What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
Blogging therapy: What if no one shows up?
Number two in a series about taking the scary out of blogging.
Last week we talked about what if people are mean to me, otherwise known as trollophobia.
This time we’re talking about ohmygod what if I throw a party and nobody comes?
And yeah, even if you’ve never had a blog and never plan to, the process of working through fears and what-ifs is always relevant to your life — so hang out with us even if I’m not talking directly to you. Same thing if you’re already a blogging superstar.
Because really, it’s also all about that very human thing we do when we want love and acceptance and acknowledgment … and about how we interpret information when it seems as though we’re not getting those things.
And it’s about fear. And allowing stuff to be scary sometimes. And yes, blogging can be terrifying. Let’s talk about that.
Aaaagh! What if I throw a party and no one shows up?
It’s like winking in the dark …
Scary? Absolutely.
You go through all the “whoah, I’m totally putting this out there” stuff, and then — when you finally think you can stand for someone to see it — it’s just you talking to yourself in a biiig empty room.
And you wait. And wait and wait and wait. And worry …
There’s a lot of fear and anxiety and general stuckification around this. And all this stuckness seems to get fixated on the whole comments thing.
Because even though blogging experts talk mostly about traffic (how many people come by) and conversion (what percentage of those people subscribe), comments are the visible proof that you’re not just dancing alone in your living room with all the windows open.
Or at least it feels that way. So it’s easy to get obsessed over comments.
We’ve all been there. Or whatever, we are there. We want them, but we want them to be nice, but we want there to be a lot of them … and so on.
On the one hand I want to talk about how and why this kind of thinking can really trip you up. And mess with your head.
And on the other hand, yes, I do want to talk about how you go about getting comments on your blog if that’s something that feels important to you.
So …
Getting comments: five things to think about.
1. Separating yourself from the comment obsession.
We’ve talked quite a bit already about the (extremely challenging) practice of releasing the need for external recognition and legitimacy.
The reason I bring this up first is that otherwise, whether you never get any comments or you get over five hundred a day (whoah, are you the McCovey Chronicles?), your whole sense of well-being will be determined by other people.
And that sucks. So your focus always always always wants to be on becoming your own source of legitimacy. And not just legitimacy but acknowledgment, comfort and reassurance.
But I know you want me to shut up about the yoga-centric learning-to-like-yourself stuff and get back to how to get some damn comments on your baby blog. So I’ll just give myself some comfort and reassurance here … and then move on to:
2. Talking it up.
We can’t come to your blog if we don’t know about it. So you gotta talk it up.
Not in an obnoxious way or anything. You do it from the heart. And casually. And when it’s relevant. And when it feels right.
My favorite place to do this, of course, is Twitter. Obviously you don’t just talk about your blog because that would be incredibly boring. And the first rule of Twitter, as you may remember, is oh for the love of god do not be boring.
My sense is that about 85% of my comments come from Twitter folks. Not from my noozletter list. Not from my friends (most of whom have never even been here). And not from my clients and students.
And the other 15% come people who’ve popped over from other blogs that reference me or from facebook or from the random fabulousness that is google search.
If you’re not twittering up a storm, please take steps immediately! And of course, leaving sincere and non-boring comments on other people’s blogs is never a bad idea, as you probably already know if you comment here.
3. Find your tribe.
There are three parts to this.
The first part is figuring out where your colleagues hang out.
If you don’t have a “field”, that’s cool too. In that case it’s going to be more about finding like-minded bloggers who have a similar voice or feel or style or something.
These people give you that “oh good, I’m not alone!” feeling. Plus their readers will jump for joy to have another yummy thing to read. (No, this is not “poaching”. We’ll talk about that in another post. I can only talk to a couple fears at a time, guys!)
The second part is finding out where your “right people” hang out.
These are the types of people that you most want to talk to.
For example, if my blog were about alternative ways to quit smoking, I wouldn’t just want to go find the experts and the theorizers (that can’t be a word), I’d want to go to places where people looking for advice were hanging out.
If you don’t know who your people are yet, don’t worry about it. You’ll find them. They’ll come to you. You’ll figure it out.
The third part is finding your pack.
