Why I Don’t Just Unfriend Him

May 5, 2017

By Christie Tate

“You can just unfriend him. At least hide his profile.”

This is good advice, advice I’d be well served to take. I’ve just told my best friend about the latest offense my Tea Party pro-Trump second-cousin has committed on social media. This cousin triggers me to the moon with his red state propaganda. I haven’t laid eyes on him since my grandfather’s funeral in 1981. I was in third grade. I remember only that his face was wide and flat like the surface of the moon. We share the same last name and a handful of relatives that I’m not close to. We were “reunited” on Facebook a few months ago when my first cousin put me in touch with his daughter.

I didn’t know he was a pro-Trump guy at first. The posts were all about his grandbaby and his beloved Texas Aggies. Babies I can get behind 100% of the time; the Aggies I could take or leave.

Then, over the summer the Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas erupted in gun violence and police officers were killed in the line of duty. I posted something that was pro Black Lives Matter, and his response was racist, offensive, anti-Constitutional, and impossible to ignore. I held my phone and in that tiny square for REPLY I told him why Black Lives Matter was important and that he was wrong about who was to blame for the violence. I cited numerous incidents were young black men were killed at the hands of trigger-happy, racist police officers. After I published my remark, I shook like someone soaking wet in a snow storm. Had I just taken this man with my father’s smile to task? Was I now in trouble? I was 43 years old, sitting in the office where I work as a lawyer, shaking like I’d just thrown a Molotov cocktail through an elderly person’s window. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, Social Media

How Social Media Killed My Memories

February 1, 2017

By Nilanjana Bhowmick

Over-dependence on digital media to store memories is depleting them. We think we are creating memories, but we are in fact killing them. Our memories are more transient than ever before. They have never been as threatened before. As I found out when I lost the ability to see for two weeks.

On a patchy, unremarkable April evening, I was on my way to consult my doctor for a nagging migraine. I was sitting in the car, with temperatures threatening to climb over 45 degrees outside. The air conditioning in my car had given up the pretense of cooling. The car right in front was emitting black smoke in a thin spiral. Delhi’s bumper-to-bumper traffic refused to budge. The buzz of the daily, local market grew around me as did the swirling crowds. They dropped off and picked up, dropped off and picked up in their own lazy rhythm of heat-induced inertia. The steering wheels were sweating out the smug heat and the incessant, impatient honking. Snippets of a Bollywood song was floating in from an auto rickshaw with a garish pink interior. The driver was lip-syncing to the song. A romantic song I remember from my childhood. A man singing to his lover that her pink eyes were intoxicating.

The day would turn out to be one of the most momentous days of my life.

Later that evening the lights started dimming in front of my eyes and the world went down into deep shadows. I lost the ability to see for a whole two weeks. Just like that. Without the warning of an illness or accident. I should have remembered the day I went blind more vividly. But I don’t. My memories of that evening that you just read above are purely second-hand.

I remember them from my status updates on social media and a few pictures on my phone. Because I, like many many others of my generation of 30-40 year olds, was a victim of digital amnesia. Continue Reading…

Binders, Guest Posts, Inspiration

Mirror, Mirror

August 17, 2015

By Anna Quinn

I want to write about the visceral dissonance my head and gut absorb each day as I scroll through images on social media—the pumpkin martini recipes and beheadings in Iran and cute cat videos and acid thrown in children’s faces and new iPhones and thousands of faceless bodies—women, children and men blown to bits, continents away. I want to write about the strange juxtaposition of these things and try to make meaning of it.

But what I really want to write about is that recent video floating around Facebook—maybe you’ve seen it—the one where women are in a department store, and one by one they look into a mirror, and the mirror begins to talk to them and the mirror asks each woman how they feel about themselves and the women don’t feel so great—one turns her head away, another feels like a dog, another shrugs. Then, the mirror gives the women personalized examples from their friends and families of how they are an inspiration to others, how they are so beautiful on the outside and inside. The mirror says things like, You’re beautiful! You’re enough! And when the mirror says this—You’re beautiful! You’re enough! the women’s eyes well up and a couple of them cry. I watch the way the eyes and mouths and bodies of these women soften and release, and I cry too, because of what it means to be human.

