It’s only taken 20 months!!
This has been a very long time coming and Wow have I procrastinated for such a long long time, the excuses that I’ve dreamt up and the astonishing lengths I have gone to to avoid writing a blog.
Let me share with you a little about the roller coaster I have been on and my relationship with social media. My love and hate of it and how astonished I am at where it has brought me.
So firstly I love Solution Focused Hypnotherapy and that’s what I am trained to do. It’s a wonderful powerful mix of neuroeducation with positive psychology and a wonderful dollop of deep relaxation. I’m not at all keen on the word Hypnotherapy as I feel it is largely misunderstood but perhaps I could blog about that another time.
I consider myself a very normal average kind of person who finds other people very interesting and always find myself in a helping role. Yes that says a lot about who I am as a person in the Freudian world. But hey ho that’s who I am and thats why I decided to offer my training, time and commitment to Smiling Mind Hypnotherapy, with the excellent training, thorough case studies behind me, continual professional development along with regular supervision, a website and beautiful calm therapy cabin a stone’s throw from my house I felt ready to set up practice.
‘I want to be a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist so I can learn all about marketing’ said no one ever.
Now here is where I have to be honest and lay it all bare. Social media and having a media presence frightens the bejeebers out of me, at first is was ok, I kinda understood what to do. I downloaded help guides watched Youtubes and listened to podcasts to reassure myself how to ‘do social media’. I even found myself regularly speaking out about the fabulous benefits of social media ‘I can keep in touch with the family and friends’, ‘I can find groups and activities that I might like’. When my weekly phone usage displayed how much time I was on my device I found myself justifying that lost time with ‘I was working, researching, networking’.
Through the algorithms of Social media I was then bombarded with other businesses who offered to help me grow as a business become proficient at content marketing, making reels having a presence etc etc.
So now here I am now finally writing a blog some 20 months after my last one because yes my rollercoaster was taking me on an up and now clearly here’s the down side. I’m going to admit it, I am feeling lost, bewildered, confused ,fatigued, unable to ask for help cos surely I should ‘get it all by now’ and it’s not the fault of social media its mine alone. I allowed the boundaries to become blurred, glossed over things and like an annoying fly which keeps on flying into the window for freedom I carried on and on thinking some fabulous wisdom will surely befall me.
Today I woke up ready to share my thoughts and thank you for sticking with me this far.
Writing this has been cathartic in itself and it’s not intended to judge your usage or the place of social media in our society. The intention of this is to be honest to share that we all struggle no matter what our job roles or society roles are. Just because I have learnt some amazing tools and techniques for life long healthy mental wellbeing it is our human nature to sometimes hit a brick wall, have a wobble or a great big ugly meltdown. What is key is resilience, honesty, taking a step back, slowing down and again some real self honesty. So now I’m going to be kind to me I’m going to refresh myself by doing the things I value and take some small steps to resetting some boundaries and do what’s right for me.
Here’s a lovely little sketch that has been with me for some years now its good advice, but we must remember to heed it (Jeanette!)