Wow. EMOTIONAL roller coaster this week.
(Want to give credit to Lori for giving me the topic line idea. I was telling her what was coming up for me and she was sharing how Social Media has been Medicine for her journey…)
How many times have you heard someone tell their story or vent… maybe about something that happened to them, complaining, etc? And have you felt yourself want them to see the positive side of it or acknowledge the gift?
How many times have you done that to yourself? Where you feel yourself complaining or be in an emotion of sadness or anger and try to get yourself to a more positive emotion?
I am allowing myself to feel, feel any emotion with the intention and awareness that those emotions will evolve, change, shift on their own. I also acknowledge that there is a blessing and gift with any situation and that I am not the victim but sometimes I just need to vent or write it down in order to become aware and release the victim-hood.
I feel that sometimes the emotion can get associated with being the victim and I am shifting that as well.
I can easily tap into gratitude and love and “positive” energy. But these last few days, I have been in sadness and have been very sensitive to things and easily triggered.
Explaining this always feel a bit funny to me because most of the time people want to make sure I’m okay during this time and say to look at the positive side or that things will be okay. I know that and I know I am not being in this place of gratitude and smiling but I do feel it. I know that these emotions and feelings are such blessings and I just want to sit in it. The feeling I get from people is that they don’t trust me to be in those feelings, like I am going to go down a spiral and hurt myself or something. And also that they are uncomfortable with the emotions I am showing.
I will get to my reason for writing this blog but I wanted to share this. When I was telling Joey this morning what triggered me, he asked, “But can you see the positive to this…?”. Lol this is when I kind of yelled at him, “OF COURSE I CAN! I just want to feel and cry about it!!” (Turns out my moon cycle was on it’s way… so I was being emotional). He has actually been experiencing me in all especially these emotions of sadness, anger, frustration, confusion and he is also learning how to hold space for me when I am in these emotions. I actually told him that there are moments where I get in these “depressed dark” cycles and usually I can tell when one is coming. I am honoring my cycles and my emotions. It’s actually quite beautiful, it’s like contrasts. In order for me to be so kind and share so much love, I also get to feel sorrow and sadness to really appreciate and be grateful.
Okay so what lead me to write…. Clicking the “like” button.
Oh boy. So a friend messaged a group of us saying his YouTube Channel was up and ready. Gosh, this man is a dear friend and lived with us for several months. I am thankful for him and I know that what I will say next he won’t take personally because it’s part of my journey.
When I watched the video, let me tell you it’s crazy what it triggered in me. Towards the end of the video he starts dancing and usually when he dances he inspires me to dance and move but this time I was like ARGHHHHH!!!!
I literally got sad and starting crying. This feeling of it’s not fair he is traveling and dancing and making cool videos came up, mainly because he was getting comments on it already. When he posted it on Facebook so many people were liking and commenting it.
My thought was like, wow when I posted my channel or my blogs, I barely get likes or comments. (I was being the “victim” at this point.) This has actually shown up SEVERAL times with other people’s post but this time I wanted to confront it and be real with what’s coming up.
AND…. as you are reading this, you may get that feeling…. but can’t you see the positive stuff about it? Yes…. BUT LET ME VENT first. lol I will get to all the good realizations and gifts it showed in at the end.
This energy of jealousy and comparison came up again. (I wrote another blog about this!) I was so upset. Somehow I got to someone else’s page of a girl that I didn’t really vibe with but some of my previous friends and current friends were liking and commenting her stuff. And that brought up more shit for me. Like awesome cool, this chick gets all this attention.
I was seriously in my shit. To be honest, I also hate and feel uncomfortable feeling this way about people but I want to be supportive, I want to be happy for people’s journey but I also can’t be happy for my journey if I’m not honest.
I’m not always fucking positive and I don’t always show up as loving and kind to other people.
Really it wasn’t my friends video that triggered it. The likes, the subscribers and comments was what triggered me.
Let’s start with the video first. It made me question and go inward why I was feeling this way. First, I was kind of jealous that he is traveling. But do I actually want to get on a plane and explore right now? Not really. What I am craving is exploring around my town, going for a walk, a new adventure that’s close by. COOL, now I know I get to do that. The other thing was his cool video. But when I asked myself, do I actually want to create contain like that? To be honest, it would be nice but I also don’t want to spend hours putting it all together. I would rather write, blog about it lol.
Okay, so the likes. It’s so fucking silly but I feel it’s important for me to bring up because I know I am not the only one that may feel this way and also I’m sure it’s only getting more intense for the younger generations when it comes to hitting like and getting followers, etc.
The fact that he had all these likes and comments and I sometimes get a good amount and sometimes I barely get anything triggered me. And it was a good thing it did because it was this sense of expectation and validation from people.
These thoughts of “Oh, I’m not as liked as this person”, “I don’t have that many friends.” “My content is impacting people or it’s as important.” showed up. I told myself I want to work on releasing the need to people please and this need of being liked. It’s deep in me and I’m peeling back layers.
