The Social Media Maze
INSTAGRAM! You fuck with my head! With you, my values become skewed, my self-worth is whacked, and I lose my tether on what's real.
A story: I have an acquaintanceship with a mentor who is well-known in the public field and whose opinion I greatly value.
I included her on my email announcing the opening of Flow and she very quickly and kindly wrote me a warm, supportive, and personal response. I mean, wow! So nice of her! How long did that good feeling last? Under 30 seconds, for sure. Because I was already grabbing my phone to see if she also followed me on Instagram. She didn't.
She knows me, supports me, encourages me - why the hell do I care so much if she follows me on Instagram? THAT'S not the real sign of affection - the genuine interest she has continuously shown in me is what's real. And, yet ... I fixate on that lack of follow.
What would it mean if she did follow me? That she publicly validates me? That I'm cool? Is that what's important to me?
Here I go again: Falling into the external validation trap. I bet you guys can relate. How easily we hand over the reins of our own self-worth to these arbitrary key holders. And we take personally what most likely has nothing to do with us. She probably doesn't even manage her own social media.
Again & again, I have to catch these moments and actively seek out the positive feelings. She wrote me! She sees me! My eyes well, my chest smiles, I breathe deeper. For me, THIS is what's important and THIS is what's real.
How about you? Tips on navigating the social media maze? What comes up for you?
Art by Blanca Miró Skoudy
The Negativity Bias in Our Brains
NEGATIVITY BIAS: To survive and pass on their genes, our ancestors needed to be especially aware of dangers, threats, and conflicts. Consequently, the brain evolved a negativity bias that looks for bad news, reacts intensely to it, and quickly stores the experience in our neural structure.
See, it's not just you with those negative voices in your head. We all have brains with a hair-trigger readiness to go negative to help us survive.
We can still be happy, but this bias creates an ongoing vulnerability to stress, anxiety, disappointment, and hurt.
The remedy is to foster simple, positive experiences — and to really take them in so they become a permanent part of us.
Photo by Jim Mangan
Watching a sunset? Dog lying at your feet? Parking meter up and you didn't get a ticket?
Open to the positive feelings and try to sense them in your body; let them fill your mind. Enjoy them. As if you were a sponge, absorb the experience as much as you can. Soak it into your bones, into your nerves, into your heart, your organs.
This is how we begin to change the wiring in our brains.
Ideas by Rick Hanson
February: Attend to the Heart
February is the month when we consciously review what touches our hearts. The heart is the central place where we learn about love and what is truly meaningful for us. When we are at home in our hearts, love and gratefulness always increase.
Photo by Ata Kando
Who have been the teachers of your heart in the past? What are you currently learning about love?
Want to open your heart and expand your capacity for love and gratitude? Read on! ❤️
HAND ON HEART EXERCISE Simply place your hand on your heart and breathe gently into your heart center. Feel the warmth spreading between your palm and your chest. If you wish, breathe in a sense of ease or safety into your heart. Then remember one moment, just one moment, when you felt safe, loved and cherished by another person. Not the entire relationship, just one moment. This could be a friend, a child, a therapist; it could be a spiritual figure; it could be a pet. Let yourself feel the feeling of that moment, let the feeling wash through your body, and try to stay there for 20 or 30 seconds.
When we do this exercise, the warm, safe touch of our hand on our heart center begins to activate the release of Oxytocin, the brain’s hormone of calm and connection, bonding and belonging. Warm, safe touch anywhere that feels comfortable on our body can release Oxytocin, but there are neural cells around the heart that communicate directly with the brain and more quickly begin the activation of the release.
How do you feel? Physical … Blood pressure goes down, heart rate stabilizes, the walls of your arteries soften, there’s a slowing down. Emotional … This is how LOVE feels.
And you don’t even need anyone else to give it to you! You have an unending capacity to give yourself love and to activate this physical contentment in your own body. Whenever You Need It!
LOVING KINDNESS PRACTICE BY JACK KORNFIELD
Through the words I say try to develop the feeling, the spirit, the thoughts of loving kindness for yourself.
May I be filled with lovingkindness
May my heart open with kindness & peace
You deserve it – all beings do
May I be filled with the spirit of loving kindness
May I be peaceful
Feel a compassion for yourself – for your struggles & sorrows.
