Sans Facebook

After much consideration, I decided to go off Facebook after the first of the year. I love posting pictures of my beagles and kitten, watching and sharing other cute animal videos. I enjoy knowing what other people are up to, significant news and life changes they are experiencing.  

But I don’t care for the negativity, the political and social ignorance, and at times, the inhumanity that shows up on the social media wall. More importantly, I didn’t like how much time I spent on my iPhone watching how others live their lives while I let my own life slip away. In monitoring my screen time the past month or so, I’ve found myself spending HOURS on my phone! (Do you know how much time you are on your phone?  There’s a setting to find out if you’re interested.) I became too involved in other peoples’ lives and less so in my own. Facebook is addictive. If nothing was of interest on my wall, I’d go to strangers’ postings to see what was going on. I felt like the neighbor Alice from the old sitcom Bewitched. Showing my age here, but that means I was being nosy, which Facebook makes easy to do.

Facebook also became much like Linus’s blanket for me – a security crutch to feeling better about myself. That’s what Facebook is really – and a small part of why Mark Zuckerburg created it after being jilted by a girl, and he wanted to feel popular and connected. Oh, and the cash!  It’s a genius program but it comes with pros and cons. I realized I use it as a source of validation, a boost of my self-worth so I feel valued and less alone.  We get attached to how many likes or comments we have on our posts, feeding that Egoic craving for security and "love". Personally, I used Facebook to feel good about myself, and less alone. Rather than validate myself for accomplishments, new hairdos or random clever thoughts, I posted them on Facebook for my online friends to do the task with a like or comment. The reason? For most of my life, I’ve looked to external validation from others  (starting with my dad) to feel good about myself. That’s a whole book’s worth of discussion but essentially, I needed others to make me feel worthy of being on this planet. Many of us are unconscious of this need for external validation. Only after the recent collapse of life as I have known it these past few years, and despite being intellectually aware of this about myself, I’m finally accepting that love and acceptance of who I am starts with me and God within.  God created me, so I must be worthy of existing, right?  Yet I have struggled to accept that truth at a deep emotional and spiritual level. I realize now that I honor God’s love by loving myself through kinder words, self-compassion, gentle thoughts, self-care, self-respect, and putting to use the gifts God gave me as an empath.

Complicating this further, as an empath I tend to be energetically affected at every level of my being by the vibes of other people’s posts – negative or positive.  I cry at the rescue animal videos – my heart breaks, then celebrates in a matter of two minutes. I cringe with angst reading posts in support of a hateful, narcissistic leader, and/or become angry at the lack of empathy for others or the ignorance in opinions.  I emotionally sink reading news of terrorist attacks and the ugly comments by people who are quick to place blame while simultaneously demonstrating stupidity around the horror, loss of life and tragedy of others.

Facebook is one of the many distractions I’ve been clearing. “Stuff” – material clutter that we collect in the name of status (cars, furniture, knick-knacks, clothes, etc.) are also tools for external validation. Mental clutter of defeatist thinking, self-loathing and judgement of myself and of others is also clutter. I am clearing “stuff” that serves no purpose in my life, thus minimizing all distractions so I focus on what my Higher Power calls me to do on this journey – a spiritual healer and support for others. 

Tangled Yarn

Over the last year, I’ve been doing a great deal of work around relationships of all kind: friendships, co-worker, family. More recently, I’ve been doing some deeper healing work around my relationship with my father, and out of this process has come the even deeper work around my intimate relationships with men. I’m finding this process much like untangling wadded yarn; and interestingly, the yarn represents the “story” I’ve lived and spun for myself over many years about my relationships with men. They say the relationship we daughters have with our fathers reflects the kinds of relationships we have with men in our dating lives. I’ve come to realize how in many ways, many of my dating relationships have been influenced by the relationship I’ve historically had with my father. Yikes!

In a studious look back at past relationships, I found some disconcerting trends. Most of my intimate relationships developed out of sense of neediness. I’ve also recognized patterns of insecurity in which I’ve had a great need for validation, reassurance and attention in order to trust the situation at hand. Much of this insecurity I’m realizing stems from my relationship with my father who was not emotionally or verbally expressive whatsoever with his feelings towards me as his daughter. I didn’t experience the father-daughter affection I watched many of my girlfriends enjoy with their fathers. My father also worked a full time job and additional “jobs” in order to provide for our family and college educations for my brother and me. As a result, we didn’t see a lot of my dad because of his swing shift schedule and/or tending to his various farming projects. My father didn’t take an interest in my life or things I liked; and we never had father/daughter time in which we spent quality time together doing things I enjoyed or that we could enjoy together. Dad was supportive of my involvement in band, especially in the last two years of high school taking on the Eagle One equipment bus project in which he renovated a school bus and drove it to band contests. While this interest I appreciate, it didn’t fulfill that one-on-one quality time spent together, since I shared him with over a hundred other people during those times. Dad did what he knew how to do best: provide for his family, and in this he was a great success.

I came to realize I held an unconscious belief that because my father didn’t take time to spend time with me, freely show me affection or express his feelings for me (his responses to my “I love you” were typically grunts and I had to coerce hugs out of him), I felt unworthy of his love; and through the years in our relationship, as well as those with men I’ve dated, I have felt the need to “earn” his love and affection. As a rebellious teen, I got his attention by fighting with him, yelling matches which unfortunately were how he and I invested our time into our relationship. I learned from my dad my feelings didn’t count, and therefore, unhealthy ways to angrily express them, even then they weren’t honest. I have spent most of my life trying to win my father’s love and approval; and only within the last year have I decided I don’t need it to be the wonderful and loving person I am.

Through this reflection, I realized I carried that baggage with my dad into most of my dating relationships, and needless to say, that has yet to serve me or the relationships well. I also attracted and dated men like my father: emotionally unavailable and/or unable to communicate or express their feelings (though most of this gender isn’t the best at these things). I managed these relationships much like I managed my relationship with my father, with anger as the persecutor or by emotionally shutting down as the victim. I accepted verbal and emotional abuse was the norm within a male/female relationship. My father often criticized me throughout childhood, and even still today; however, now I no longer take it personally (though little girl inside me still feels the sting as the past flares up) or place great value on his words. Today, I express how I feel in a respectful but honest manner and I don’t back down. This last year living with my father has been no doubt purposeful to rediscovering my personal power. I’ve learned to stand up to my father in a respectful and healthier way and to speak my truth around what I want or need from him, or how I’m feeling without fear or shame. I’m learning self-validation, rather than look to him (or anyone else) for validation of worthiness in this life. And I’m recognizing and appreciating his own ways of expressing love for me; at times it feels like an archaeological dig to find them but they are there.

This time with my father prepares me for a healthier way of managing and showing up in a dating relationship. I recognize how this baggage with my father has bled over into my dating life and how to better manage the dating process, and myself within it. I’ve given over so much of myself and my personal power to these past dating connections in the hope of being accepted and loved, all in an effort to fill the void left unfulfilled by my father-daughter relationship. What a horrific burden to place on another human being! In many ways, I feel like a teenager all over again figuring out how to date, what to do and not do, what to expect and not to expect. I’ll muddle through it as I’ve muddled through so many other new enlightened experiences before. These revelations offer me an incredible opportunity to grow and develop a healthier and loving relationship with a man who unconditionally accepts and loves me for who I am. Part of this process also involves my believing that I am worthy of unconditional love and acceptance, and finding within myself the willingness to accept nothing less than that from another.