Social Media Allows Us To Be More Genuine, Honest, Congruent

                           I love social media. Social media has forced a shift in humans that I feel is for the better; it has forced people to be one person to all people at all times, and this is awesome! No longer can one successfully juggle various narratives of ourselves and be one person to one set of people and then present quite another face to a different set of people. This duplicitous aspect of humanity is not possible in the world of Facebook. In Facebook, for example, you are thrown in a wild whirlwind of people from all stages, ages, and periods of your life and everyone gets to see you the same way at the same time. This ladies and gentlemen is HUGE, it's absolutely revolutionary if you give it a second's thought. Where else in humanity's history has there been a forum when you can have your exes, your past high school teachers, your nieces and nephews and your elementary school friends all comment on, say, a picture or a link you just posted? The answer is NOWHERE. Because of this miraculous new form of communication we are forced to be more genuine, more one with all, more honest from the start. I love this about Facebook. 

                             If you believe in something, never hide it, never be shamed of it, put it out there for all to see, for all to comment, and openly judge. Puzzlingly, I have often heard folks say to me they purposely hold out being 'political' or 'controversial' on Facebook in fear of offending their 'friends'. That logic makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. When I hear this I immediately wonder if they are this way in person as well. Are they only about pleasantries and talking about the weather in person as well? I can't help but to be turned off by people who feel that FB is not for politics. If not on Facebook then where else would you speak out (or shout) about dumb rape comments made by stupid politicians, where else can one state that they support gay marriage to all their family members, or express disbelief at the ridiculous tests kids have to go through in school, or show support for any cause for that matter? This IS the forum to be exactly who you are in your brightest sense, no bars held, let the chips fall where they may. (With some limits of course, but I assume we have all had FB long enough now to know how to behave on it appropriately)

                  Hiding something in the name of 'not offending' comes across as you feeling ashamed of it, as if there were something wrong with having an opinion, or believing in a cause, or showing passion for ideas. Only in being who we are around others can we encourage others to genuinely express their own ideas, passions and true selves and that makes for a much more interesting relationship, a much more genuine interaction.  In addition, I openly welcome people to 'unfriend' me who feel I should be posting less politics and more...who knows what on my page. 

                     In many ways Facebook is a wonderful metaphor for life. The most obvious metaphor here being, accept yourself and others as we are, with our many gifts, our many quirks.  Life becomes infinitely more interesting as a result of this 'allowing'. Trying to manipulate and restrict genuine communication through fear only makes for fake relationships and reduces them to what I call, 'pleasantries relationships'. Pleasantries relationships never venture past 'talkin about the weather' carry very little impact for no one learns anything, no one is impacted, changed, inspired by such hum drum relationships. 

                 We can't change the world, make an ounce of impact, or even begin to do the work we were placed here to do if we don't show others who we truly are from the very beginning.  
                                 

                               

                         

Caught Chloe posting on FB....

Caught Chloe playing on my laptop.....I think she was trying to post on Facebook.

Listen to your feelings to find inner peace....yes, even ONLINE

I have come to learn that humans communicate in whole other levels aside from the basic forms of communication we know of, such as talking to one another or using body language to convey meaning. I have come to believe that there is a whole undercurrent of communication that happens that very often outweigh in helping us make decisions; big decisions such as whether to trust a person or not. Over the years I believe my ability to utilize this 'skill', if you may call it that, has become more and more trustworthy.

Often we feel guilty in allowing ourselves to feel repulsed by someone else's actions. For example a person might annoy us or rub us the wrong way and our immediate reaction is to 'turn the other cheek' or doubt the validity of our own feelings. We might suppress it and never once question why we actually feel annoyed. You CAN choose to literally respect your gut feelings or choose to do the total opposite and take a doubting stance towards yourself and suppress these feelings. But if we actually stay in the emotion as it arises we might learn something about ourselves. Perhaps our body's reaction to the situation is trying to tell us something about this person in relation to ourselves. I say "our body" for very often a feeling of simple annoyance comes with bodily reactions such a heart rate increase, or ever-so-minute muscle tightening, etc. Nevertheless, if we choose to look into it or the very least respect it, we might find that it might be better off not being around the person.

Lately, I've had to force myself to be, I guess you can call it "ruthless", on my social media sites such as twitter and Facebook due to my attempt to respect my reactions and my goal of purposefully aiming for peace in all my social relations. When situations, comments and/or dynamics create uncomfortable situations in my thoughts I listen tothese thoughts and to the way they make me feel. Now this is where being a mom has helped me save myself and has allowed me to better execute my goals for myself. Having 2 children now that I would simply die for in an instant has made me feel my own sense of worth and AWESOME power. If you have children you understand what I mean. A mothers' love is awe-inspiring to say the least. To give you some background, I grew up struggling with issues of worth and worthiness. Coming of age without a father around, who just happened to be alive and well, can do that to any young woman. But being a mother has given me back my power to value myself JUST as much as I value my kids. Therefore in valuing myself comes not allowing negative energies to invade your space. The discomfort I feel at any point in any interaction must be listened to, respected and acted upon if I am to find inner and outer peace in life; hence the ruthlessness with my social media sites as I would in real-life interactions. Just because someone is being rude on the computer does not mean it should be allowed. Listen to your discomforts too and CUT IT, cut it out fast and clean; in whatever form you see fit. Try it, you will see that your life too becomes much simpler too.

Buddhist beliefs about happiness

Buddhists believe that happiness and suffering arise from the mind. In particular suffering comes from negative minds called delusions; minds such as hatred, ignorance and craving. Happiness comes from positive minds such as love, patience and wisdom. By purifying the mind of its negativities and increasing its positive states we can attain increasingly happy states of mind. When the mind is completely pure we attain the ultimate happiness of enlightenment and become a Buddha.

information about Buddhism and image of word found at: http://www.meditationinliverpool.org.uk/HTML-Pages/About-Buddhism/Buddhist-Beliefs.html

first image above borrowed from: http://www.thethreadsthatbindus.net/innerdragonreiki.htm