Go figure! I could have stayed home and had physical surgery for free. So far (three weeks later), it looks like the sore is clearing up.
The trip as a whole was worthwhile. I saw relatives and friends in the “far east,” and I met interesting people on the train. Adam (from Australia) and I had a great talk about the damage cane toads are wreaking there. The toads were brought in to eat the cane beetles but the sugar cane heads where the beetles live were too high for the toads to get at. So now Australia has a problem with the proliferating toads and the beetles as well.
I also met an interesting man from Seattle who used to be an engineer on freight trains. The glass at the front of the train is bulletproof, I learned. Also, counseling is now available for engineers after the train hits animals, people, and various vehicles. “You didn’t cause the accident,” engineers are told. “You have witnessed one.”
So, is John of God a true healer or a charlatan? Perhaps I should declare my bias: first, I would not have gone had not my spirit guide suggested it. The event was too big for my taste, handling a few thousand people each day. One helper told me that if all the tickets sold, there would be 12,000 people put through in three days.
Second, I am inclined to believe in the possibility of spiritual healing. I am familiar with therapies like Reiki where energy is directed to problem areas of the body and often effects a cure. Also, I benefit from Craniosacral Therapy, a form of energy healing. I also believe in spirit entities wanting to help people on earth.
The success of this event is hard to assess. On the positive side, it looks like this John of God “business” has grown gradually over the years. As John says, “You can fool people for a year or two, but not for 35 years.” In the beginning, doctors and politicians in Brazil tried to shut him down for practicing medicine without a license but he’s still going strong. One article on the ‘net says his methods helped a number of high-ranking officials who then supported his work and protected him from the critics.
Another aspect to admire is the number of volunteers willing to help organize and oversee such a huge event. To be accepted as volunteers, they need to have been to John of God’s clinic in Abadiania, Brazil. There must have been over a hundred workers willing to give their time and energy free of charge. They were all well dressed (in white, of course), calm and smiling in their duties. The whole event was well organized if my experience was any indication.
On the negative side, it’s hard to assess the success of whatever medical procedures were done as people disperse after the event is over. We were told to allow 40 days before deciding whether the intervention was successful or not. How do you contact thousands of people to judge the rate of healing? (You can browse the Internet for articles for and against. Pro: An Oprah staff person investigated and was helped to overcome her deep grief about her father’s death. Con: One woman states she was assaulted at the clinic in Brazil, in that she was operated on physically without her consent, and later developed an infection.)

My inclination is to accept that John of God and the Entities must be doing something right for this high level of public interest to continue for so many years.


Anna Olson is a Winnipeg freelance writer and editor. You can reach her at annols@mts.net. Check out more articles at www.annaolsononline.blogspot.com