I was chatting with my friend Lori about this and she had some great insights and wisdom. But one of the big things or questions that got me thinking was…”What’s your reason or why for sharing?”. Is it for the likes, is it to share wisdom, to share experiences, to feel connected? Part of it is…was the likes, I don’t want it to be but I was programmed, I was in high school when MySpace came out and I’m sure I got some dose of that back then and then it was Facebook.
When I share, there are times I go back to the post to see how many likes I have gotten… It’s important for me to share because I’m working on releasing it needing to be for the likes. Ugh, it yucky to share this because I know that’s not me at my core. I really do enjoy sharing. It’s like a journal for me, sharing videos, sharing my writing, sharing photos.
It’s so interesting on my friend’s Facebook post about his video. This woman commented on his post and earlier that week I saw her and she mentioned that she read one of my blogs and enjoyed it. For a moment I questioned why she didn’t comment my post. Its quite magical because I said yes to going to this event she was at and she had the opportunity to tell me in person. I kind of view it as a mystery, people may see my content and not see many likes or comments but they have no idea or think about what happens behind the scenes.
I have gotten private messages from people I would NEVER have expected to reach out to me. I recently had this one woman reach out to me, seriously one of the last people I would ever imagine finding me and contacting me but she read one of my blogs and it gave her hope. I had to process this experience but it was so magical. Because I had the courage to share my story, she didn’t feel alone.
As much as I am mentioning the likes and comments, the real magic for me is planting these seeds through conversations, through blogs, videos… and the fact that I have no idea what the result will be. Did I ever think that posting that specific blog that this woman would find it… NOPE, never and the fact that I got to experience that one moment, it encouraged me to share.. To gift this world without the expectation of receiving.
So sometimes I need this shit to trigger me this way to show me my EGO. To remind me to share from the heart and when sometimes sharing feels like too much to take a break and live life.
It’s given me the gift to look within. To really embody loving myself and actually not give a crap what others think about me. Some days they may like my stuff, other days they don’t, who cares. If I truly love myself and where I am at in life, then why would anyone or anything actually trigger me?
Another part of loving myself is loving my personal gifts. I get so caught up on other’s people gifts and I think that I want to do the same thing when actually I’m forgetting about my own gifts. I love that I do feel comfortable on camera and sometimes make videos in my own way, I love that I can write and that I chose to create a blog, I have the gift of listening, I have so many gifts. People’s gifts actually are like an invitation that I can try new things, I get be a child and play in this world. I get to honor everyone’s unique style and what they bring into this world!
It will actually be fun now to see how I feel when I get no likes or get 100, why should it change. It’s like the certain amount of likes represented something. For instance, Lori mentioned how some people may believe that a coaching person that gets a lot of like may make a lot of money and that someone that gets less likes doesn’t… but that’s not true at all.
Another gift is that I have some pretty awesome people in my life. Lori has actually been teaching me it’s about quality over quantity. When I was younger, I had a lot of friends. I was always in several groups and I also feel that I was keeping that program or mentally of needing to have a lot of friends. It’s actually draining thinking about having lots of people in my life. I am thankful for the beautiful friends I have that really know me, deeply and intimately.
I do want to thank those that do hit the “like” button, that take the time to comment and even privately message me. I do acknowledge you and I am so blessed for those moments.
Oh my goodness! I almost forgot. Joey actually brought a great awareness to me about hitting the LIKE button. He was saying that sometimes hitting the like button feels more like an obligation. And it’s feel like that. When I pass a friends post on Instagram, I automatically like it. Sometimes I read the post, sometimes I don’t but it’s this… oh okay, I pressed the liked button, I’m “good”. Or if I don’t hit the like button they may think I don’t like their stuff. This fucking LIKE button is annoying.
I was watching the Social Dilemma and a guy mentioned they created the like button because they viewed it as positive and wanted to bring more of that on social platforms but now it’s turn more into a popularity contest. At least that was the experience I created for myself.
I went on Instagram the moment before I wrote the last two paragraphs and LITERALLY pressed liked as soon as I saw a photo. Weird, creepy. So I am going to practice not liking anyone’s photos or content and see how that feels. And if I feel called to message them privately to show appreciation then I will do that!
Ah, I am truly grateful for this experience and that I get to write about it. I’ve had similar experiences before with other people sharing their content and had these same feelings come up and this time I’ve created a safe space for me to share, especially from a place of gratitude and awareness that I get to release these programming and continue to step into my authentic self!
Thank you for my friend and ex-roomie Michael for triggering me with his video! I am truly happy for him and that he is having a blast and experiencing life with his travels and that he also gets to share his journey and inspire others! Below I have the video that triggered me. Gosh kind of embarrassing to admit someone so kind and a fun positive video could have brought up so much but that’s life.
You know what. Michael… Mike. One day we will cross paths on your travels, we will have a cool dance off and you will record it and you will make a cool ass video about it. LOL Love you brother.
Karina in Wanderland 