You Are Not a Rat

I’m going to give you a little bit of a content warning for this week’s stuff here because I’m going to share a couple of excerpts from a BRILLIANT book that discusses rat research. And I know animal rights and animal research is a touchy subject for some. So, just be aware. That’s coming up.

These excerpts come from the book “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle” by Emily Nagoski, PhD and Amelia Nagoski, DMA. If you’ve not read it, STOP EVERYTHING AND DO SO RIGHT NOW!

Seriously. It’s our book club book for The Rexy Collective. And it’s worth your time. – It’s also available via audiobook if that’s your jam. I know because it’s MY jam and all of the Rexy books are required to be available via audiobook. Not all of the “supplemental recommendations” are. But the books we read for the book club absolutely are.

So, anyway. These excerpts. Why am I sharing them with you? Because they were the inspiration for what we’re talking about this week. And the background context is important. In the book, we’re in Part II “The Real Enemy,” chapter 4 “The Game Is Rigged.” We’re starting on page 79:

“Okay: Imagine two rats. Rat #1–let’s call him Ralph the Rat…only pronounced “Rafe,” like Ralph Fiennes. In fact, let’s say it’s not a rat, it is actually Ralph Fiennes.” He’s in a box–it’s called a “shuttle box”--with a floor that periodically electrocutes his feet. It’s not painful, but it is uncomfortable. Ralph hates being electrocuted and he wants to get out of there every time it happens. Fortunately for him, after the zapping begins, a little door opens briefly, and he can make a run for it! He escapes! His dopamine levels double, as his Monitor quickly learns that escaping the shock is an attainable goal! He has overcome adversity and learned that he can make a difference in his situation.

Rat #2–we’ll call him Colin–and let’s make it Colin Firth, because why not?--is not in a box; he’s in a tank of water, for the “forced-swim test.” (You can tell it’s bad just by the name, right?) Colin, like most rats, can swim–he did it in Pride and Prejudice and A Single Man–but he doesn’t love it; he’d like to get out of the water as soon as possible. So he swims and swims and swims…and never reaches dry land. As he keeps failing, he gets frustrated…and then desperate! Foopy! And ultimately Colin’s Monitor switches its assessment of his goal from “potentially attainable” to “unattainable.” His dopamine levels drop by half; he feels helpless, and he just floats, in a last-ditch effort to preserve energy until there’s any sign of land.”

“Here’s maybe the saddest part about this: If we take Colin out of the water, dry him off, and put him into the shuttle box, he will not even try to escape the shock, though the door is right there. In the shuttle box, Colin could escape if he tried, but he CAN’T try. His brain has learned that trying doesn’t work, that nothing he does makes a difference…and so he has lost the ability to try.?

This inability to try is called “learned helplessness.” Animals, including humans, who repeatedly find themselves in bad situations from which they can’t escape may not even TRY to escape, even when given the opportunity. When an animal has learned helplessness, it goes straight past frustration right to the pit of despair. It’s not a rational choice; their central nervous system has learned that when they are suffering, nothing they can do will make a difference. They have learned they are helpless. Their only available route for self-preservation is not to try.”

Continuing on with our excerpts from Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s book “Burnout,” beginning on page 80 they discuss how “Just knowing that the game is rigged can help you feel better right away.”?

That’s part of what this week is about. Understanding that the game is rigged. But which game??

In the book, they mention and describe a few of the ways that the patriarchy is a rigged game against women: explicit misogyny, sex and relationship violence, body image, and getting a word in edgewise.

And it’s in this last bit, starting on page 83, that they go back to the rat research:

“In rat research, these kinds of pervasive problems are called “chronic, mild stress.” Rats may be deprived of food and water for unpredictable–but not dangerous–periods of time; their cages tilted at a 45-degree angle for a few hours; water poured on their bedding; strobe lights flashed for hours at a time. Everything is just a little bit too hard, so that every day, bit by bit, the survivable helplessness eats away at them. In human terms, researchers are creating for these rats a context of “one damn thing after another.”?

In the 21st century West, “one damn thing after another” is what being a woman often feels like. It’s a constant, low-level stream of stressors that are out of your control. Most individual examples are little more than an annoyance…but they accumulate….”

