Intrigued, Scout - do English people put food on their forks in a different way from the way American people do it?
Evening all - am toiling through all sorts of mire and trying in vain to whisk myself off to bed for some much needed sleep, but wanted to pop in an catch up first.
Lotus/JM may I also second that I don't think you are over-reacting in the slightest? You have presented it as a dilemma, which it is. I too have come across the Landmark Forum - never got suckered into it thankfully though I did have one "friend" who'd dropped out of my life a few years previously suddenly ringing me up to rave about it and tell me how I would benefit amazingly from it.
I was unfortunately suckered into something similar-ish a good few years ago now, when I was really desperately searching for something that would help me make something worthwhile of my shambles of a life, and wasted several precious years and untold amounts of money that I didn't even have (very good at letting you do things on the never-never, these people) before I realised it was essentially a con. Yes, I was very vulnerable at the time and for that reason I detest things like this, even more so if a company is more or less obliging its employees to do it - very suspect and deeply unethical, along with the stuff about their staff going along to all the gyms and yoga classes in an area and doing "stealth marketing". I think that truth is a very precious and sometimes heartbreakingly rare commodity and their [lululemon's] approach seems to be based on a kind of weaselly dishonesty which I find very unsavoury.
That said, I don't know how you can handle the situation; you've already been given good advice here. Would a badge cover the logo? So that you're not actively promoting/endorsing a company you rightly find so unacceptable? I think it would be hard to look as if you (maybe) bought into their whole concept when you so clearly don't. Serpent's idea of pretend discovery at a later date is good (that's the kind of little white lie I totally agree with, btw, didn't mean before that I'm a "truth at all costs type of person"!). Or maybe if a cover-up badge was prominent enough it might prompt your friend to ask why you're covering it up? After all, if she's in the yoga world too, then she too has an interest in knowing the truth about this company. But I agree it could just be really embarrassing for both of you to just come out with it! Life is so tricky sometimes, isn't it? Anyway, I've made a right meal of this, as is my wont, but the long and the short is I think you're quite justified in your agonsiing, and good for you; and you've never struck me as vain or shallow btw! And MN is known for being pretty hard really, isn't it? Going back further than just lately, I'd say.
On the D-word subject - just wanted to clarify something from an earlier post, I don't actually go around discussing the death of cut flowers as such, was just trying to convey that my almost-phobia of the subject is such that I shrink from using the word even in the context of SBoy saying "what's happened to your flowers, Mummy?" and me being able to reply "they've just died", for fear of him asking "what does that mean" etc etc, and me being then put on the spot.
I suppose it comes from my experiences of death being almost overwhelmingly bad ones - growing up I had, I think, no experience of "good" deaths, ie people coming to the natural end of a long and well-lived life; the only experiences I had of death while growing up were of ones that were untimely and wrong and tragic in some way. My own life was in fact contingent on the terribly premature and very sad end of another person's life, and growing up with that knowledge was difficult. I agree with Amber that faith makes it easier to cope with, but there was none of that in my family and I think that made it hadrer. I think that when SBoy is old enough to really start asking I will say something about Heaven, and about all things/life being interconnected and everlasting in some way as that's an important sort of concept for me, and I think it softens the blow for a child.
Although quite possibly he won't give a monkey's; he's already quite happy to "pew" me [verb he invented based on the "pew pew" sound of pretending to fire a gun] and greatly enjoys the ensuing exaggerated "death" and me sprawled on the sofa. (note to self - must remember to carve out more down time for self under guise of "playing dead".)