In Praise of Comfort

Friday 2 May 2014

Is it nature/nurture or just simply different biological composition that drives some women's hearts to "go out" to those who are in need of comfort and some men to ignore it?  Is there something within the different bodies that enable women to know more easily how important and life-changing comfort and reassurance are when you're feeling small, that your words make a difference to someone else's wound (even a small difference), that this is important work to do for each other?  That everybody is scared and that we need to learn to trust each other again, even on a provisional level, for social cohesion?

Perhaps it is because many women, either through disposition and cultural encouragement or a combination of both, learn how to do this for each other and so learn the benefits.  Perhaps many women simply need it more than many men.  Perhaps too because cultural placement still allows women to show their weaknesses to be salved - at least out of the boardroom - whereas it's still not really allowable for men to do so.  It is not safe and therefore many men keep their shit to themselves to deal with.  And a lot of men have a lot of shit they're keeping to themselves.  A lot of men are miserable and in hell and in need of comfort and assistance and don't know what to do to change their situation ... and if you're hanging on by a thread with your own gaping hole you're less inclined or able to help others with theirs.

It is still not so manly to be a dispenser or a receiver of comfort, is it?  At least for some men.  I do wonder if comfort is still seen as women's work.  They're the nurturers.  And emotions are weak and have no place in the economy.  If you are feeling weak and ill, then you need to deal with it yourself.

Which is entirely true.  A child sustained by good parenting will grow up learning to salve their own wounds when they bleed.  They will also learn to ask for help when they bleed a little too loud and not feel shame.  That also is a way of dealing with it yourself, even though paradoxically it involves another person.  Even those without childhood sustenance can learn to do this.  "It's okay, sweetheart," we learn to say to those parts of us that throb.  I am always astounded when the throbbing lessens.  Now that, my friends, is empowering.

Now, I know it's not fashionable to make distinctions between the sexes but nevertheless the distinctions remain.  If I am feeling unwell, it is women I turn to.  Overall, men have proved pretty much unsatisfactory in my life when it comes to giving comfort.  Perhaps it's because women haven't taught them.  And so when I am in need of comfort, and am able to bring myself to ask, women are the ones who provide the reassurance and the CNS calming and who make my scary places safe.  Women are the protectors, the palpaters of hidden nightmares.


Maybe comfort and calming is women's work.  I don't know.  Maybe we are the ones to dispense comfort to an ailing planet or else no one will.  Maybe the things that need fixing in the world, and the mindset changes that need to come if they are to happen, require women as the instigators.  Perhaps women are positioned, much more easily than men on the whole, to see the gape that remains when the salve is not applied, and the beauty that comes when it is.

The Dalai Lama said that western women will be the ones to change the world.  Perhaps he was right.

The world is in sore need of comfort and assurance. 

11 comments

  1. I often wonder what would have happened if Eve had been created first...I also agree with your thoughts and wonder what that means 'success' look like. Lots of wonderings.

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    1. (even if the story is mythical, I think it says a LOT about these kinds of things.)

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    2. Yes, absolutely, the differences between Adam and Eve thttp://blog.radiantlifecatalog.comhere are quite stark, aren't they? And they've been used as instruments of patriarchy ever since, unfortunately.

      I think we should rewrite the story of Eve being created first and see what happens. Haha, my next thought on the back of that one was that it would end up being some kind of mutual egalitarian creation, both at the same time :)

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    3. Do you know the Lilith myth (try saying that three times fast)? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith There's a quite wonderfully weird novel by George MacDonald called Lilith, with this story of her being Adam's first wife in mind - she kicks the proverbial.

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    4. Oh, free on Kindle from amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Lilith-George-MacDonald/dp/1603862056/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399178726&sr=8-1&keywords=lilith

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    5. Haha how weird to read back my comment and see I've somehow inadvertently pasted in a link to something I'd copied earlier. Glad it wasn't anything horridlly incriminating :)

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  2. Yeah I saw that. Copy/paste can be a tricksy one.

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  3. I had to do a self-care plan today for one of my courses. One of the things we had to do is identify problem areas for our self-care. Believe it or not I struggle with stoicism. Somewhere along the way I learned that it's not OK to be emotional. If you (meaning me) are a woman and are emotional, you have no hope of ever being taken seriously, and I don't like to be mocked. - which I experienced so much of for my emotional reactivity as an adolescent. So I learned that it's better just to stuff it down. Obviously, it's not, but it's taken me the remainder of my 43+ years to learn that.

    In my field, it's actually beneficial to be able to be calm in the face of trauma, and I value the skill in that way. But, it's also unhealthy, for sure. I suspect it will take another 43 years to unravel the habit, but I'm working on it...one thread at a time.

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    1. Oh, man, I can so relate to this, Erin. Sometimes I'm too disordered to be able to hide behind stoicism and wow, how embarrassing. I find it really frustrating the way people are so dismissive of emotions. It's like they're considered the junk DNA of the body when in actuality they're rather sophisticated. It's just that we have to learn how to read them. And of course, as is so common to our ridiculous species, what we don't understand we fear and what we fear we ridicule.

      It's not okay to be emotional, is it? You can see the contempt in people's eyes if you do manage to let anything slip out the sides. It's like you're betraying the cause by letting it slip that we all have them. Geez, what a mess.

      I think being in such an unsafe environment as that, if you can be stoic you will. You need to protect your soft centres from a world that doesn't seem to value them very much. It's good in that way, a good skill - and you will put it to good use in your career, I'm sure.

      I guess there's a balance, right? Letting them flow through so they're gone, rather than stuffing them away where they bloat and fester :)

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    2. Junk DNA. Ha, I like that. And yes. I was seriously emotional as an adolescent and was constantly chastised or made fun of for it. Family, friends, teachers...and being an introvert, of course, I hated the attention drawn to me, so I adapted.

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