I’m 51 but I need to reverse my numerical’s and channel my inner 15 year old. I have to get in touch with my inner narcissist: the one who believes that my life is actually that interesting. I have to dig deep into the well of ego and pull out every drop of self-belief in myself and cultivate the desire to share that life with the world.
I am not doing this by choice. I am self-employed and have written a book. I need to market that book and to do this I need to dance with the devil. I need to become one with social media. It’s hashtag instapositivity. It’s come look at how fabulous my life is. I need to satisfy the google bots by feeding them content daily, twice daily, as much as possible as they are voracious and need to be kept at bay by constant posts. It’s exhausting but it’s the world in which I now live. It’s not a natural impulse for me to think other people are the slightest bit interested in a photo of my morning walk, or what I had for breakfast but this is what’s needed.
I’ve done the webinars, I’ve studied how to produce content and this is it. The world wants to see you and your life and everything about you. This is not a natural state of play for a menopausal middle-aged woman who is happily dealing with the decline of her social party animal hormones like oestrogen and will quite gladly disappear into the hibernation of her home, content to let life float on by, past the window, and down around the corner, out of sight. I can gladly sit back down and dunk my biscuit in the tea of life that is solitude and seclusion. But no, wait, I must take a photo of that biscuit, that cup of tea, and post it. Satisfy the starvation of the gremlins inside my phone first.
Added to this I feel like a total clown; constantly taking photos of whatever nonsense I’m doing. Out for a walk with the kids, snap. Lockdown art with the kids, snap. Morning pilates on the beach with the ladies, snap. The cats napping, start snap, snap, snapping. (Actually, I’m lucky, that beach is stunning and delivers scenes of constant beauty and change, #gratitude). It’s cultivating those neurons that fire the message, ‘share this with the world’. My natural inclination is to never share anything with anyone, even the most momentous of occasions but now I have to want to share the minutia of my life, and make it relevant. The neuroplasticity of my brain is built with neuroplastic bullets, and they don’t work.
It’s about visibility, building a platform, getting followers, and touting my wares. It’s the new world order and it’s get jiggy with it or die.
And look at some of the content that is produced. It took me several weeks to figure out the most basic of moves on these apps, while some kids are producing Oscar deserving mini-movies on a daily basis. I can’t compete.
It has opened up some new doors onto the world for me though. I am following a girl @kylacobbler who is a little gem. She just documents her life through her phone, to her bff – obvs me, and several hundred thousand others who are tuning in. She is sharing her life, living and loving in Barcelona. I was that girl, except it was thirty years ago and it was New York City. But I can relate. The looking for jobs in bars, finding apartments, general cut and thrust of surviving by yourself in a foreign city while living your best twenty-something fabulous life. I get it can be fun, and informative, and life-changing. And I also get that if I don’t get it I will die like the proverbial dinosaur that I am. Gone are the days of sticking an ad on the back page of the Irish Times ‘buy my book, ‘Beneath The Visible, it’s a rollicking good read’. Nope, not good enough sista. ‘You got big dreams, you want fame, well fame costs, and right here’s where you start paying, in sweat’, …..and lots and lots of content production. SOS (sorry)I thought it was FBF (Flashback Friday) there, that’s a quote from Fame, ICYMI(in case you missed it). So I’m off out, to meet my BFF(best friend forever), get some LOLS (laugh out loud) and LMAO(laugh my a** off), no FOMO (fear of missing out) here!!!!
#shoplocal #staylocal #buylocal #christmas #gifts
So in the spirit of my fabulous website, I will be posting some yoga moves, breathing techniques and wellness tips for teens and kids and also for the Mams of the teens and the kids.
‘the times they are a changin’ as we have heard many times before – to quote good old Bob, however I don’t think they have been a changing this much in many a year. To that end I think we could all use a bit of help.
Yoga moves today:
Any balance asana, tree pose or Vrikshasana, Mountain pose or Tadasana, Dance pose or Natrajasana, Crow pose or Bakasana, hold one leg up and out to the side while trying not to fall over balanced on the other and turn your head opposite or Utthita Hasta Padangustasana!!!
Basically any of the balancing poses where your lovely mind has no choice but to be very in the moment or you are likely to do yourself an injury.
Crystals used:
I am writing so I have a carved sodalite skull sitting beside me.
This is a quote from ‘The Book of Stones’ by Robert Simmons:
‘Sodalite is a stone of insight, helping one penetrate paradox, and contradiction in order to form a new synthesis of thought. It enhances the mental powers of analysis, intuition, observation and creativity and is stimulating to ones latent genius.”
I like the ‘latent genius’ bit here, it resonated so I naturally thought ‘Yes that is soooo me’!!!!
Tigers Eye: This one is from my book. It’s great for kids. It’s a stone of practicality, action, focus, mental clarity. This last one I can definitely use. It helps with fatigue and gives strength to carry on.
Who couldn’t use a bit of that.?
Wellness Tip for Today:
I am going to quote Brene Brown here ‘No matter what gets done or what doesn’t get done, you are enough’
Bam, take that social media gurus, and #fabulousinstalife, all you go getters out there, I am silencing my inner critic and channelling my inner slightly older lady voice, who tells me, ‘I will get there, my insta posts will do, and I am ok.’