Being yourself online can be the strangest experience. (In addition to, you know, the basic essential weirdness of being a human being.)

Sometimes you want to dip your toe in a certain water without making it a big deal or announcing anything. And then it can feel oddly disingenuous to not share everything with everyone.

I open my mouth sit down to write, but nothing comes out.
So then you just don’t talk at all, because hello, all of your brain matter is occupied by this one thing. Feels a bit like being told something about someone and sworn to secrecy. And before you’ve even absorbed the information, he walks up and you get all blurtey and act like a total dooooofus.

Must have happened umpteen times on Seinfeld: Jerry tells Elaine a secret about George, and then she gets all mumbley and super suspicious. Until George gets her wasted and she spills everything.

A glimpse at the flip side.
Sometimes I feel awkward as a reader/consumer when someone hints at something they’re growing in the background. But now as a writer/producer I completely get it. Because you have this thing you want to talk about, but you also feel a bit protective, and you need to wait until the timing feels right.

Must be a bit like couples feel about telling people (or not) that they’re pregnant?

Nurturing something tiny and sweet is a vulnerable and delicate time. It might start out as just a private glimmer of an idea, a flutter across the screen. And at that point everything is so fragile. You need time to get used to the change. And it needs time to put down some roots and get stronger.

The baby point.
And there’s no reason that setting the stage for a new business venture or product has to be icky or manipulative anymore than it would be with a (real life) baby. Because your business can be your baby. Your next idea can be a tiny, sweet thing.

No one would be like: Oh, gross, she totally hinted at being pregnant – she must be pushing her baby on me. Dude, I don’t want your baby!

So why does it sometimes feel that way when someone hints about their next thing?

It’s like you I want to share a little bit, but you’re I’m scared that it will look like priming the pump or something. (Which in this case is extra ridiculous because part of my thing is for such a teeny handful of people that it would be impossible to game anyone.)

The bigger point?
Part of being yourself online (without wanting to stab yourself in the eye repeatedly) has to do with sharing what you can, being all you in a way that feels genuine and safe.

And if you can’t share everything rightthissecond, it doesn’t mean you’re withholding to be manipulative. And you definitely don’t want to over-share in the name of “authenticity”.

I guess this is me saying that I’m doing some stuff. That I’m crazy excited about. And I’ll be ready to share soon. Then, hopefully, I can stop being quite so super awkward and blurtey.

How about you? Do secrets make you clumsy? Even the exciting ones?

I do this thing where I resist structure because I should be disciplined enough to just do what I need to do without extra support or boundaries. That stuff is for wimps, right? Also, restriction scares me.

Just do it.
Sometimes I get spun out with online distractions and time wasters. I find myself on this crazed loop of checking e-mail, checking Twitter, checking forums, checking my reader. I know! Let’s check stuff!

And so I’ve toyed with the idea of trying a software program that forces helps you focus by blocking out distractions. But then, that’s just silly because I should be able to focus on my own, right?

I’m starting to think there are two ways to look at this kind of help.

Needing help = weakness + lack of self control + time to crack the whip

I have plenty of experience with using structure as a way to tame my wild tendencies and whip myself into shape. Yuck. Who wants that? And I spent enough years exploring the self-mastery route that I can recognize my inner dictator… even when she dresses up in a Let’s Be Productive cape.

If I go that route, it won’t be long before Miss Productivity gets bored or tired. At which point the wild child will take over and yank us along on a frenzied four hour tour of every link on Twitter.

(Yes, there must be some needs I’m trying to meet by check-check-checking my way through this maddening loop. But so far the conversation about exploring better ways to meet those needs only exists in my head. More on this later.)

So if self-mastery backfires and willpower just isn’t enough, what else can I do?

Wanting help = support + safety + taking care of myself

Okay, needing help because I’ve decided I suck… well, sucks. But I’m discovering that I am perfectly allowed to want help. Totally different thing. Consciously asking for help has everything to do with the way I frame the goal, and the way I see myself. I can choose to create support and safety.

Consider the goal. (And while you’re at it, come up for a non-triggery word for goal.)