My unbelievably inspiring friend Mark Silver and I call this a knitting circle because we are wacky alternative-ey Portland types who tend to think “pack” sounds too … stressful. And kinda bite-ey.
But the point is that you have a loose association of friends who all enjoy each other’s work and talk each other up. It’s not a formal arrangement or anything, but you’re kind of on the same team.
Obviously this “drives traffic” and stuff like that, but much much much more importantly it gets you out of the nerve-wracking and painful competition-based mindset.
You stop thinking in terms of sending people away from you, and you start thinking about sharing love and ideas. Good stuff.
It takes time to build a nice knitting circle. No rush. Just keep it in mind.
4. Be interesting.
And funny. And real.
I know this is totally stressing half of you out. But I don’t mean to do it in any sort of contrived way. What I mean is that most people, when they speak to themselves or their friends in their natural this-is-me voice, are pretty entertaining.
It seems like it will never work to just “be yourself” because wouldn’t that be boring? And embarrassing? And pathetic? No. Just do it. Trust me.
People like hanging out with a real, live human being. So you can worry a little bit less about showcasing your expertise, and start spending way more time being human.
5. You don’t need a lot of traffic to get comments.
Most people tend to think that comments correlate with traffic. And yes, statistically speaking, the more people who see your site, the higher the chances that someone will leave a comment.
However, comments are NOT necessarily an indication of traffic, or of anything really.
It doesn’t have to be about traffic. I run across a ton of highly-commented blogs that don’t necessarily have high (or many at all) page views. And some of these have appalling alexa rankings, too, and they still get commented up a storm.
You know why? Because they are speaking to a specific audience. And they’ve built up a circle of friends and buddies who love being there. Yup, it’s a “community” to use a buzzword that should actually be a really great word and has lost all meaning.
Look at Irene (I love Irene!). She’s in Singapore and her blog is called Light Beckons. You think I’m wacky? She’s an intuitive consultant who does soul realignment.
Which is probably a subject slightly less popular than say, blogging advice. Or car-fixing advice. Or even the stuff I talk about (destuckification and how to biggify the cool thing you do).
But she consistently gets about 25 comments on each post. Do you think a hundred thousand people visit a casual blog that talks about soul realignment and occasionally features a guest post from her eight year old daughter?
I’m going to guess no. But the people who do come get what she’s about and adore her, and they stay there to hang out. Which is all you need. So stop trying to figure out how you can get a thousand more page views, and start focusing on your community.
It doesn’t have to be big to be loud.
Be reassured.
If you’re patient and consistent and hang out a bit online (not all the time, a bit), and give some effort to finding the right places, you will get comments. Conversations will emerge. People will show up.
And talk. Because that’s what people do.
Of course you’re probably not reassured. Because of course a thousand other what-ifs (related and unrelated) are coming up for you.
But if I know even some of my readers, I can make an educated guess that the biggest piece of resistance coming up is this:
“Okay, fine, so people will come and leave comments. So what? There are other people out there doing this better. And they’ll always be better. So really, what’s the point?”
So I want to encourage you to take a second and let this sink in: Did you hear that? You’re not as worried as you were about no one showing up (and commenting!). You’ve just freed up some space to worry about other things. Oh, hooray.
And yes, next week we’re totally going to talk about the “other people are already doing it better” thing.
In the meantime, go look for your people! They’re out there, I promise. Some of them might even be here.
Ask Havi #9: smoker’s edition
Wow, it’s the shortest Ask Havi question ever!
If only the answer could be just as short … hahahaha.
Okay, here it is.
“Um. How did you quit smoking?
(she asked quietly and sheepishly)
Actually, the subject header of this woman’s self-described quiet, sheepish email said “quick question”. Which gave me a good laugh, because there is just no way that how I quit smoking could be a quick question.
Gather round, guys. Pull up a chair. Because I have stuff to say.
Obviously there’s no room here for me to spill out the entire contents of the massive book in my head on the subject. Or even a chunk of the three hour workshop I used to teach about this.
But the name of that workshop should tell you something:
“Thank you for not making me hate myself: the yoga way to quit smoking”
Yes, I have … oh, non-traditional thoughts on the subject.
But back to my own process … here’s some of what I worked on:
1. Taking out the shoulds.
This is probably the most important one.