But what I really want to write about is how, in my messy conflicted mind, when I place myself in front of the talking mirror, the mirror shouts, “There’s no fucking way you’re enough!” and I know the mirror doesn’t say this because I’m ugly or worthless or broken. I know the mirror says this because it knows I can’t possibly be enough when fucking courageous as hell journalists are getting their heads chopped off while I fall asleep in a queen-sized bed with Garnett Hill flannel sheets, and one in four children are on food stamps while I’m at Trader Joe’s questioning whether or not the spinach is really organic, the salmon really wild, when mothers and fathers with babies wrapped tight to their chests fight to cross murderous borders, fight to find Safety while I fight to lose that last ten pounds.

But what I really want to write about is how, when I get like this, some of my friends say things like; for god’s sake, Anna, settle the fuck down. You’re so intense. What’s with all the guilt! Stop apologizing for stuff. You are right where you need to be. Focus on all those positive vibrations! Don’t take yourself so seriously. We’re just a speck in the universe! Continue Reading…

Gratitude, Guest Posts, I Have Done Love

Thanksgiving Challenge.

November 27, 2014

By Jean Klein.

A few weeks ago I was involved in a conversation about challenge. I was quick to say I don’t feel the need to be in competition with anyone. I later realized I was wrong. I need to challenge myself everyday to be the best person I can be. To love, care, and respect everyone. To be gentle, and kind.

So one of my challenges to myself this Thanksgiving is this: To contact family and friends that I will not be able to see for the holiday by phone. To TALK to them, to tell them you love you. To LISTEN to them. To hear their voices.

While I understand social media and text has its pros and cons I believe we have forgotten what it is like to speak to each other and listen. We, myself included are to quick to message someone, post something on their wall, or tweet. Or, just send a quick text.

I want to challenge everyone to take a few minutes this Thanksgiving to pick up your phone, not to post, tweet, or text, but to CALL someone. Call your friends or family members. Let them know you are thinking about them and that you love them. Continue Reading…

death, Grief, healing, Letting Go

This Broke My Heart. Please Read & Share & Remember This Incredible Moment Is All We’ve Got.

June 8, 2014

I just got this email and my heart is breaking. I met Tiana when she came to my April Dallas workshop.

We’ve got to be here now, guys. Nothing is guaranteed. Ever!

We all know this. We know it but we forget sometimes, don’t we? I do. That something can just happen in the blink of an eye and like that- all is changed. I want Tiana to feel that a million people are wrapping their arms around her. I believe in the power of social media. For things like this. She will be checking this and reading the messages to her. Let’s do this. Leave her comments and share this please.

Also: go hug someone you love a little longer. Say I love you.

Please post a note for her below as she will read it. This was the email she sent me this afternoon, shared with permission:
“My name is Tiana Harris. I was in dallas, came from Oklahoma. We met in the parking lot. I lost my husband last week in a car accident. He rolled his jeep on his way to work. Just an ordinary day and then the wind stopped blowing. It’s Oklahoma, it never stops. It was still for three stagnate stifling days. I swear he took it with him. He was a Gemini after all. This is so confusing, there’s this extreme sense of emptiness and loss. I feel it with every breath. Every time I walk into a room I expect to see him, or to hear his voice. I stand at the sink and anticipate his hands or lips on my neck. But it doesn’t come and it’s not going to. Through this tragedy I’ve realized what an amazingly beautiful tribe I have built for myself. The outpouring of love has been completely overwhelming in the best possible way. Thank you for your inspiration. I’m finding my feet and I’m still beauty hunting. I appreciate your writing, I appreciate your rawness. Thank you for sharing yourself. Love, T”

*You can also post a comment for her on my Facebook page under this picture.

