White Lady Spiritualism Will Not Save Us

When affirmations become bromides, it's time to dig deeper

As a writing teacher for a couple of decades now, I can say confidently that I have never seen so clear a flash of recognition in the faces of my students as I did upon using the label, “White Lady Spiritualism”. I hadn’t used the term before, nor had I heard it. I was discouraging them from using popular wellness phrases that have become vague and toothless from overuse. You know them. Phrases like, “working on myself” and its lesser cousin, “be kind to yourself”, “cancer journey”, “taking up space”, “gratitude” within any cluster of other words, and, “No is a complete sentence”. All of which probably belong in a slim volume of bland, spiritual bromides entitled, “I Love that for You”.

I was talking about clichés of course, but to deny that I was making a broader sociological point, would be coy. And I’m too old to be coy. It’s not, as we white folx say, “a good look.” The sociological point being: Do these phrases really lead to care of the self; care of the spirit? Does #grateful under a photo of one’s well-manicured toes with the ocean in the background reflect actual gratitude on the part of the poster? The last time I felt very real heart-exploding gratitude was last week when I found out that the car wasn’t completely totaled and would cost a mere one-thousand dollars to repair. That’s actual gratitude to me. Toes in front of the ocean? At best, contentment.

And “self-care”. Does it simply mean a day at a spa (because God knows, I love a day at the spa!)? Or does it actually mean taking a rigorous and clear-eyed look at all my past screw-ups and a making a plan for how to avoid those same screw-ups in the future? Yes, I’m tipping my hand here. Can we add a little rigor to our pampering? Because I love being kind to myself, but I also desperately need to build spiritual resilience for the road ahead.

Months before the pandemic, I started going to a meditation center in Hollywood. My husband and I were doing OK financially, which is not always a given, and I decided to reward myself with a pricey membership. I don’t know that I was spiritually looking for anything specific, but my world was messy at the time. I was teaching a lot and my kids were pulling away from me in the way that teens do, my parents were getting old and addled and falling over and ending up in the ER frequently, and I was watching Rachel Maddow every evening, drinking too much and yelling at the TV. So I was probably looking for a smidgen of respite, without really challenging myself too much. Because basically, things were just fine.

Of course they weren’t fine. But at the time, the meditation center seemed like the spiritual one-hit I was looking for. I loved it and I walked there almost every day to take guided meditation classes with titles like, “Self-compassion”, “Psychic Guides”, and “Chill the F*)ck Out”. The last one, I would come to find, was emblematic of a marketing stab at making relaxation sound badass – kind of like the CrossFit of breathing.

Over the following months, I sunk into the floaty, tinkly world of the Center. To a one, the instructors were gorgeous. Most were women in the mold of less-done-up reality show contestants. Thin (mostly very thin), long-haired, straight-teethed, with pert breasts that didn’t appear to need ballast. Only two of my instructors were men. One looked like sexy Jesus with a lot of leather bracelets and the other like a marine with a gentle smile juxtaposed by huge tats on his guns, who could also slam you up against a wall and bang the heck out of you. With your consent, of course. My guess is that you were either a Jesus gal or a Marine gal – the Center covered its bases. None of the instructors were old.

The lounge of the Center was decorated with a lot of brass and pillows and candles. All of which gently redirected your thoughts away from fully grasping that it was a shop. I absolutely loved running my fingers over the crystal necklaces and bracelets, spritzing myself with an essential oil, and perusing the really soulful titles of books on enlightenment and nourishment. For the uninitiated, “Nourishment” is a gentler way of saying “diet”. The things you learn! I bought many, many items for “my practice”, including skin cream and a mala with an image of a Hindu Goddess, I forget her name, who looked kinda sexy but also like she really knew her boundaries.

You could also purchase their meditation chairs with adjustable backs. These were so very key because my back tweaked after twenty minutes of sitting still. Which leads me to rigor. Yes, I needed a back to my chair. But after weeks of classes, I noticed more broadly that nothing on offer was remotely demanding or uncomfortable. Other than the prices.

I admit that “White Lady Spiritualism” is a misnomer. And one that I should quickly address. What we’re really talking about here is the confluence of class and privilege that makes one eager to believe that existential dread will be mitigated by simple, unexamined phrases and an unchallenging color palate. And nothing else. Make no mistake; this is what is being sold to you. And it’s a compelling product.

So let’s examine, “Be kind to yourself”. This particular phrase is like the everyone-gets-a-trophy equivalent of White Lady Spiritualism. Let me be the first brave soul to say that there are a ton of people who absolutely should NOT be encouraged to be kind to themselves. But let’s assume here that we aren’t talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene, here, but me – an overworked, arguably societally overlooked woman of a certain age. And since we’re also talking about specificity here, we will dispense with the coyness of a “certain age” and nail it down. Sixty-four.

For years, absolutely years, being kind to myself meant that after working like a beast all day, I would reward myself with a glass of wine or two or three or four. Often with my girlfriends. Often alone. This particular panacea was encouraged by advertising, books, TV, and film – and oh the T-shirts (“It’s Wine O’clock!”). And it worked! I got through Trump’s first term by suppressing my rage and filling up on lots of things that made me feel good in the moment. Including clothing I bought online during the pandemic because holy hell, I deserved it. I was being kind as hell to myself. I remember buying a shirt that said, “Be a better human”. I kid you not. I cringe now at my sanctimony.

Then my parents died, we lost the family home, and my youngest son left for college. Being kind to myself was pretty much dulling me to the point of paralysis -- #grateful, but maybe not so much.

What it took to get me moving again, in forward motion, was rigor. What it took was me being honest with myself, about myself -- which is hugely scary, next-level stuff. I didn’t expect this piece to be about radical honesty, but eventually all roads lead there. Hey, we can do hard things, right?

So the question is, what does being kind to oneself really look like? The gorgeous, very perky and well-meaning teacher of my “Self-Compassion” class instructed me to imagine a golden light emanating from my core and moving up to the top of my head. I loved this part and could really feel a quieting of self-critical thoughts – which are, admittedly, useless. Great, but what do we do with that light when we go out into the world? I’m not kidding here when I say that I’d love a class where we employed the mantra, “I’m an asshole sometimes” and then focused our golden light on how we are going to make it up to the aggrieved party or do it differently next time.

There is a uniquely American thread through all of this; synthesized in the “Power of Positive Thinking” movement of the 1950s, one that strongly influenced Trump. The movement and its many bastard children including every MLM ever, crypto, NXIUM, Scientology, EST, and all the tech bro culture we see out there -- purports to be rigorous, by making it your problem if you let negative thinking in. But it is also a culture that exalts groupthink and glazes over real problems and issues with positive phrases, branding, and a kind of willful blindness to our own culpability or even, subjugation.

As I say this, I fear I’m being harsh, especially to my people: white ladies. After all, we’re all just looking for a bit of comfort and direction in a scary world. And I truly believe that most of us want to be better humans, like my t-shirt said. Maybe there’s room for all of it. The crystals and gongs and facial peels and gentle breathing in a safe, cream-colored space -- along with the kind of self-inquiry that can bring you to your knees. But if looking in the mirror and saying to yourself “let them” with tears streaming down your face doesn’t quite do it for you (and by “you” I mean “me”), you might benefit from tougher self-love. Maybe start by asking why you gave a damn about “them” in the first place. And for God sake, let’s bury the cliches. Trust me, it’s possible. We can do hard things.

Thank you for listening, and don’t forget to visit the gift shop on the way out

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