Daily Manifestation Challenge: Are You Addicted to “Like”?

May 31, 2012

The real question is this: Where can you be honest with yourself? Where can you be the most honest you that you have ever been?

Yesterday I rode my bike, along with my dear friend Laura, to Redondo Beach.

From Santa Monica.

Thank God The Redondo Beach Pier had those awesome fish tacos and pints of beer or I wouldn’t have made it back. ( Not joking.) 34 miles is a long haul, folks. A long haul.

I had a lot of time to think. To just be.

Here is my honesty for the day, my second Confession in the Confession Series. (click to read Confession about sucking my thumb.)

I realized I am addicted to likes. To clicks.

I am addicted to Like.

Like the song Addicted To Love. Just change it to Like.

I post a blog. And then I check every few minutes to see how it’s doing. Did they like it? Do they like me? ( Who, in the name of God, are “they”?)

Am I good enough?

I am being honest here, so I am breaking down what it really means.

I have become a slave to my phone and computer, so dialed in and over-connected all the time. Yesterday as I rode all those miles and looked out at the ocean I thought about how great it felt to be off the grid. To not care one way or the other what was going on in the world beyond that moment, there on my bike.

I am being raw and looking deep within the caves of Jennifer that are not to be found on Facebook or Twitter.

It’s not a conscious thing I am talking about. It’s something I realized there on my beach cruiser with the orange basket in front and fishing rod in back; this need for connection and approval to make me feel good about myself.

We all want to be liked. That’s natural.

The reality? Not everyone will like us.

That’s ok. It’s usually not about us anyway, and, even if it is, it doesn’t matter. It’s their opinion to have, whoever they are.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77gKSp8WoRg]

I was with my private client last week and Bruce Springsteen was in the background singing one of my favorites, “My Hometown.” I looked over at him and asked: Are you a Bruce fan?

Him: Nah.

Me: Really?

So I realized that if you plug in your favorite artist or singer or anyone that you think is the best there is, you will always find someone that says: They suck.

How can you not be a Bruce fan? I thought and was truly baffled.

So there will always be someone that doesn’t like Bruce or Snow Patrol or your favorite band or artist. Helps you get over the fact that not all people will like you, right?

So back to the honesty question. Where can you be really honest with yourself?

A confession, if you will.

Mine is: I am an addict.

My last post on one of the many sites I write for got a hundred plus comments but only a thousand “likes.”

Do you know that I actually spent time thinking about this?

Comparing myself to other people? Wondering why more people hadn’t clicked “like” on something that was so personal, so important to me? Something that I had spent so much time on and which I thought was really good? What if the website didn’t publish me anymore? What if it means something, this only a “thousand likes” business?

And you know what? The what if’s, when you spell them out and look them square in the jaw, end up being small little things that get filed under “Irrelevant” in your Life File, along with getting into a “perfect” yoga pose or being the “perfect” weight.

I caught myself in my own trap.

I have become tethered to something that is, in no way, shape, or form: real.

I have allowed it.

I have become a junkie to people validating me.

It’s easy to happen.

Everything has a like button so how can we start to not feel as if it a personal sign we are wearing?

Like me? Please, please click “like”? Vote for me? “Like” me and I will believe I am good enough and if you don’t like me then I will feel worthless.

It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?

So, now what?

I am honest with it, now what? I am looking at it. I am “being with it” as they say. Now what?

So, here’s what: I shut the computer. I go sit with my husband and have a nice meal and a glass of wine. I let go of any notion that my self worth is connected to how many Facebook fans I have, how many likes I have on a post, how many tweets or pinterests or shmiterests. I let myself sit and be like I am on a bike with not a care in the world except how far away the dang Pier is, with it’s fish tacos and beer.

Where can you be honest with yourself? That’s Today’s Daily Manifestation Challenge or DMC. Come on and take it! Answer below. I know it is scary, but it feels so so good.

Daily Manifestation Challenge

Courage. The DMC.

February 13, 2012

The theme of classes this week is Courage so I thought I would start this dreary Monday off with a Daily Manifestation Challenge about courage.

I have a temporary tattoo on my forearm that says COURAGE. It’s called a Manifestation Tattoo. Can you believe that?

( Serendipity, right?) They are made by a company called Conscious Ink.

Conscious Ink Manifestation tattoos. A company after my own heart!