When it comes to hanging out online, I want less bobbing around aimlessly (and the subsequent blurry-eyed hangover) and more experiences like this. Less energy drain, more connection.

When I believe I need structure because otherwise I can’t be trusted to do the things that are good for me, I feel totally dispirited. (God, we’ve worked on this. Why can’t you just be perfect already?)

But consciously creating a system of support that helps me do the things I already want to do? Yay!

Here goes.
Time to play with creating some containers for these activities. And experimenting with gentle accountability and productivity tools. Thoughts about this stuff? Ideas? What works for you?

I’m sitting alone on my patio this morning eating breakfast. And behind my house there’s a canyon, but before you get to the canyon there’s a hill and the hill is landscaped.

Because either:
a. This is Southern California and so we need to manicure everything to within an inch of its life; or
b. This is Southern California fire territory and so landscaping is keeping me safe from fire and mudslides.

Whatever. Not really the point. You don’t need to know that part except I feel the need to acknowledge: Landscaping a natural canyon? Yeah, weird.

The point.
While I’m sitting out here eating breakfast, there are some workers on the hill doing… you know, landscaping stuff. And while they’re working they’re singing in Spanish. One will start and then another will pick up the tune. And then it might turn into a whistle or a rowdy Ay! Ay! Ay!

And it’s just so beautiful that I stop breathing for a minute. Immediately, I wish my mom were here because she loves Spanish. And because she would appreciate how endearing this moment is to me.

And then I just wish anyone were here so I could say: Stop. Look at that. Listen. Isn’t it amazing?

I want someone to share that little moment of surprise and awe and joy with me. Because sharing it will intensify my delight and I’ll have a witness to this simple, sweet experience.

Ten years ago.
I have this vivid memory of an afternoon in college. I was driving to work and I pulled up behind a van full of special needs kids. In the very back row were two boys with Down Syndrome. And they were singing and laughing and car dancing their hearts out. I almost couldn’t stand it. So of course I immediately whipped out my cell phone to call my roommate and she giggled and swooned with me.

Today.
(Note: End of story if you’re not on Twitter. But you should totally come hang out on Twitter.)

And so I think: I’m going to tweet this. Because there are a few hundred people I can tell right now. Maybe one of them will understand. Or I’ll just be heard. My experience right here in this moment will be a thing. It will have a container and it will mean something more because of the connection.

And because there’s something real and true and soulful in telling someone:
Hey! Stop and look at this thing with me. This moment is important to me.

There is something in me noticing this moment that is part of who I am. In showing you what tugs at my heart I am showing you me. This is me.

And in fact, this morning on Twitter someone lovely did hear me. And she shared my moment. And I just felt this delicious little frisson of connection.

There are so many Big Important Sterile Reasons to use “social media”. This is the real deal. For me.

(Also, my twitter friend and I are totally starting a Sing-While-We-Work movement. Wanna join?)

Well hello there.  Nice to see you online.

Here’s the deal:  You need us.  Twitter is totally the perfect forum for you.  For your sparkling wit.  For those lonely, bleak moments, chained to your cubicle, when you’re suddenly struck with the genius of your own humor.

Only there’s no one around to impress share it with.  Your cubemate is at lunch and the “team” in Hydrabad hasn’t logged on yet.  But we are here, tweeting, waiting to burst into raucous laughter at your one liner.  Or sentimental tears at your words of inspiration.

This is part two of the series in which I admit this blogging thing is a real crapshoot educational experience.  In part one I had just identified two distinct types of fear:  (1) the paralyzing kind; and (2) fear that frightens you terribly, but also feels like a risk worth taking.

When I write something and find myself hesitating to reveal my innermost feelings, I sometimes stop and wonder… what would my former colleagues or old boyfriends think of me if they read this?  I do not recommend, under any circumstances, asking (or answering!) that question of yourself.  

But I’m learning to be grateful when it pops up for me.   This question’s presence is a signal that I’m somehow, inadvertently, expressing myself in a way that feels icky by way of disingenuous.  And “inadvertently” here obviously means “accidentally-on-purpose.”