The first thing you want to do if you are thinking about quitting smoking is to stop telling yourself that you shouldn’t be smoking.
The damage you are inadvertently inflicting on your body and mind through constant inhalation and consumption of guilt and anger is just as bad (if not worse) than the smoking itself.
Do not guilt yourself into quitting — it just multiplies the self-loathing, self-destruction patterns. Bad cycle.
Instead practice actively releasing guilt from your life. How?
2. Cutting down slowly and consciously.
Don’t start with throwing it all away. It works great for some people but for most of us that requires crazy will-power, and it might just catapult you into a state of resistance and weakness.
Take on small challenges. If your first cigarette of the day is usually right when you wake up, see if you can wait until after breakfast.
New rules: no smoking while walking. No smoking while talking. No smoking while watching television.
You want to be devoting every fiber of your body to really enjoying everything that you think smoking is giving you: the taking a break part, the calm part, the reassurance part.
Practice being there with it. How?
3. Bringing conscious awareness to ALL of it.
Start learning about your patterns. Figure out what needs are being met when you smoke.
- What are you avoiding saying or thinking or doing when you smoke?
- What are your mechanisms for dealing with criticism (both external and internal)?
- How good are you at taking breaks when you need them?
- How do you process anger and hurt?
- What types of things trigger your need?
- What do you need to know about this habit in order to release it?
And of course: all of this without guilt. You’re not blaming yourself for being human and having stuckified patterns. You’re just noticing when and how they’re showing up.
Practice learning how your patterns work. How?
4. Using Dance of Shiva, of course!
This is the thing that helped me the most, by far. Dance of Shiva (Shiva Nata) is an extremely powerful, extremely weird and fairly obscure form of ancient yoga brain training.
Yes, at the moment I happen to be the number two world expert in it, but when I started I hated it like nothing else.
But three weeks after I’d started I was done smoking forever.
The insights and moments of “bing!” that Dance of Shiva gave me made my patterns so painfully obvious that they just stopped working for me.
They just broke.
Dance of Shiva is the bomb. If you don’t have my super-genius Starter Kit, for goodness sakes take care of that right now.
Other bits of wisdom?
Sure.
Celebrate all of it. You smoked one cigarette less? That is a big deal.
Bring more things into your life that are related to your goal of actually being able to be nice to yourself. Reminders. Signs. Phrases. Non-dorky affirmations.
Surround yourself with people who make you feel good. Stay away from anyone who criticises you, nags you or whose company results in feeling bad about yourself.
Give yourself breaks in which you have 100% permission to do nothing for ten minutes.
Breathe. Do yoga. Keep your fingers busy. Ask someone to buy you a copy of the emergency calming techniques package and listen to one of the audio clips whenever you feel like smoking.
Remind yourself that you are doing this because you’re working on being the kind of person who can be nice to you, and that it doesn’t matter how long this process takes — as long as you’re in it.
Okay, so I didn’t exactly answer the question.
How did I do it? How did I stop smoking? Or — more importantly — stop wanting to smoke? All of these things.
Practicing Dance of Shiva for ten-fifteen minutes almost every day. Lots of yoga. Lots of journaling.
Lots of consciously trying to stop guilting myself. Lots of allowing myself to be afraid to stop. Lots of acknowledging how hard it was.
Lots of acknowledging fears I had around stopping (What if I get fat? What will I do when I want to avoid making an uncomfortable phone call? How will I comfort myself? Who will I hang out with?)
Lots of noticing. Lots of asking myself for help. Lots of agreeing to let it be hard and frustrating for a while. Lots of forgiveness for not being the person I thought I should be.
And when I was done, I was done. It stopped being about struggle and started being about being about kindness. I haven’t wanted to smoke since.
Does that help?
I really do know how much it sucks right now…wish I could give you more but…HUG!
Can I state the obvious? Oh good, because I’m going to.
I know you guys are super smart so I probably don’t need to say this, but just in case:
Even if you’ve never gone near a cigarette in your entire life, there’s stuff in here that will help you do a little disentangling with whatever habit or any pattern that you’re working on.
Just saying. 🙂
Friday Check-in #10: the getting chilly edition
Because it’s Friday AGAIN. And because traditions are important. In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
Checking in again …
Everybody say chicken!
