Tag: privacy

Feathering the Nest

Friends, this time of year always gets a little bit difficult for me. On the late evening of Easter in 2016, I made one of the most difficult decisions that I have ever made in my entire lifetime. I don’t have regrets about the decision. It was the right decision to make, but even good decisions can be really, really hard, especially if they are related to choosing between the lesser of two unpleasant choices. I’ve grown a lot since then. I’ve healed a lot since then. But really painful choices and happenings, tend to remain delicate under softer, thinner-skinned spots, covering the more fragile and vulnerable parts of our entire beings.

I’m not prepared to write publicly about this decision that I made. I’m not sure if I ever will be able to share it, other than with my closest confidantes. I’m a relatively private person and I am also concerned with other people’s feelings and privacy. That being said, I’ve decided to be “real” with myself during this Easter season. I’ve decided to be protective of myself this season. I’ve decided to focus on self-care and to make it my number one priority for the next few weeks, particularly.

If you would like to join me, in giving yourself your own comfortable, nestling, sheltered Easter basket of peace, I am sending you lots of joy and love and inspiration to do it. Give yourself a safe space to “feel the feels.” You don’t need to create a story about the feels. Just know that feelings are normal and that they always pass. I am one who tries to distract myself with rabbit holes and obsessive thinking/focusing when buried feelings come to the surface, so this season I am trying to just notice this habit in myself, and to be gentle and forgiving with myself, but also to nudge myself back to allowing the feelings to flow, without my righteous narrative, without my control issues, without dissociating, without distracting myself . . . . Yes, easier said than done, but this Easter season I am earnestly trying to be more present with it all.

So with that being said, I may write a post every day. I may not. As always, I am so grateful for you, and for your presence and your understanding. I wish for peace for us all. Sending you much love.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2119. Whom do you feel you have the strongest unspoken bond with?

Child Stars

I heard an interesting advertisement for a podcast on the radio yesterday. The people on the podcast were talking about the fact that Generation Z are the first generation to have had all of their growing up “moments” plastered all over the internet on social media platforms like Facebook, and Instagram, and now TikTok, and how upsetting and embarrassing this can be for some kids, especially those that had their “cute/silly/funny/outrageous” posts go viral, and now having people curious to see them as “grown-ups.” The woman heading the podcast was questioning how many of us in the older generations would have wanted “those moments” (i.e., bathtub pictures, temper tantrums, crazy falls, etc.) that a few of our family members had on VHS tape, to be visible for anyone in the world who wanted to view it.

There are a lot of ramifications to how quickly our technology is advancing. And it is interesting that in some areas, we are only now starting to see and to discuss the effects of earlier technological advancements. I was strolling along a beautiful beach last weekend and I was noticing many, many young people sitting on the beach, posing themselves in all different contortions and taking photo after photo of themselves with their phones. (It seems like all kids these days, have their portfolio of “poses” down pat.) All of the while we were on a gorgeous white sand beach, on an extraordinarily beautiful day, with the water being at it’s-just-refreshingly-right-before-it-gets-to-be-lukewarm temperature. Have we conditioned all of our kids to be “child stars”? How often have actual “child stars” ended up with disastrous adult lives? How many of us would have chosen to shield our children from becoming actual Hollywood child actors?

It is interesting that at a time that technology is moving at seemingly the speed of light, there has also been a big movement towards conscious, be-in-the-NOW living, versus conditioned living. There is something inside of all of us, that seems to be screaming, “Let’s slow down. Let’s consider what is happening. Let’s notice what this feels like, and consider its ramifications. Let’s make conscious, deliberate, thought-out choices. We don’t have to move at the speed of discovery just because we can.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Siri Laughs

This was posted on Twitter’s Think Smarter a few days ago. This is so true, it’s scary. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to shrink up and hide in a little hole. I get the irony. I write a public blog every day where I spill my guts, yet I abhor the idea of being cyber-ly followed and tracked.

Privacy is such an independent, personal concept. When we were little, my cousin made up a song that we used to tease her about, yet I can still sing it. “PRIIIIIIVACY! If you want some . . . . close the door!! PRIIIIIVACY!”

I am perfectly comfortable with being very open about my feelings and perceptions on a public format, but I like my day-to-day happenings to be mostly private, and my own. I think most people are probably the opposite of that. Yet, there are the people who are willing to “let it all hang out”, like reality TV stars and the Kardasians. On the other hand, you have the entirely mysterious people who seem to leave no public footprint at all.

No matter what our privacy preferences are, one thing can be sure, if we have a cell phone, or a computer, or we spend any time in public places, someone/something is seeing us, recording us, tracking our preferences and keeping the data. It’s funny that I am comfortable with the idea of God and the angels doing this. Yet artificial intelligence makes me shiver in fear and disgust sometimes.

Is Anything Private?

“The only thing someone spying on me would learn is how many of my meals I eat in bed.” – someecards

I read an article the other day talking about how people are now doing a new form of cyber-stalking by watching people’s Venmo transactions. What?!? Apparently, unless you change the setting, all Venmo transactions that you have made, sending money to various people for various reasons, are public, for all the world to see. As a mother who does scan the transactions in my college son’s bank account, I am acutely aware of how much information you can glean from just looking at bank statements. Late night and early morning uber charges, are very telling.

I have a friend who can always give me “the skinny” on all of our kids’ mutual friends. I asked her once how she knows all of this stuff and how she can keep up with it all. She told me that she has insomnia and that teenagers are very public and open about their lives, on-line.

I’m still guilty of the “what I don’t know, can’t hurt me” mentality. I like living in my own fantasy land, believing that the world is a prettier, neater, kinder, place than it often is, sometimes. There is a lot out there that I really just prefer not to know, even with The Truth (if it is the truth?!?) being available to me with just a couple of Google searches and a click of the mouse. I guess I would have made a terrible detective.

“I’m not a stalker. I’m just curious and oh and, by the way, you are out of milk.” – someecards