The Danger of Making Health A Matter of Morality

Hands up if you've ever said to yourself, "I'm being 'good' now so I can be 'bad' later"?Congratulations! You just became aware of your own moral licensing!Moral licensing is the "psychological bargaining" we do with ourselves when we justify the actions we perceive as "bad" with the "good" actions we've taken or plan to take.For instance, these might look familiar:

I ate "good" all week, so a weekend of eating "badly" is my reward.
I worked out so "good" yesterday that I deserve to take the next week off.
I had a really hard but "good" therapy session yesterday, so I'm going to take a break from using my coping tools in daily life.

This moral licensing leads us to believe that it's ok to take actions that are immoral in our minds, and it doesn't stop at Health.Researchers looked specifically at racism, sexism, selfishness, prosocial interactions (like donating to charity or giving blood) and environmental friendliness in their studies and all found that people who engage in moral behavior can "license themselves" to take immoral actions later on. It's the idea of the "good" one does giving one permission to do "bad," or one's "good" actions making up for the "bad."

But is the issue really the immorality of the actions, or that we attach morality to our healthy efforts in the first place?

Today, I want to chat about moral licensing and morality in general, and how that applies to our Health efforts. Let's start with the question of "good" vs "bad" and how some of our mindsets tend to blow it out of proportion.

The "Bad" vs "Good" Epidemic

The Danger of Making Health A Matter of Morality by @stronginsideout

Whether it's a clean-eating blogger, celebrity trainer or best-selling author, many "health gurus" define what is "good" and what is "bad" in generic terms for the entire population. Then, they tell us that we have to be "good" all the time; that any semblance of "bad" is failure. And we believe them.The problem with the health guru's argument is that the label - "bad" - is applied to actions and objects that don't deserve that categorization. Then, the mindsets of highly sensitive or perfectionistic people (that's probably you, super-feeler) tend to take that label and apply it to anything and everything that's connected to the original categorization.For instance, if a health guru says: "sugar is bad," the highly sensitive or perfectionistic person might then say, "Oh, then I have to eat completely sugar-free to be good. Any instance of sugar makes me 'bad.'"You know what that leaves on your plate? Meats and fats. No vegetables. No fruits. No grains. Oh, and no brain function, muscle recovery, energy or nutrient balance either. Or deliciousness.We've been taught to demonize tons of things that are not worthy of the label such as:

Carbs
Fats
Sugar
Rest days
Cardio workouts
Lifting heavy
Mental illness
Medication
Emotions

Pick and choose which ones you've been taught to perceive as "bad." I'm sure you have your own to add to the list. Some of those listed might even be in your "good" category depending on which health gurus you've followed.The list is just as long on the other end of what we label as "good" and glorify:

Protein
Veggies
Fats
Cheat Days
Eating clean
Cleanses
Diets
Consistent movement
Any kind of specific training
Positivity
Bubbly-ness
Nice-ness

Some of those on your "bad" list, too? Thought so! It's all a matter of Mental Optics.

How We're Gonna Break That Shit Apart

We at Strong Inside Out think those "good" and "bad" labels are bullshit. In fact, we think they lead to an all-or-nothing set of Mental Optics that actually promotes the nothing side of things thanks to burn out, being "should"-ed till you give up, and even disordered mindsets.The reality is, our perception of "good" and "bad" is the root of why we go overboard or give up entirely (and flip between the two). It's these labels that need rewriting so that we can view the actions, objects and mindsets without the issues of worth and morality clouding our judgment. So we can decide for ourselves what makes us feel good or bad.

Nothing is "good" or "bad" unless you decide it is; we've just been conditioned by performance health sources to believe what they say and take it all as truth.

Hell, you could not work out for the rest of your life if you choose, and that wouldn't be "bad" if you decided it was "good." You might not feel good if you do it, but the action alone isn't "bad"; it just is. And you're not bad for making that choice, either. It might be someone else's perception of "bad," but you're not living in their world. You're living in the world that your Mental Optics are creating.For instance, in the world of low-carb diets, rice is villainized because it's high-carb. I grew up eating rice every night and maintained a healthy weight growing up. When I started getting into diet culture, however, my Mental Optics flipped - all of a sudden, I was being told that rice was "bad."I'd never seen the results of rice being bad. I'd never felt worse after eating rice in moderate amounts. I just took what performance health gurus said as truth because somehow they knew better than my own body what was "good" or "bad" for me.Sure, there's an element of science that can back up certain claims, but the point is that those of us who tend towards all-or-nothing mindsets take what we learn to the extreme. When we learn that "sugar is bad," that means we can't ever have it again which leads us to obsession and possibly self-sabotage. Labeling objects and actions as good or bad doesn't help minds like ours; it hurts them.When "good" and "bad" is in the mix, we all-or-nothing thinkers make our choices mean something about us. If we fail at perfection, we become failures in our minds.Getting and staying Healthy doesn't have to be about morality or making you, yourself, good or bad. It can just be a choice, and that's the philosophy we live on here at Strong Inside Out.

Your Health choices do not make you "good" or "bad."

Morality keeps us from being harmful to others which is freaking awesome, but when used to shame and restrict ourselves, morality can actually drive us to harm ourselves. But releasing the charge of "good" and "bad" labels takes time, which is where we come back to moral licensing.

When Moral Licensing Helps

Moral licensing can be helpful while you're releasing the terms "good" and "bad" from your Health vocabulary because it can keep you from going too far in either direction.If you're stuck in the mindset of "working out consistently is good," for example, and your perfectionist mindset has made that out to mean 6 days a week for 2 hours a day, it'd be healthy if moral licensing came in and said, "You've worked out 6 days in a row, so you deserve a good 2 days rest." It could save you from injury and burn out.

...and When It Doesn't

Moral licensing can push you into extremes if you're not aware of it, so be mindful. Check in with yourself as you decide to take action with this inquiry:

"Is this based in how I feel or want to feel, or is it based in what I've been taught is 'good' (even if it feels like too much)?"

It's how you feel or want to feel that's going to lead you to True Health: balance, independence and plain feeling good. Health doesn't have to feel like an all-or-nothing battle all day long. It can feel free and gentle. It can feel like home.

I'll leave you with this...

I hope that you'll base your Health in choosing to feel good in this lifetime, in whatever body and mind you've been given, and that you'll create your own version of what that is. Your health doesn't have to be what other people tell you it is (even me); you can write your own health story.If you decide everything I'm saying is bullshit, for example, AWESOME! As long as you're making that decision for yourself, from how you feel or want to feel, and not from some performance health guru's imposed set of Mental Optics. Don't let anyone make your decisions for you; do what feels good and right to you.I know this is a hard thing to master. there's so much to clear out of the way in order to reconnect to your true desires and body connection. Don't worry; my upcoming courses are going to help you with ALL of this. Make sure you're on the email list for updates!Sending Love from the free zone,Amy

Sources:

Prospective moral licensing: Does anticipating doing good later allow you to be bad now?

by Jessica Cascio and E. Ashby Plant (Florida State University)

Moral Self-Licensing: When Being Good Frees Us to Be Bad

by Anna C. Merritt, Daniel A. Effron, and Benoît Monin (Stanford University)

Moral Licensing, and Why It's So Hard to Be a Saint

by Scott Hendricks via BigThink.com