Boundaries in Social Media

With fall around the corner and back to school ahead, many people find themselves ending the summer fun and look forward to spending time with friends in new environments. The wild fun of music and water sports gives way to intimate groups in indoor venues and making plans for the holidays.

The natural cycle is to expand in the summer time and pull inward in the fall. You move into solitude in your studies or you join book clubs. You volunteer or get back to the gym. Maybe you redecorate and nest. Later as you move into winter, you will begin to ground your energy, grow your roots and reflect within as you enjoy your friends and family over the holidays.

In this information age though, social media pushes forward and you continue to stay connected, make friends on new sites, and continue to expand. At one time you had a natural balance of alone time in the fall. You were able to move inward, reflect, journal and deepen. Now, with social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Periscope, Tinder, and others your energy keeps expanding. You become overwhelmed. With new technology, it’s important to learn new ways of setting boundaries for yourSelf.

As a psychic medium, more often than not, I see clients’ energy as being ungrounded with energy leaks in the third chakra and chaotic energy in the aura. As a therapist, in session, clients share reactions to the posts of others and lose their grounding. They may have seen their girlfriend change their status on Facebook from “in a relationship with” (them) to “single,” or they see photos of their boyfriend with someone else. Too often this whole situation gets played out in public on Facebook or on Twitter.

Clearly in this information age there are new ways of thinking about boundaries. It is easy to mistake your friends (up to 5000 of them on FB) as truly your friends. In your fiery reaction you display your anger and pain publicly and gain support. Then other “friends” show up to criticize you for what you shared. All of this feels normal in the high emotional state that you are in. Sharing that used to happen with your closest friend in private now happens for the world to see.

Later you cool down and this public display of anger and grief turns to shame. It’s important to remember that even though in moments, you can share everything with the world, not everything needs to be shared. Here is some helpful guidelines on setting boundaries.

Collapsed, Rigid and Healthy Boundaries

First ask yourself, are you more likely to allow others to cross your boundaries or do you cross the boundaries of others? Do you find you get too close to people physically and you see them back away? Do you find yourself alone in a corner in a group and not reaching out to others?

Your boundaries change over time and in different situations. It can depend on how you feel at the time. This is a general guideline you can use that includes social media.

 

Collapsed Boundaries can be identified by:

• Sharing too much personal information too soon.
• Sharing private information on social sites with people you don’t really know.
• Saying yes when you want to say no for fear of rejection.
• Doing anything to avoid conflict.
• Having a high tolerance for abuse.
• Sharing too openly after having a drink.

 

Rigid Boundaries can be identified by:

• Saying no to a request if it will involve close interaction.
• Staying so busy you don’t take time for intimate relationships.
• Being unable to identify you own feelings, wants or needs.
• Making little self-disclosure and holding people at a distance.
• Sharing false information so you don’t risk being seen.

 

Healthy Boundaries can be identified by:

• Having the ability to say yes and to say no.
• Being able to hear no from others and seek other resources to get your needs met.
• You reveal information about yourself gradually and self-disclose appropriately.
• You have relationships with shared responsibility for the relationship without blaming.
• Sharing in a loving and caring way in social sites without disclosing too much that is either personal or still raw for you.

 

I have journaled for over 30 years using my journal to vent, as well as to connect with the deeper part of myself. It is also a great place to keep write down dreams and to take notes from my favorite books.

My recommendation is that you use your journal to vent before you begin to share with people you don’t know well or on social media. Life is so much easier once you take the “charge” off a situation.

In the next month I will be publishing my new book Live Intuitively: Activate the Wisdom of your Soul. This book will teach you to read yourSelf intuitively and gives you specific writing prompts called “Soul Stems” to activate your own soul wisdom!

 

Having read this blog, share your experience:

1. What are your rules around sharing with people you just meet, with friends and on social networking sites?
2. What plans do you have to spend some time alone to reconnect with yourself as you move into fall? How do you deepen your relationships with yourself so you don’t get over-expanded, ungrounded and exhausted?
3. How have you used journaling to clear your mind or prime yourself for your own writing project?