Only YOU Can Prevent Feels
On breastfeeding and personal responsibility.
I am having a time of polarity on social media-once again. Every time this happens, it becomes more clear to me who my tribe is. Thank you for those who see me and shine a bright light on the value of personal responsibility and health freedom world wide!
You are either in favor of personal responsibility or you are not.
Today, it’s the “mommy wars” front and center. As one spokesperson for sovereign parenting, I have a lot to say on this issue. The mommy wars were an invention by big pharma and big agriculture to take advantage of the vulnerability of a few women who can’t breastfeed or give natural birth, and tell them anyone who promotes breastfeeding or natural birth is insensitive to their feelings.
As a result, every post regarding the many benefits of breast milk or the nutritional excellence and superiority of breast milk must now come with a caveat about how this isn’t meant to target women who cannot breastfeed or that I should share my deepest apologies and condolences to every mother struggling to breastfeed or who never breastfed as the facts of the matter may hurt her feelings.
I had one woman tell me, “I couldn’t breastfeed and the hospital faculty that encouraged me to help me do it was what MADE ME FEEL ASHAMED OF MYSELF, like a failure.”
BULLSHIT.
First, hospitals are in collusion with the formula manufacturers to get you to use formula. They promote it by giving you samples, coupons and ads about formula before you leave. Whatever they do to introduce the idea of breastfeeding to you has been a weak effort by a minority of special interests working tirelessly in the system to fulfill a meager quota. The hospital itself and its staff have zero financial interest in you or your baby’s future health. They profit wholly on the opposite. They are horrible ambassadors for breastfeeding.
Nevertheless, whatever a hospital does to fulfill this quota has nothing to do with directly or indirectly suggesting you are a failure or encouraging you to feel such. In this single endeavor, they are trying to help you nourish your child in the best general way they know how which is currently a critically insufficient system. If it doesn’t work out, they are not to blame for how their efforts in helping you try made you feel. That’s not how this works. If anything, they are responsible for failing you. They should be the ones feeling guilt and shame- not you.
My first birth was intended for home and ended up in a hospital setting with drugs. There’s a great likelihood these drugs and the subsequent interventions and issues lead directly to my oldest son’s autism. I wish I could undo all that. So, I learned what I needed from that experience to not repeat it with my second child. I was more determined to get it right with proper support at home for the next time. None of the information I used to do things better, or suggestions people offered me, no matter if they were right for me personally or not, made me feel bad or worse. Education is empowerment. Knowing you did all you could is empowerment.
Last, and on a very personal note, never say anyone “made you feel” anything to me. When something like that is said in my presence, I will say something in response that will likely “make you feel” a lot worse. If I don’t instantly ridicule you, it’s because I think you are too pathetic to handle what you obviously need to hear.
Of course, no one can MAKE YOU FEEL anything, not me, not anybody. Certainly, people can say things that aren’t helpful. However, your feelings are your responsibility. You control your feelings by controlling your thoughts. If you feel like shit as a direct response to someone’s words, someone you don’t even know their first name, last name, birthdate or favorite color, it’s because you chose thoughts that increased your chances of feeling bad. That’s masochism. No one is responsible for anyone else’s feelings or emotions (absent physical violence) but themselves. Even if someone meant to hurt you verbally, even going out of their way to do so, if you are healthy (and that’s your responsibility as well, as it happens) you are capable as any adult to ignore it or feel sorry for the person with enough mental issues to project their internal ugliness onto others.
But whatever you do, DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN, don’t be like them and project your shit onto more people.
People are making a lot of poor choices lately in taking offense to things that were never even intended offensively.
If I figure out that I am lacking in some area or I feel bad about something I can control, I do something about it. I strengthen my weaknesses. I shore up my vulnerabilities. I educate myself on what I can do, and I take any action I can, putting it on my schedule each Sunday to work on that very thing, daily, weekly or monthly until I have succeeded or found a better way. I devote some effort each week to constructively improve myself in those areas. The result of this effort is that I don’t feel guilty, ashamed or in any way bad about myself, even if it didn’t go according to plan. I turn whatever goal I have into a process goal, and I am glad as long as I am sticking with the process.
Now, if there’s an outcome I can not control, there’s still so much I can do constructively for myself. If something is beyond my ability, I either let it go through tapping, visualization, finding other more suitable and realistic goals, or I start working through my feelings to figure out what is mine to consider. Whatever is happening, you can always control the thoughts you think. Better quality thoughts lead to more constructive action and better quality feelings.
If someone is recommending that people start to jog or take brisk walks, and that hurts your feelings because you are in a wheelchair, you need to come to terms with your current reality. Only after you do, can you have the proper perspective to understand that a runner’s magazine on a shelf at a store is not placed there in order to criticize you or make you feel bad about your specific and exceptional condition. We aren’t going to burn down Men’s Health Magazine, Inc because you are in a wheel chair. Nevertheless, you recognize the benefits of promoting running on behalf of others and the benefits of promoting working out in general in whatever way you are able for yourself. In the moment you come to grips with your situation and feelings, you will be welcoming advice given to others knowing a healthier planet, culturally, is good for all and will benefit you in hundreds of ways directly and indirectly. Costs of health care could go down, for example. If health care is cheaper, people have more money to spend on net positive things. That makes the economy all around better. In the end, your life will be better.
More to the point, if you did not get the support you needed to breastfeed, you might still with effort and ambition get yourself lactating again (if it was a support issue, which I firmly believe is 80% if not more of the people who are unsuccessful their first go around). People in fetish communities with no children do it for a lot less virtuous impetus than the health of an infant. Yes, you may have to heed the recommendations and suggestions of others and find a homemade formula recipe in the interim. But, if those who can provide a little did what they could, there would be more to go around.
Likewise, those of us who even grow just a few items in our gardens, may not end the general food supply shortages. However, if more people did whatever they could, growing tomatoes or herbs on their balconies even, it would be a start to creating a nation with more food security.
Breastfeeding is an important component to food security. Please do what you can to help out.
Being responsible for your feelings is an important component to human sovereignty and ending tyrannical rulers who take advantage of feelings to manipulate the culture in their favor. Please do what you can to help out.