When you’re into freedom based living, one rule that you inherently follow is that of ditching the drama. When you know how you want to experience life there’s just no space for it anymore.
But let’s face it, in those early years it’s easy for your disturbing emotions to get triggered online as there’s so much perceived reality, clever marketing, truths you want to shout from the roof tops, but you hold back because social media is just that, social, and when you’re sensitive or introverted, rocking the boat is the last thing you want to do.
You want to find a way to harness the powerful connections that are offered by being on social media, without the questioning, comparing and judgement that goes along with it.
How do you turn your feelings around when you feel triggered by posts on social media?
First of all, know that it’s not just you.
When you’ve got an online business that requires you to spend quite some time on social media, the sheer complexities of who we are as human beings is bound to find the experience hard to deal with at times.
The reality is that you can’t be your best self when you’re in the thick of disturbing emotions. This means you need to create the space and circumstances that will allow you to learn, grow and arrive at a place where it no longer affects you.
Mind you, there’s a big difference between being a martyr (keep exposing yourself to pages/posts/people that upset lead you to be upset because you think it’s silly to unfollow or unlike. It’s not. It’s called choice); running away (ignoring that these feelings exist and what triggers them by making the afore ‘silly’ mentioned choice without taking responsibility and appropriate action); and creating the right conditions for personal growth (doing what you need to do to allow for this growth in a deep, honest way and where possible, least painful way).
Keep it simple, do this:
- Unsubscribe from newsletters, unfollow and unlike on Facebook and don’t engage in gossip. There’s no need to comment on what anyone else is or isn’t doing or just how they’re doing it. Mind your own business. Do your thing. Engage with others who are supportive and positive.
- Set time limits on how long you want to spend in social media so you don’t get caught in the rabbit hole of reading one post after another which will invariably have you start questioning human nature.
- Decide which 3 groups you’re going to be active in – 3 groups that make you feel good and lift you up. Stay out of the others.
- Work on your self confidence, recognise your skills, your uniqueness and always have your pulse on the growth you want to achieve in your own life, and what you want to bring out in the world. This is vital because it’s always about personal growth first. That’s the only way we can truly be of greatest service to others. We learn along the way. And we help others along the way. So you’ve got to know who you are, or rather who you want to be at all times.
- Last but not least – for one week be very conscious of which posts you comment on. Don’t just ‘like’ posts. Leaving meaningful comments when you feel called to engage on a post. You’ll see that when you start choosing what/who you do and don’t want to see and follow you’ll find that the quality of your newsfeed and therefore social media experience changes dramatically.
As you step into this greater expansion of you, you will automatically be less affected by what you see online. You’ll learn to mind your own business.
And if it’s specifically comparison that brings you down or has you fuming, I’ve written about how to deal with that in this post here.
Your take on the whole love-hate social media experience so many go through in the early (but often long) stages of business building?