That was fun. Moving on.
The hard stuff
Oh the sadnesses.
Seeing that poor, scared cat get run over and die. And not being able to handle it at all. Seriously. Just freaking the heck out.
I don’t even know how to explain how sad and distraught I was. You know? Ach, this gorgeous fluff-muffin of a pumpkin cat. And the minivan which didn’t stop. It didn’t stop. So agonizingly horrible. Sad and senseless and painful.
Honestly I don’t remember the last time I cried so much.
To the point that people who came by truly thought that I had either run it over or that it was my cat because really there was just no other way a human being could come so unglued.
And then this woman gave me a hug, because we’re in Portland and told me that death is part of life and I was sort of like yeah, you’re right but also sort of like, go away, you don’t understand.
My gentleman friend came and picked me up because I was a wreck. And he comforted me and told me about how he once hit a dog (the dog was okay, gott sei dank). and I decided that maybe my plan to firebomb all minivans was a little overreaching.
So yeah, hard hard hard.
It’s officially winter.
The truth is, I’ve been working for a few years on this particular pattern of dreading the change in season … trying to become the kind of person who likes all kinds of weather.
And I’ve certainly resolved a chunk of it. But still had that punch-to-the-stomach feeling this week on the day when it became obvious that there was no way I’d be able to even start my morning meditation without turning on the heat.
And putting on long underwear and ridiculously fluffy socks.
This will be my first winter in Oregon so everyone has been warning me about the rain and the grey and how depressing it can get. I’m not especially worried about that part.
I love rain. I like grey.
Really, I’m not impressed by grey or wet.
But the cold. Not a fan of the cold.
I’ve survived winters in Michigan. And one awful one in Wisconsin, which made Michigan winters look like a joke. I’ve even made the mistake of visiting Chicago in December.
Heck, I lived through winter in East Berlin … in what was for all intents and purposes an abandoned building where the only heat was a coal furnace.
So yes, I can handle it. But mmmmmrphgh. There may be some whining.
The good stuff
*blush*
My wonderful, sparkly, effusively awesome brand new girlfriend aka super-famous self-help superstar Jennifer Louden was in town to eat biscuits with me give a workshop, which was insanely great.
Also she pretty much mentioned me and how important my work is about once a minute so I spent the whole time blushing embarrassingly charmingly.
We did a ton of really neat journaling exercises, some of which I’ve been adding to my morning routine, and the whole thing was just awesome insight after awesome insight.
If you have a chance to take any kind of class with her — and yeah, she’s doing one by phone on Wednesday — ohmygosh do it!
My life: I don’t even know what to say. Yay!
Speaking of biscuits …
This weekend I’ll be — ahem — buttering biscuits with the brilliant, charming and fabulous Colleen the Communicatrix!!!
Given that I just had breakfast with Jennifer Louden last weekend, the percentage of breakfasts with people I’ve wanted to meet for ages is totally on the rise. Through the roof! Statistically speaking, of course.
Pretty soon it will just be Mark Twain and the Dalai Lama that I haven’t breakfasted with.
I’m not even eating right now!
Yes, it was Yom Kipur this week. And yes, that’s why I haven’t answered your email yet.
Anyway, this year was the easiest fast I’ve ever had. Didn’t even get hungry until about two hours before it was over. Plus I hardly fell apart at all during yizkor (memorial service).
Usually I spend the day after Yom Kipur doing nothing but snacking. Just because I can. But this year that kind of loss consciousness or whatever you want to call it hasn’t been showing up. So yay for that.
The teleclasses!
I taught two teleclasses this week, and I must say that much ass was kicked. In a good way.
Naomi and I always have a rocking good time on the non-icky self-promotion calls but this week’s theme (what to do when you’re not getting encouragement and support from your friends and family) is so, so huge.
And it was just the most fun ever. You know life is good when a. you’re thinking “I have the best job in the entire world” and b. people are sending you email titled “This is f*cking great!”
Also, if you missed my “Hey, I’m doing a random freebie call” Tuesday about how to get into a regular-ish exercise-ey routine when you don’t have time and you don’t feel like it, it was a blast.
We had 111 people sign up officially, and then switched services and then there were presidential debates so it ended up being a cozy 27 of us. And it was just really fun.
