When I say, “Social media is not real life,” how does that feel to you?
Part of you goes, no duh. But how many of us take things at face value or assume based on what we witness for fragments of a second while our thumb scrolls? How many of us think I had no idea when someone discloses a hardship, disability, or other shortcoming?
This is precisely why I think the topic “social media is not real life” has been having a moment on - surprise surprise - social media.
On its face, it’s easy to look at these kinds of posts as continuing to curate one’s identity or personal brand. Or, going further, it’s easy to look at these kinds of posts and think one is being asked to perform pain points as a person, influencer, or creator. But, because I’m in the business of giving folks grace whenever and wherever possible, I’m digging what I’m seeing because it drives home how much a lot of us may just need a little inspiration to start exploring their shadow.
In the interest of not strictly following the trends but going deeper as I am inclined to do, I wanted to integrate the framework of this trend here where I am not beholden to reel time constraints or character limits.
You know me, I’m wordy af. Some may call it loquacious to be more generous, and to them I am grateful.
But for the sake of brevity, I’ll say wordy.
Plus, in this format, I am far less inclined to overly manicure and simply present it as close to my lived, embodied experience as possible.
Truth #1: I know the algorithm favors “showing your face” whether it be in reels or static posts, but seeing my own face repulses me.
That’s right. We’re starting hard and heavy.
It boils down to a few things I think:
I always had a bit of a lisp and never got therapy to try to minimize it. Braces and fixating on having a strong vocabulary as a spelling bee kid meant I could at least offset it some. But it persists to this day and comes through STRONG when I wear my mouthguard (which my very kind husband says sounds cute).
Because of my chronic health issues, I struggle with maintaining the body weight I would like to be. A lot of the pictures I end up choosing I choose because I feel like I look as minimally round as possible. My favorite pictures of myself were taken circa pre-worsening health issues in 2017 and 2018.
I know Selena Gomez deals with the same on a grander scale with having Lupus and needing to be on steroids to survive. But it doesn’t really make the fluctuations any easier to accept on the harder days.
In accepting my neurodivergence, I am more accepting of how awkward it is for me to talk into the camera. I was able to overcome listening to my voice with podcasting because it was only one awkward element at a time.
Voice alone? NBD. Voice and my face moving? CRINGE.
As with anything, I know this will improve with exposure and practice regardless of how I might feel about my appearance. For instance, in October 2022, I was job-hunting but the job market is/was what it is/was, so I threw myself into my creative work. I was online a lot. I was talking to the camera a lot.
It was painful…until it wasn’t.
Part of me thinks I need a similar challenge, but I also think just learning to give myself grace might be enough. At least I think and hope it’s enough.
Truth #2: I’ve ditched products, offers, workshops, and course ideas because I was intimidated by the idea of having to show up more (or a certain way) online.
The best instance of this is one of the virtual tarot offerings I developed and considered rolling out not too long ago. I spent weeks testing the format and probably hours in Canva on the assets.
And then I posted.
And then an hour went by.
And then I deleted it as though it never happened, felt immense shame, and resolved to never try anything again.
Until a new idea would pop up. This elusive, better, different idea. And the cycle would restart. I wouldn’t always have this same outcome, but it would always be there.
Just quit. People have barely noticed your post. Spare yourself the embarrassment of quitting later with a larger audience you’ll be accountable to.
I am currently working on something that is testing my vulnerability, and fortitude. It’ll even challenge the current bounds of my failure tolerance (not hard, because in some respects, it’s practically nonexistent).
I’ve considered quitting about twice. Once when I realized I wanted to carry out this plan, and a second time I was crunching numbers and negotiating venue costs and pricing. Pricing is a big wound. But even if something is free, I second guess if my voice needs to be heard and if what I do or desire matters.
It’s taken me a while to internalize the reality that when I back out of a plan before giving it any opportunity to soar, crash-and-burn, or something in between, I am, in fact, rejecting myself.
And I think that self-rejection is a sign of strength but it’s rooted in trauma, cowardice, and fear.
I would like to not be as afraid and better live my values, so I’m trying to simply make and let things lie. I’m trying to treat things like an experiment. And if I am to fail, it’ll be because of seeing it through and learning from the act of iterating the whole way through. Not because I get trigger-happy when I see the DELETE button.
Truth #3: I am a former follower/unfollower when it comes to people I get intimidated by online and I often worry about how people perceived this when I did do it.
During the worst of it, I couldn’t handle following other people in my industry. Other writers I assumed must be more accomplished than me. Athletes that had more successful cut periods. Professional witches who had higher ticket offers than mine and were hosting webinars with 50+ attendees.
I intellectually knew that vanity metrics were only one side of the story and were just that, vanity. A part of me knew that just because someone books more than me, it doesn’t mean they’re any better or worse than me.
It didn’t stop me from being wicked insecure though.
The scarcity mindset is a faithful servant of the bigger, badder fear monster.
After much therapy, shadow work, boundary work, and recognizing that my work and scope are innately different from anyone else’s, I can root for people who are, by all accounts, my peers in the industry.
It took me a long time to understand how treating other people as my competition nonstop meant I couldn’t meaningfully learn from them or celebrate their successes. And wouldn’t I want them to cheer me on if I succeeded too?
Plus, this competition mindset also assumes there’s only a handful of people out there and we’re all clamoring to get their attention. It might feel like that, but that’s rooted in scarcity, too.
Our corners of the Internet and the world are both large and small. When I’d follow, get angry, and unfollow, it was often because I feared they took something from me. Our audiences and communities are certainly important and valuable, but we’re not talking about lithium-ion where they’re a finite and precious resource. If you and I are still discovering musicians, writers, and painters even with our faves at our fingertips, why can’t someone else resonate with and be impacted by your work and want to work with you?
This is the lesson I have both learned and am still learning.
My scarcity wound is one of my gnarliest, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying to make it smaller over time.
As with any of these, I have made some strides, but some days it’s as though nothing has changed. I’m still a frightened animal against a world with larger predators.
But then I dust myself off and remember that some thoughts are just thoughts, sometimes it ain’t that deep and we’re harder on ourselves than other people, and we can all be stronger if we stop fighting so much and seek out camaraderie instead of more opponents.
Because, evidenced by this and what so many others have said in the “social media is not real life” trend, life is hard enough. We don’t need to feed our demons or invent new problems for the plot.
Our plots are thick enough, thank you very much.