Here’s what I notice when I write something that doesn’t ring true for me, that somehow feels off: I feel remorse and regret for the connection that could have been.  If only I had been myself.  If only I had said what I really thought, and explained how I truly felt.  And the fear that I’m not being myself is the fear that feels dirty and paralyzing.

When I manage to polish my thoughts and beliefs until the words shimmer in my heart, the fear is still there.  Because when I speak honestly from my soul, some people won’t relate to what I say and those people might walk away.  That’s painful and it’s scary.  But now it’s the fear that feels worth facing.  It’s the choice to be recognized as myself over being loved for some role I’m playing.

Also, there are a couple of different dynamics at play when it comes to wanting people to read my diary.  There are the people I want to reach that I don’t know yet.  People that I hope to find by the very act of writing and revealing.  And then there is the possibility of deepening the level of intimacy with the people who already loom large in my life.  

I wonder how many people receive comments on their blogs from friends and family that say something along the lines of “wow, I never knew this about you, and thank you for sharing.”  Again, isn’t this the connection we’re reaching for all of the time?  Maybe sometimes the writer is sharing something about herself she didn’t even know until she tried to express it honestly on the page.    

One of my dearest friends just read something I wrote and said that of course she always knew these things.  But gosh, now she felt like she really, truly, got this part of me.  The beautiful, wildly ironic thing about her comment is that I try very hard to write in the same voice I use when I’m just hanging out with her.  Because she’s someone I never adulterate myself around, someone who brings out the best in me.  

And yet…  She still didn’t really know.  And I guess that’s why I want her, and you, to read my diary.

One of my absolute favorite things about reading is that luminous moment when I come across something someone else has written, and it resonates so deeply within me that I realize the words were written on my heart long before I read them.  

The beauty of writing is that now I get to be that person.  I get to discover the gem already nestled under all of those layers.  What if I even get to awaken it in someone else?  

All of that feels very warm and loverly.  Okay.  But being myself out loud, online is still really scary.  Make no mistake, letting people, asking them to read about what I think and how I feel makes me vulnerable and self-conscious in a major way.  

I think I’d describe it as wearing my insides on the outside.  Like wearing my heart as a dress.  A short one that reveals a little more leg than I am altogether comfortable with.

But I guess these days, that’s just my style.  Because, like Anais Nin said:

…the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

And all that.

To really learn how to blog in a way that will change other people’s lives, I turn to lots of actual experts, including Havi Brooks and her blogging therapy series.  (Start here).  What I’m learning, as I dip my toes into the blogosphere myself, is how to change my own life.  

Or maybe it’s not so much a matter of “how to.”  I think I’m discovering that through the actual doing of the blogging, changing my own life happens necessarily.  What with having to deal with the fear of what other people might think of me, what I might think of me, and then whether I have anything to say at all.  Just for starters.

Yesterday morning on Twitter, @pleasefindthis said something that really resonated with me.  Yes, I am quoting a tweet, and allowing that this is what teachers sometimes look like in 2009.  

(And say what you want about the downfalls of online communication, but I am just really blown away that I get to benefit from the wisdom of someone I otherwise may never meet.  And not just from your garden variety famous, nobel prize winning someones, but from actual everyday people.)  

So the tweet: “Blogging: proof that you really wanted someone to read your diary all along.”

Yeah.  I think it struck me because this is exactly what I’m surprised to be realizing.  

There is nothing more satisfying than finding the words to express myself authentically, and in a way that actually helps me better understand my own self.  

And the idea here is to take it a step further and share those true words with other living, breathing people.  When it comes to wanting people to read our diaries, it’s the same thing we’re trying to do in all of our relationships, with every interaction, all the time, right?  Trying to connect, to “relate,” to forge a relationship based on trust and intimacy.

After all, I really want to be seen and heard for who I am.  Except when I really don’t.  Because there’s that other thing I want, and that’s to be loved for who I am, and that intersection is where it gets interesting.  

Writing a blog is forcing helping me to realize that there may have been one or two instances, in ancient history, when I chose to be loved over being myself.  It’s a fact of life that sometimes the two are mutually exclusive.  Except not really, because then it wouldn’t be love at all.  You know?

So I thought I was afraid to blog because (among other things) I was afraid of people seeing the real me.  But that runs totally contrary to the realization that I want people to read my diary.  

