Tag: positivity | A Banana Peeled

Tag Archives: positivity

Feeling good as hell (nearly)

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I’m been feeling a bit blah lately. Nothing big and nothing dire. Just meh. Like my initials! I’m not completely sure why, but it’s partly to do with it being summer. I hate summer. So much hatred for the summer. I hate heat so much. It’s in the top five of my most hated things.

But, a few days ago, I was literally feeling myself (my ass) and being very happy that I have one now. Again, it’s not as much of an ass as I would like, but it’s there. And my biceps are really making me happy. Plus. Yesterday, I put my hair up in Chun-Li buns minus the turkey leg wrappers and I have the thicc thighs to match. I want to be chunky Chun-Li for Halloween, even if I have nowhere to go.

I’m feeling sassy. And I’m feeling good. And I have no qualms about saying it. Look. I’ve hated my body for decades. I’ve abused it and been mean to it, and I’ve flat-out ignored it. I thought it was grotesque and that it was an abomination upon this world. I live in a culture that fully supports that fat women and people who present as women should be ashamed of ourselves and as apologetic as possible about existing.

Side Note: This was the same when it comes to children. I had made the decision in my early twenties not to have them, and I never wavered. There was so much anger at me for daring to buck the status quo, but even more so because I didn’t consider the status quo worthy of thinking about. I never said this, but I’m sure it came through in my attitude. Any article I read at the time about not having children was ladened with other way to care for children (being an aunt, a mentor, a go-to for childcare, etc.) and reasons why they did not want children. Mostly genetics. Or their mental health issues.

All of this is fine, but I didn’t feel (and don’t feel) like I need to be apologetic or make excuses for not wanting/having children. There is one reason at the top of my list: I don’t want them. I never have. And at this point in my life, I doubt I ever will. I did have other reasons on the list (I’d be a terrible mother, we don’t need more people, it’s bad for the environment, etc.), but I really think the only reason you should have kids is because you actively want them.

Back to my body. I’ve been told I’m fat and gross by my mother since I was seven. Hm. She was also the one who gave me so much shit about not having kids. Coincidence? No. She did not specifically say I was gross, but she di say that I would be so pretty if I would lose some weight. When I was seven. She’s 5’2″ and has been obsessed with that five pounds for all her life. Whether she was at her peak weight or not, it was never enough. She definitely had her own body dysmorphia that she foisted upon me.

When Positivity is Oppressive

Posted on August 23, 2017 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I read a short rant by a Facebook friend on white spiritual workers (she’s white herself) being full of shit, and she ended it by saying Law of Attraction was bullshit. I didn’t know what that was, so I Googled it, as is my wont. I’ll get to that in a second. On this post, a friend of my friend posted how disappointed she was with the original post (OP), and she was being all airy-fairy about it, but I could easily read the anger under all her love and light words. Apparently, she unfriended my friend, which sort of proved my friend’s point. Many people who espouse to be all about love are some of the most repressed, angriest people I know. Not all, of course, but it’s easy to wrap yourself in the lingo as a away of avoiding your actual problems.

I’ve ranted before about Americans and our weird obsession with having a positive attitude. To me, it’s a way of coping with the fact that we have very little control over what happens, which is fine, I guess. However, we’re also a very repressive Christian nation at heart, which also believes that you get what you deserve, basically. When I was a Christian, I was told to pray to God if I needed something. If I didn’t get the response I wanted, well, then either I didn’t pray hard enough or I didn’t believe hard enough. It was always the fault of the supplicant and not of God.

That’s how I view positive thinking, at least the way many Americans interpret it. “If you think it, you can do it.” “You can beat this cancer if you just have a positive attitude!” “There’s nothing you can’t do if you put your mind to it.” Even as a kid, I knew this was bullshit. I knew I could never be President of the United States, and this was before I discovered I was bisexual. I would never play in the NBA or be an award-winning photography*, neither of which I wanted to do, but still. I also felt I couldn’t be an actress which is what I really wanted to do because I didn’t see anyone who looked like me who wasn’t an extra on M*A*S*H, but that’s another rant for another time.

Barbara Ehrenreich, an author who is extremely conscious of social justice issues, had the same complaint when she got cancer. She went on all these online forums and was greeted with an onslaught of positivity that just made her angry because it seemed to be victim-blaming. One person told her to run to therapy because she was too angry. Being the researcher that she is, Ehrenreich dove into the positive thinking movement and wrote a book about it. She started a group called the Negatives, and they’re dedicated to debunking a lot of this bullshit. She makes it clear that she’s not a pessimist, but she sees a lot of problems with the positivity movement.