And you can listen to it here (mp3 download) if you feel like it.
Warning: 100% unedited. Sound quality semi-sucky. So you might have slog through a bit of us being goofy and making weird noises and then some weird noises that aren’t us.
Several people emailed to say how much they enjoyed it (one woman wrote: “Great topic — been wondering this for about 27 years now!”)
And this one was so so great:
“It’s always refreshing to hear a very non-bootcamp “suck it up, soldier!” take on a daily practice. It’s far less threatening to the rebellious teen that still rages on inside of me sometimes and thinks that bootcamp-ish rules are so “The Man” and, therefore, damnable.”
Hooray! That’s exactly what we’re going for.
That’s it for me ….
And yes, absolutely join in my Friday ritual if you feel like it and/or there’s something you just want to say out loud too.
Yeah? What was something hard and/or good that happened in your week?
And, as always have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious weekend. And a happy week to come.
Content? Relevance? Meh.
Conferences, classes, workshops: we’re doing it wrong!
I had a very brief exchange on Twitter a few weeks ago with Neil aka @Neilochka.
And yes, I know you’re thinking, it’s Twitter! Of course it was a very brief exchange! What other kind is there? But what I mean is that we didn’t have a back-and-forth.
He said something. I said something back. That was it.
But it relates to something important, so I’m sharing it.
Here’s what he said:
Honestly — when most people spend hundreds of dollars to go to conferences, is it more for the networking than the actual conferences?
And here’s what I said:
Yes. Conferences are 98%+ the opportunity to meet people you think are cool.
If the content rocks then yay. But that’s icing.
Let’s talk about this.
Point one: screw the content.
Now admittedly when I design a course or program, I pour myself into content creation like you would not believe.
I do everything within my power to make sure that the people who sign up get blown away by awesomeness and come out of it with a ton of useful information that they would never have gotten anywhere else.
And there is much tweaking. Sure I may have dissolved a good 98% of my innate and debilitating perfectionist tendencies, but yeah, I still like to over-deliver.*
*Yes, 98% is the best percentage there is.
But when I go to a conference or go take someone else’s course, I treat the content as a bonus. Cherry on top.
Otherwise you get all caught up in “Hmm, he just made a less-than-genius point. Was this really worth a thousand dollars? Oh, wait, he just said something that could transform my business. Okay, worth it again.”
The activity or the theme (whatever it is that the conference or program is about) is the MacGuffin. You know, like the mysterious sheaf of papers whose existence drives all the action in a spy movie.
And the content (the material you’re going to learn) is a bonus.
Point two: the most important thing about a program.
It’s the connections.
One kind is, naturally, the other people in the course.
For example, you know where I became friends with the amazing Pam Slim and my favorite copywriter Kelly Parkinson (Copylicious)?
In a course.
Did I learn stuff there? Sure. But what I took away was so much more than the content — two wonderful girlfriends. Gifted, capable, sweet women who I admire so so so much.
Or the fact that whenever Pam — who aside from being smart and awesome is also super-famous and guest-blogs for the New York Times and stuff — decides to say something nice about me, I make a couple thousand dollars that day.
Which, by the way, more than covers what I paid for the course.
Or the fact that Kelly generously reads over the copy I write and gives me terrific feedback. Which is something I could be paying a couple thousand dollars for and instead I just sneak her advice and for some reason she thinks that’s a great deal.
Connections. Friendships. Torrid love affairs of the mind. This is sometimes also called “networking”.
Point three: the second most important thing about a program.
There’s another way that you can make connections in a conference or program, and that’s with the person or people leading or teaching there.
For example …
Andy Wibbels knows who I am and totally thinks I’m smart and stuff. That trip to Vancouver? Now Michael Port knows who I am too. He even knows my duck.
Do not underestimate the power of being in the sights of people you admire and respect.
Because even if you end up not meeting anyone among the participants — or even if you end up hating every single person there — the person leading it is probably someone you would really enjoy getting to know.
And being even a tiny blip on their radar can come in handy in all sorts of unexpected ways.
Alliances. Partnerships. Becoming a known entity. Putting yourself out there. This is also sometimes called “networking”.
Point four: the third most important thing about a program.
