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Dear Janne,
At first I was concerned that sharing my thoughts about your latest Instagram posts…
…and my concern about the personal beliefs that you have been using your platform to declare would in fact just cause your voice to be heard more loudly.
I realized I just simply cannot stay silent in this situation.
Janne, we wrote for elephant journal at the same time. I admired your roaring success due to your openness, your boldness when talking about sexuality and being a woman and encountering the world with vulnerable, open hearts. I appreciated your courage in sharing the story of the way you were shamed about getting an abortion. I liked your free spirit and how you spoke unashamedly about being young, broke, and a struggling artist.
You’re no longer struggling—you have an ever-expanding network. Your words struck a spark with many—not to mention your glorious wild hair and sun-kissed skin. Young women follow your posts en masse—and that is what concerns me.
You have a voice, and while you say that it’s only your responsibility to speak your truth, I wish that you’d consider the influence you have on others.
I wholeheartedly agree with your words in one of your poems that state, “I do not need a degree to prove that I am intelligent”—but hell, woman—I wish you’d read more science in your free time. You’re still young, Janne—and you most likely haven’t encountered cancer in your tanned body. From previous posts you also imply that you’ve never been diagnosed with a mental illness: or should I say that you’ve never “chosen” to experience a mental illness?
This time you’ve taken that once-charming ignorance and lack of experience too far.
Your latest instagram posts tell us that cancer is caused by harmful emotions—that depression and all other diseases are brought on by resentments, unhealed traumas, anger—and that they can be healed by manifesting positivity. That doing the emotional work will cure all physical ailments. You write about cancer being a choice. You state that childhood cancers are caused by the unhealed emotional issues of our ancestors.
I pondered how to approach this letter.
I skimmed over scientific research and resisted the urge to throw facts at you—there’s too many, and logic clearly isn’t prevailing here. You actually mention you think sunscreen causes cancer—after saying that all cancer stems from emotion.
I wholeheartedly agree that our emotions impact our physical health. Scientific research attests to that. Stress influences all kinds of diseases and ailments in our body—but so do many, many other things. Genetics, yes. Diet and our environment and the way cells mutate or don’t, by chance.
To suggest that cancer is caused by emotional issues, not knowing any individual’s story or medical history, is placing a huge and devastating burden of blame on the individual, for being afflicted with a disease that in no way did they cause.
To suggest that “doing the work” emotionally heals cancer is pure drivel.
How do you think “your truth”—coming from a young, healthy woman—impacts others, suffering from cancer, who may have done all the emotional work in the world and still be terminal?
How do you live with blaming the parents and grandparents of a child suffering from cancer? The child needs to do the work and emotionally heal from the damage their parents caused? There are no words to properly rebut such absolute nonsense.
I am hesitant to delve into the mental health component here, because the factors you are playing with are grave, and because I am beyond horrified at your naivety. It terrifies me that impressionable people, or those already in pain, are reading your words and judging themselves accordingly. Personally, I have been diagnosed with long-term chronic clinical depression, and I have done and do the emotional work. My brain chemistry, unfortunately, doesn’t change as a result of me digging deep, resolving past issues, and maintaining emotional health. I am blindsided several times a year by a bout of severe depression that has nothing to do with my situation or maintenance of my spiritual condition—it is a disease, plain and simple.
Your denial of that only perpetuates the ongoing stigma against mental health, and harms rather than helps those who face its challenges.
Please don’t suggest you know what causes mental illness or suicide. These things are in no way a choice. Suggesting that those who suffer from cancer or mental illness or any illness are the cause and control of these ailments, and have the absolute ability to cure themselves with their thoughts, is placing one hell of a horrific burden on sick people.
Janne, I beg of you for the sake of your followers to please, please, educate yourself on the scientific research behind cancer and mental illness, before you spew your fluffy thoughts into the world. Please remember that you have devoted and impressionable young women (and men) following you who will now wonder what is wrong with them emotionally if they develop an illness that has absolutely nothing to do with how they handle their feelings.
Advocate positivity, absolutely.
Advocate emotional health.
By all means, tell the world that our emotional health has an effect on our physical health.
But denying that the sun causes disease, telling people that their brain chemistry is all in their control, and giving us an affirmation to cure cancer? You’ve crossed dangerous lines here: and no, as you say it, your only responsibility is not just to speak your truth.
You are responsible to the young women you preach to to know your facts before you make such potentially dangerous and life-altering statements.
From one strong woman to another, Janne: you’ve spent too much time in the sun on a surfboard, and far too little time dedicated to learning science and moral responsibility.
See all of Janne’s old Elephant articles here.
~
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