May my heart open & may I touch this sorrow with compassion & lovingkindness
Now think of someone you love a lot. Bring them in & share the feeling. May they too be filled with lovingkindness. May their hearts open, be happy. Feel a compassion for their sorrows & struggles. Feel how much you love them. And would help them. May they be filled with lovingkindness & peace.
Let another person or two into your heart that you love. Let it grow bigger. May they be happy and their hearts open. Let yourself open further. Let in all your friends, people you love. May they all come into your heart. May they all be happy & filled with lovingkindness.
Let it grow further. Let that spirit fill the room. Let there be a field of lovingkindness so that all lives can be received with this heart – open, compassionate, loving & free.
Feel it get bigger than the room. Let it grow in every direction. In front, behind. To the left & to the right. Above & below. Fill the whole of the earth as if you could cover the earth with your feelings of lovingkindness.
Picture the earth as a ball that you could take into your arms & heart. All of the oceans & continents & the multitude of beings – the whales, fishes, birds, insects, the trees, the jungles, deserts, the people. Hold that earth with the heart of lovingkindness and compassion.
May all beings be touched by the heart of lovingkindness. May all beings, those newly born, those in pleasure, those struggling in sorrow, those dying, those in between. May every creature & being be touched & opened and healed by the force of lovingkindness and compassion.
And may the power of our heart & our goodness & our love bring that light to the world and bring freedom to our lives & those of all beings.
In the Flow
Being in the FLOW state, or “in the zone.” You’re completely involved in what you’re doing. Everything goes automatically without thinking. You’re focused, concentrated, there’s a sense of ecstasy, of being outside everyday reality. Great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done and how to do it. Nothing else seems to matter. Timelessness, hours seem to pass by in minutes. Concentration is so intense that there’s no attention left to think about other problems. Self-consciousness disappears. You’re not worrying about stupid things, regretting what you did yesterday, stressing about what you’ll do tomorrow.
When I say FLOW I also think about upstream and downstream effort in your life. Upstream, when you're kicking so hard against a current and exhausting yourself to no avail. Downstream, when you stop fighting so hard and let the current naturally carry you. Do you know this upstream feeling I describe? When you're working way too hard to make something go the way you want, but it’s just not flowing smoothly. Versus letting go of the "This is what I want, this is how it should be" and allowing to happen whatever is naturally occurring.
Can you feel the relief in that! It gets easier. It might not be what you *thought* you wanted, but when you notice yourself working and trying too hard, just take your hands off the wheel and let go of the push. Something will happen. Not sure what, but something will - it always does.
Photo by Eliot Porter
Oh, Anxiety
Photo by Johnny Keethon
I’m fucking stressed. I’m starting this business on my own and it’s way harder than I anticipated. There are tidal waves of work and pressure. Endless decisions. Management and leadership of people. My ego needs to be constantly checked.
My resting heart rate hasn’t been calm for months. I feel gripped in my chest and my mind never, ever ceases. Everything I do and see is through a prism of work. I’m impatient, obsessive, I can’t let go of things. And I'm scared. Scared of putting myself out there, scared of failing, of not being liked.
I can’t unclench my racing mind. What I do know, neuro-biologically, about anxiety is that at the route anxiety is about fear.
Three facts of the human brain on anxiety:
(1) First, the fear response says, "Act now, do not wait. You are being threatened."
(2) Second, the fear response blocks out everything else in the mind. It occupies the entire screen.
(3) Third, its warning is always exaggerated. Fear cannot tell the difference between a small threat and a large one - an imaginary danger or a real one.
We can overcome all three elements of anxiety when they occur:
(1) First, when our fear tells us that immediate action is called for, do not believe it. We have time to pause and better assess what is truly going on. Our lower brain does not know the difference but after a few seconds our higher brain will step in with an accurate action plan.
"If I don't bid on this rug on ebay Right Now, I will Lose It!!" "No, actually the auction lasts another seven days, so there is zero need to do anything right now."
(2) Second, if an anxious response fills our mind so that we can think of nothing else, step away - preferably reset by going outside. After a few minutes, our mental screen won't be overwhelmed by the single panicky thought. "Is it still there? Is the rug still there? Is it???" "YESSSSS, where the fuck else would it be? Oh, look, there's a bird."
(3) Third, when we feel exaggerated fear while we're panicked, tell ourselves, "I'm doing that crazy brain thing. Chill, this is way out of proportion." "Even if I lose out on this rug, there are many others. Plus, it's a rug."