I started thinking a lot about courage, about what it really meant after I watched Brene Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability. If you have not seen it, stop what you are doing and watch NOW.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0]

Brene says “Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language — it’s from the Latin word cor, meaning heart — and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. And so these folks had, very simply, the courage to be imperfect. They had the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others, because, as it turns out, we can’t practice compassion with other people if we can’t treat ourselves kindly. And the last was they had connection, and — this was the hard part — as a result of authenticity, they were willing to let go of who they thought they should bein order to be who they were, which you have to absolutely do that for connection.”

There it is. The courage to be imperfect.

I was telling my class on Saturday just before I had them write for 3 minutes straight about courage, that I think people grossly underestimate themselves when it comes to courage. You do not have to jump from a plane with a parachute to be courageous.

I look at the people on my last retreat. One girl came all the way from Amsterdam, alone. All the way to Mexico with a group she didn’t know, having never done yoga in her life and leaving her children back home. That’s courage to me, in my little Jen Book Of Courage. And you know, she had the courage to be imperfect and ask for private help from me with the poses. She had the courage to sit out and watch at times. She had the courage to make new friends and be vulnerable. My sister had the courage to leave two kids at home (one who has special needs and a very strict regimen) and take a week just for herself. Something she had never ever done in her life.

Today, she is signing up for a yoga teacher training in Atlanta after allowing herself that week retreat in Mexico, that was a gift just for her. She connected to what inspired her and renewed her sense of courage and came home ready to take on the world.

It took courage for me to admit my hearing loss. At first, I was mortified and felt less than a human being. I was afraid I would be alone in the world on an island of silence in a sea of noise.

I started to tell the story of who I was with my own heart and much to my delight, I ended up inspiring people and encouraging others to be vulnerable and open.

It took courage for me to talk openly about my history with a severe eating disorder. It also held me accountable.

It even took courage to start my Karaoke Yoga Classes. To get up there and sing badly and have no self consciousness so I could encourage them to do the same.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuldTtJup_M&list=UUo7CxUPFOH-Z6LKCDHbHveQ&index=2&feature=plcp]

When my dad died I told myself not to cry. I held it in for years. I literally would bit my lip and say “Don’t cry. Be strong. Be courageous.”

I was 8.

Unfortunately I thought that was the courageous thing to do. To be brave like an adult and hold it in and move on and get on with my life. To not be affected and most certainly never ever be vulnerable. Especially not in front of other people. Gasp!

It took many years for me to develop the courage to show emotion in front of other people. I had a very hard time as an actor being vulnerable or crying because of all the years I spent stifling that part of me. It was like a piece had broken and the clock was missing a second hand, the doll had lost it’s head, the flower was without it’s color.

Once I finally opened up I realized that it was my courage and that very vulnerability which drew others to me, and get this, which allowed me to make money. The thing i had stifled and been ashamed of, was now my source of income and my bliss. Is it my bliss not being able to hear well? No way!

It is my bliss being able to share and talk and teach and take people on a journey where they can discover what courage means for them.

A woman came up to me Thursday after my Equinox class who told me she just signed up to go back to school so she could become a clinical psychologist. She is 60. That, Dear Manifesters, is what courage also looks like.

Doing something that society may have told you that you are too old for. Or too young for. Doing something because it is what you want to do rather than what anyone else asks of you. That is not to say we act purely from our own needs all the time with no consideration for others or our family. It is to say that we must do what we feel is our dharma, or what makes us come alive despite what may seem like a very valid excuse as not to do that very thing.

Here are some suggestions as to how you can comment below:

It took courage for me to __________ despite ____________.

I have the courage to say “I love __________.”

When ________ happened I found I had courage I didn’t know I had.

I have the courage to ask for help with ________________.

I have the courage to admit to myself that I really want ______________.

I have the courage to accept ___________________.

I have the courage to forgive _______________.

I have the courage to go after my dream of ___________.

Lions and Tiger and Bears. Oh My,

Jen

Jennifer Pastiloff is a writer based in Los Angeles. She is the founder of The Manifest-Station. Jen will be leading a Retreat in Costa Rica at the end of March (204) and her annual retreat to Tuscany is in July 2014. All retreats are a combo of yoga/writing and for ALL levels. Read this post to understand what her retreats are like. Check out her site jenniferpastiloff.com for all retreat listings and workshops to attend one in a city near you. Jen and bestselling author Emily Rapp will be leading another writing retreat to Vermont in October. `