Well, of course. It’s a chance to show up and go around impressing people with what a freaking genius you are.
Just about every time I take someone else’s course I get some clients and a bunch of sales out of it. Not always, but more often than not.
It works because you’re there being your wacky self and occasionally spewing smartnesses.
Even if you’re a complete introvert (you may not believe this, but I am) of the kind (like me) that everyone mistakes for a snob … you can go with online programs.
You can shine in a forum environment or invisibly on a phone conference. And then you can work on getting better at hanging out with people live.
Because you’ll meet people. And they will think that you are the best thing since sliced bread. And you’ll be able to be of service to them — and not in some phony manipulative way, but in a genuine heart-centered sense of being in service.
And then they’ll know people who can help you. This is also sometimes called ….
Yes, I know you already know how “networking” works, but this whole “being supported by an amazing magic web of people who all do cool things for each other thing” has been blowing my mind lately.
Let’s review …
- Content? Hooray if it’s great, but really, it isn’t the point.
- It’s all about meeting amazing, interesting people.
- And helping them.
- And being helped by them.
- And impressing everyone else with your smartnesses.
Because the thing itself is always the MacGuffin. It’s the structure that allows for connection. The point is always the meeting up.
The connections that happen there. The opportunity for you to demonstrate your deep inner qualities of fabulousness.
And that cool shining heart-thing that happens when people relate to each other in a curious, excited, human way.
Of course now I have to go whip up some amazing content for something I’m working on … oh, it’s irony for lunch today!
Blogging therapy: What if people are mean to me?
Alright, first in a series on how to take some of the scary out of blogging.
Just so you know, I’m writing this with two types of people in mind.
It’s for those of you who are thinking about blogging — or at least about maybe eventually thinking about getting around to it later — and for those of us who are already doing it, but keep getting tripped up by some of the what-ifs.
Not planning on “solving” a “problem” here. Just to:
1. clarify the issue so that people who aren’t experiencing it can have some empathy for those who are. And then …
2. offer some useful concepts to help us talk about how to deal with this should you ever want to. Food for thought, at the very least.
Shall we? Yallah.
Aaaagh! What if people are mean to me?
Where this is coming from and what it’s about.
The sincere and scary worry that your blog will be trolled by some snarky, insulting jerk (or worse, a whole bunch of people like that) is pretty darn normal. It’s actually something that keeps a ton of people from even starting a blog.
And I know this to be true because they all email me about it. And because I also worried this to death before I started.
This particular what-if has been getting louder recently (at least in my inbox) ever since Naomi cut off comments on her blog.
Aside from the resulting general hullaballoo in the blogosphere (which I don’t feel like talking about at the moment), there’s just a lot of fear coming up.
Basically, people come to me, point to her situation, and say (I’m paraphrasing here):
“SEE? That’s why I don’t blog!
I don’t even want to think about having to deal with the kind of abuse that would make me need to shut off my comments. I don’t want those meany-pants trollface jerks on my blog and that’s that.”
Like with any fear, you’re absolutely allowed to have it.
You know, I really do get that this is a legitimate fear.
Obviously blogging is a pretty personal venture. It can be vulnerable and intimate. You share your thoughts and your words, and you don’t even know who you’re sharing them with.
It makes sense that you don’t want to get slammed for showing up and being who you are.
It makes sense that you don’t want to process criticism (especially the mean-spirited insulting kind) from random strangers. It just doesn’t feel safe or supportive.
Sounds like maybe you’re feeling kinda anxious because you really need to know that you can have a safe place to lean into, and you’re not convinced that a blog can ever be that place for you.
And that’s okay.
And at the same time, I really, really want to read your blog! And now I can’t — because you’re not writing it.
So if this particular fear is the reason that I don’t get to read it (yet), let’s talk about that a little, okay?
Some thoughts to consider …
1. Can I share my own personal experience with this?
This was totally something I agonized over before starting this blog, and you know what? There has never been anything negative on my blog.
Seriously. Tfu tfu tfu, spit three times to avert the evil eye, knock on keyboard, nothing.
Sure, it happens that people disagree with me, but they do it politely and respectfully, and we talk. That’s it.
The people who read and comment on this blog are the sweetest, kindest, most thoughtful and considerate people ever. Just gentle souls who are also smart and funny and have awesome insights.