I’m finding that there are two very different kinds of fear that come up for me: (1) paralyzing fear; and (2) fear that is just as terrifying, but also feels like a risk worth taking.  And the paralyzing fear actually has more to do with somehow misrepresenting what I’m about, or giving people the wrong impression of me, than it does with being myself.  Again, total opposite of what I expected, which for me equals major transformative revelation.

With all of these swirly layered nuggets (!!!), this is part one in a two part series.  So I’ll finish the thought next time.  Until the time after that, when the very nature of blogging reveals more aha’s than I ever expected.

Sarcasm alert (uh-huh, even more than usual).  Maybe I’ll write a kindler, gentler version of this post when I’m in a kinder, gentler space.

5 ways to let social media suck the soul right out of you:  

(Sidenote: this never happens to me, but I’ve heard it can be a problem)

1.  Drip water all over the bathroom floor as you run to your computer to check whether “they” responded to your tweet, because drying off after a shower is a total time-waster.  I mean, at least I took a shower, right?

2.  Let your lunch get cold because someone might have e-mailed in the time it took you to make it and it’s absolutely imperative that you check right this very minute!

3.  Drip that lunch all over your computer keys because you’re writing your blog while you eat it.  (Gahhh!  Not me!)

4.  Before you meditate or write your morning pages or do anything to set your intentions for the day, check your Facebook page to see if anyone wants to be your friend.  Bonus points if you break out mid-meditation to check again.

5.  Beat yourself up for all of the above instead of just riding along the ebb and flow and realizing that it’s natural to be excited about something new.  

Tip:  You’ll know the problem is serious when watching some uninterrupted junky TV like “The Real Housewives of Orange County” makes you feel righteous for taking the time to get back in touch with your spirit.  (I said uninterrupted!)

This post was not written to console myself about being offline for the duration of an 8 hour drive tomorrow.  Honest.

Part II of my social media initiation. Part I is here.

Using Facebook as a window into other people’s lives sometimes unleashes my tendency to compare my insides to other people’s outsides. This is such a ridiculous habit. It’s like wondering why I’m eating peanut butter and jelly alone on the couch while I watch Giada de Laurentis on television hosting a backyard garden party resplendent with beautiful people and scrumptious Italian food.

I love peanut butter and jelly, but dangle pesto rubbed halibut in front of me and my kid food starts tasting a tad bland. Translation: I love my life, my family, my friends, my work. But splash other peoples romance and adventures and success across my screen and I start to feel kind of dissatisfied with my lot.

And let’s be realistic – no one uses their Facebook page to air the dirty laundry. I don’t see anyone posting a picture showing frizzy hair or a muffin top. Twitter is no one’s favorite place to say “you can see the cottage cheese on my thighs through the shorts I’m wearing today, no wonder my husband is having an affair with people way cooler than me.”

And I think where I used to get confused (and occasionally still do) is by comparing the trappings of success with the actual experience of joy. It took me awhile to discover that trappings are not included on the list of ingredients for a blissful life. For example, I never felt proud of the measurable achievements in my former career because that career never felt tantamount to my overall purpose. It was, and still is, more important to me to have happy moments and loving relationships than fancy things or power status.

Which propels me right along to my next self-defeating habit – counting friends. For the most part I’m happier having fewer meaningful friendships than lots of acquaintances. But I still feel squatty when I go to add one of my lifelong closest friends in Facebook and notice she already has 217 others.

Intellectually I get that I have to start out at zero and add people one by one. (And yes, I have to do all of the adding. Joining the party five years late means no one even looks for me online anymore.) But there’s this bijigetty part of me that would rather have an ego-boosting number of friends before I feel comfortable even asking a single person to join my club. Talk about a vicious cycle. Fortunately that bijigettiness has a name. Now that I recognize Ozzie as the lizard/ego, not-so-dynamic duo that he is, I can pat his scaly head and ignore his whiny rants.

And click “Add as friend” as many times as necessary.

I took the plunge and opened my Facebook and Twitter accounts today.  And what the *%$# took me so long?!? This is a bigger, badder, better question than I think I ever realized.