Jennifer Pastiloff is the founder of The Manifest-Station. She fiercely believes in the power of a tribe. Let’s show Tiana what love is RIGHT NOW.

Daily Manifestation Challenge

Daily Manifestation Challenge: Are You Addicted to “Like”?

May 31, 2012

The real question is this: Where can you be honest with yourself? Where can you be the most honest you that you have ever been?

Yesterday I rode my bike, along with my dear friend Laura, to Redondo Beach.

From Santa Monica.

Thank God The Redondo Beach Pier had those awesome fish tacos and pints of beer or I wouldn’t have made it back. ( Not joking.) 34 miles is a long haul, folks. A long haul.

I had a lot of time to think. To just be.

Here is my honesty for the day, my second Confession in the Confession Series. (click to read Confession about sucking my thumb.)

I realized I am addicted to likes. To clicks.

I am addicted to Like.

Like the song Addicted To Love. Just change it to Like.

I post a blog. And then I check every few minutes to see how it’s doing. Did they like it? Do they like me? ( Who, in the name of God, are “they”?)

Am I good enough?

I am being honest here, so I am breaking down what it really means.

I have become a slave to my phone and computer, so dialed in and over-connected all the time. Yesterday as I rode all those miles and looked out at the ocean I thought about how great it felt to be off the grid. To not care one way or the other what was going on in the world beyond that moment, there on my bike.

I am being raw and looking deep within the caves of Jennifer that are not to be found on Facebook or Twitter.

It’s not a conscious thing I am talking about. It’s something I realized there on my beach cruiser with the orange basket in front and fishing rod in back; this need for connection and approval to make me feel good about myself.

We all want to be liked. That’s natural.

The reality? Not everyone will like us.

That’s ok. It’s usually not about us anyway, and, even if it is, it doesn’t matter. It’s their opinion to have, whoever they are.

I was with my private client last week and Bruce Springsteen was in the background singing one of my favorites, “My Hometown.” I looked over at him and asked: Are you a Bruce fan?

Him: Nah.

Me: Really?

So I realized that if you plug in your favorite artist or singer or anyone that you think is the best there is, you will always find someone that says: They suck.

How can you not be a Bruce fan? I thought and was truly baffled.

So there will always be someone that doesn’t like Bruce or Snow Patrol or your favorite band or artist. Helps you get over the fact that not all people will like you, right?

So back to the honesty question. Where can you be really honest with yourself?

A confession, if you will.

Mine is: I am an addict.

My last post on one of the many sites I write for got a hundred plus comments but only a thousand “likes.”

Do you know that I actually spent time thinking about this?

Comparing myself to other people? Wondering why more people hadn’t clicked “like” on something that was so personal, so important to me? Something that I had spent so much time on and which I thought was really good? What if the website didn’t publish me anymore? What if it means something, this only a “thousand likes” business?

And you know what? The what if’s, when you spell them out and look them square in the jaw, end up being small little things that get filed under “Irrelevant” in your Life File, along with getting into a “perfect” yoga pose or being the “perfect” weight.

I caught myself in my own trap.

I have become tethered to something that is, in no way, shape, or form: real.

I have allowed it.

I have become a junkie to people validating me.

It’s easy to happen.

Everything has a like button so how can we start to not feel as if it a personal sign we are wearing?

Like me? Please, please click “like”? Vote for me? “Like” me and I will believe I am good enough and if you don’t like me then I will feel worthless.

It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?

So, now what?

I am honest with it, now what? I am looking at it. I am “being with it” as they say. Now what?

So, here’s what: I shut the computer. I go sit with my husband and have a nice meal and a glass of wine. I let go of any notion that my self worth is connected to how many Facebook fans I have, how many likes I have on a post, how many tweets or pinterests or shmiterests. I let myself sit and be like I am on a bike with not a care in the world except how far away the dang Pier is, with it’s fish tacos and beer.

Where can you be honest with yourself? That’s Today’s Daily Manifestation Challenge or DMC. Come on and take it! Answer below. I know it is scary, but it feels so so good.