I’d been so worried about having to deal with energy-sucking duck-haters or something, and instead I found a whole community of people who draw strength from my writing and who show up just to cheer me on.
It has been one of the most awe-inspiring, humbling experiences of my life so far. And yeah, I was wrong.
Okay, a number of you are probably coming up with a thousand reasons of why you’re not me, and how you actually will attract all the mean, crazy people.
And anyway, what about so-and-so and all the horrible things that happened to them?
Okay, fine. So let’s say that for whatever reason you might get some jerks spouting off on your blog. In that case, please see the next point.
2. You also have ways of protecting yourself.
There are ways to diffuse this situation both in advance (before you even start the blog) and if/when it ever happens.
It’s all about boundaries. And the trick to boundaries, in this case, is getting clear about how you want to handle comments on your blog. Some structure. Some guidelines.
Not necessarily a comments policy. You don’t have to go that far.
Personally? I detest the idea of a comments policy because to me “policy” sounds very top-down and authoritative. And I have issues. Sorry about that. (You can have a policy if you want one).
But there are ways to get around this. For one thing, you can use descriptive language (“this is how we do things around here”) as opposed to prescriptive language (“you are not allowed to do blah blah blah”).
For another, you don’t have to call it a policy. Tim Ferris, with whom I disagree on all sorts of things, has something awesome called Comment Zen.
I love Comment Zen because — unlike a policy which I already want to rebel against even before I know what it is — it doesn’t sound like it’s wagging a finger at me.
And because its very existence inoculates you against criticism if you end up deleting stuff that’s mean-spirited. (And again, I’ve never had to do that).
And you don’t have to actually use your non-policy policy thing. It’s enough to just have it in your head. I wrote mine about a month before I started blogging.
Just in case. I’ve never had to use it. In fact, I’ve never even mentioned it before now. But because I know it’s there, I feel a lot safer and more comfortable.
And since you’re going to beg me to share, here it is. My non-policy policy.
Comment Zen: We’ve all got our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We try to respond to each other with as much, you know, compassion and respect as we can stand. Mensch-like: it’s how we roll. That’s it. Have fun and comment away!
3. Every blog has a personality.
And not just a personality, but its own energy and its own voice.
The persona of your website is determined by you, but it’s also something you get to play with. In other words, you have more power than you think.
Every single thing you do on your blog — the look and feel, the colors, the way you speak to people — it all comes together to create a sense of who you are and what you’re about.
In Naomi’s case — and I’m not in any way criticizing her because she’s my favorite everything and I’m completely in love with her — her persona is brash and loud and fabulously obnoxious. Which is totally greatl Because we’re drawn to it and we adore her for it.
But because not everyone is capable of differentiating between a persona and an actual human being who is behind it, apparently some people took this as an invitation to be rude and abrasive in her space. Which is not cool.
This is so not the case with the people who write to me saying “Oh noooooooooo! I can’t deal with some Meany-Pants McGee insulting my honor!”.
Seriously. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you don’t have an abrasive tell-it-like-it-is persona. So the likelihood of your ever getting that kind of response from people who don’t get it is a lot lower than you think it is. Tfu tfu tfu!
4. Be prepared: have a way to respond.
It never hurts to be a good communicator. If you have ways to respond to people, you’ll be less frightened of what they can say.
I use compassionate communication (NVC). And a concept from the super genius linguist Suzette Haden Elgin called “Miller’s Law”, which I can talk about some other time.
For me, it’s all about remembering that if something I said triggered someone else’s stuff, it’s their stuff. All I can do is meet their hurt and find out what they need. And acknowledge my own hurt and state what I need.
It’s really important (and hard) to remember that it’s not about you. Actually, it’s never about you.
And if that doesn’t help? Well, the delete button is there for a reason. May you never have to use it, but it’s there.
Feeling a little better?
Good. Or maybe not good, because I’m about to freak you out again.
The truth is that the likelihood of this particular fear coming true is not especially high. What’s much, much, much more likely is that no one will show up at all.
But we’ll deal with that particular what-if (and what to do about it) next week. In the meantime, I wish you the kind of awesome readers that I have, and can’t wait to read what you’re writing!