Original title: In Search Of Direction At Whole Life Expo. My This Week Magazine column. November 21, 1990.
I admit it. I went to the recent WHOLE LIFE EXPO at the new Convention Center wholly prepared to trash the thing. The Expo, I mean.
I like the convention facility, probably the only one in the country across the street from a day-care center. Other cities get hotels, we get the Rainbow Pre-School. How Oregon.
Some people believe the Expo is one of those affairs that happens when you meld a high school science fair with Saturday Market.
One bug-eyed man was selling SUPER Oxygenation. Seems to me, if you can spell it, you’re fine. “Drink Oxygen Molecules Suspended in Water,” Don’t Die Before You’re Dead,” a couple signs said. “We Make No Medical Claims,” another warns.
An attractive woman sensed my interest in an entirely natural food supplement that – when added to one’s daily diet – will transform the faithful user into a tall Tom Cruise. Or, your money back. She took one look at me and saw my potential as a distributor. “Would you like to make an extra $1,800 a month?” she asked.
Wouldn’t be extra, I told her.
Clairvoyant psychic Ken Williams offered me a FREE HUG. How did he ever know that was just what I needed?
At the I’m Really Together, You Look At Loose Ends booth, they were selling affirmation bumper stickers for RVs. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing” – Helen Keller; “It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.” – e.e.cummings.
Looking for courage, I strolled into Alyce Cornyn-Selby’s SELF-SABOTAGE AND CREATIVE PROCRASTINATION booth. I was late and she looked likie Sally Raphael. On the lapel of a red suit, she wore a button. “I do whatever the little voices tell me to do.” She held a photo of herself taken years ago at San Simeon. Weighing over two hundred pounds (200 lbs.) she managed to block out the castle. She lost lost one hundred pounds (100 lbs.) and she’s kept it off for ten years by following her own advice.
“Self-sabotage is when we say we want something and then go about doing whatever it takes not to make it happen,” Cornyn-Selby explained. “You cannot succeed until you deal with self-sabotage.” There are enough obstacles without creating new ones ourselves. I have seen the enemy and it’s me.
According to Cornyn-Selby, each of us hears inner voices, each of us has internal managers. “We all have internal P.R. directors responsible for keeping us looking hip, slick and cool.” They determine how we present ourselves in public. We all have internal financial officers who tell us how to manage our money. All of us – except Victoria Starr perhaps – have an item of clothing in our closet which our P.R. Director won’t let us wear out of the house, but our finance director won’t let us throw away.
Little voices. Cornyn-Selby says that the answer to self-sabotage is to listen to these voices. Become conscious of the messages which direct your life. Listen to yourself and the things you’re saying on the inside. Then create a dialogue.
“In order to change, we have to talk to our internal directors,” said Cornyn-Selby. “If the P.R. man was sitting next to you, what would he say? If your health advisor was in the next chair, what would she say?”
These inner directors are our survival mechanisms and they each think they’re acting in our best interests. The voice in charge of food storage may be keeping you fat so you’re cushioned from insecurity. The executive director of beverage control may have you drinking too much to help you forget the pain.
You see, there are actually benefits to all our actions, even the ones that seem bad for us. Procrastination for example. If a writer doesn’t write a book, no publisher can ever reject it. If we wait until the last minute to meet a deadline, we can blame the slipshod result on unreal expectations. “If I’d just had more time,” we can tell ourselves, “I’m sure I could’ve done a better job. Really.
Unless you can reach some agreement with voices inside you, you can’t change. YOU HAVE TO SUBSTITUTE NEW BEHAVIOR TO PROVIDE THE BENEFIT OF THE PROBLEM YOU’RE TRYING TO SOLVE. If alcohol is your painkiller, find a new medication. If several layers of fatty tissue is protecting you, locate a new shield for your insecurity. Substitute a positive addiction for a negative one.
“Georgia O’Keefe once said, ‘I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life, but I’ve never let that keep me from doing everything I wanted to do,'” Alyce Cornyn-Selby told us. “There’s a voice inside you that knows you can be great and you won’t listen to him. Let him out. Hear what he’s telling you…. Remember, life is short, but it’s wide.”
I make no medical claims, but I haven’t taken a drink since I walked out of there. The book is on the way.