“Womanhood as a “chronic, low-level stress” is even messier than it sounds, for two reasons: First, it’s very possible that female and male biologies respond differently to that stress. When male rats are exposed to these chronic, mild stressors, their swim time in the forced swim drops in half pretty much right away. After six weeks, it drops in half again. Female rats, by contrast, take three weeks to drop their swim time in half…and it doesn’t change after six weeks. Female rats exposed to chronic, mild stressors persist more than males do. They work harder in the face of difficulty; it takes twice as long for their brains to shift into helplessness. Even female rats, it seems, #persist.

And second, one of the stressors we experience is being told that we’re not experiencing any more or different stress than men. One aspect of the patriarchy (ugh) in the modern West is that it says it doesn’t exist anymore.”

I do want to point out that their use of gendered language is addressed in the book itself, and is used in a very inclusive way when citing their own research and applied to humans.?

And, again, in case you’ve missed it this week, these excerpts are from Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s book “Burnout.” Go buy it. Read it.?

If you’re checking out today’s content and you’ve not seen the excerpts I shared as background for this, I encourage you to go back. It’ll make more sense. Promise. ;)?

Also, buy the book. Read the book. It’s worth it. [What is the book? It’s “Burnout” by Emily and Amelia Nagoski.]

There’s quite a bit about the direct sales industry that a lot of people get wrong. And one of the things is about why women (primarily women, anyway, though not exclusively women) get into the industry to begin with.?

Poverty leads many women into the industry. And our fucked up system of capitalism is what creates the systemic oppression of poverty. BUT, the learned helplessness described in the excerpts I posted earlier this week prevents a lot of women from creating the financial freedom they sought out with direct sales.?

That’s not to say all women seek out the direct sales industry as a magic ticket out of poverty. Because this isn’t the case. And not all who join a direct sales company do it primarily for financial returns. There are a vast number of reasons people start a direct sales business - and business isn’t always the focus.?

But, given the learned helplessness of the systemic oppression of poverty within our capitalistic system, patriarchy’s “one damn thing after another,” often compounds women’s thought patterns about their own capabilities for financial success.?

When they think direct sales will be a magic wand to get them out of the rat race, without even identifying that they’ve been a rat the whole time, instead of a person with wants, needs, and inherent value, they enter into the industry just creating a different version of the rat race for themselves.?

Is this a predatory system? Sure. I’ll agree to that. But it’s not the direct sales companies and leaders who are the predators. It’s the fucking patriarchy. It’s late-stage capitalism. It’s systemic oppression.

Direct sales, on the other hand, as an industry, can offer an incredibly feminist way out.?

But to escape the rat race, and NOT turn a direct sales business into another version of learned helplessness, that you’ll then weaponize against yourself in your own negative self-talk, takes a fuck ton of personal development.?

And that’s available within the industry, but in bite-sized chunks that offer little more than surface-level ideas that SOUND good, without much substantial how-the-fuck-do-I-do-that guidance.

To actually make the change and use a direct sales business as the catalyst for that change, requires some in-depth internal work to dismantle internalized oppression.?

For some of us - many of us - that internalized oppression comes, at least in part, in the form of late-stage capitalism-induced poverty. Though there are plenty of other oppressive thought patterns that we’ve adopted from that capitalism, in addition to those of the rest of our hetero-normative, white supremacist, patriarchal society.

And that work generally can’t be done alone.?

Because when we’re alone, we’re just swimming around in our own stories of learned helplessness.?

We can’t see the reality of what’s truly possible and what we’re actually capable of. We can’t see the open door when the floor shocks us. Or if we do see it, we don’t believe we can make it to the door.?

Because we’ve forgotten how to try.?

The game has been rigged against us for so long that we don’t even recognize when we’re in an entirely new game with a totally different set of rules when we start a direct sales business.?

And that we’re the one who’s been writing the rules to the new game all along.?

That’s often where our uplines come in with training and cheerleading.?

But sometimes - in fact, a lot of the time - that’s not enough. Because when you're ALL in it, coming from the same rigged game, it’s nearly impossible to see it all.?

So that’s where I come in. An outside perspective, with insider experience, and the training to see what you’ve been hiding from yourself.

I’ll soon be offering team packages for my year-long, in-depth coaching program, to allow your team to grow together. And it’ll start with a free, live training for your direct sales team.?

If you’d like more information on this, get on my email list at PressurePointCoaching.com, and you’ll be the first to know when doors open.?

Let’s get out of the rat race. Because we’re not fucking rats. And there is no race.