Does social media make us narcissists? No, but it can reveal a lot about how we view ourselves

When it comes to narcissism, there is perhaps no more endearing example in the world than Kanye West. Pop culture’s king of self-aggrandisement once declared that he wished to describe his profession as ‘creative genius’ on immigration arrival forms – but he didn’t know how to spell the word ‘genius’ (lol). 

Narcissism is something I’ve been thinking about lately because I’ve seen a few columns fretting that our obsession with selfies and documenting the minutiae of our lives online is creating a generation of narcissists. I don’t agree. 

Firstly, a definition – because narcissism is not, despite popular belief, the same as arrogance or just plain bad behaviour. During a discussion at the recent Sydney Writer’s Festival, social commentator Anne Manne (author of Life of I: The New Culture of Narcissism) offered these defining characteristics (among others): having a sense of superiority; a sense of entitlement; a feeling that you’re entitled to exploit others; and a desperate desire to gain attention to prove you are really significant – which is where social media use really comes under the microscope.

Brene Brown, leading researcher in the field of vulnerability, describes narcissism as “a shame-based fear of being ordinary”. At its core, she writes, narcissism is driven by a fear of not being enough.

I’m not sure what this says about the industry I’m in, but I’ve worked with more than a few people who fit into the narcissism category. And I’ve certainly seen people – from differing age groups – use social media as a platform for relentless self-promotion, which can be uncomfortable for me to observe. But even though many commentators have identified a correlation between social media and narcissism, I don’t think that means social media *breeds* narcissism, as such.

My opinion is that although there’s a good argument for all of us pulling back on our social media use and engaging more in face-to-face interactions, wanting to showcase your life online isn’t necessarily unhealthy. That said, if you feel like you are reliant on multiple ‘likes’ to feel valued – and feel like you don’t matter if you don’t achieve that – you could probably do with asking yourself some reflective questions. The way you use social media might be a symptom, rather than a cause, of a disconnect between what you think you have to offer the world and the unquantifiable, exquisite value you bring to the world every day simply by virtue of being yourself.

I did a social media detox a while ago and although it was short-lived (obviously) this did change the way I approach Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in a lasting way. Thankfully, I’ve never had the problem of aligning my sense of worth with my social media ‘reach’ or approval ratings – but my sense of self-worth has certainly struggled as a direct result of how I was using social media. The result was me feeling deeply inadequate for not having a life as glamorous or as exciting or as love-filled as other people ‘appear’ – and the key word here is ‘appear’ – to have. The good thing is, I was able to recognise that although Instagram et al were making me feel crap about myself, that was really a result of my low self-esteem – social media was merely exacerbating an existing problem. Which I’m taking steps to address, BTW. Understanding and honouring my value as a human being, and not using other people’s lives nor societal expectations as a yardstick for that, is an ongoing process for me.*

By the way, going back to the narcissism thing (in case you needed some reassurance)... if you’re worried you’re a narcissist, you’re not. Because if you were a narcissist you wouldn’t have enough self-awareness to even consider yourself one. (Good to know.)

I’m not really sure where this leaves Kanye, but I love his music, regardless.

* Read my blog post on comparison syndrome in relation to social media here.

Help! I think I just did something brave... and I'm terrified!

Ever done something bold and thrilling and daring, then woken up the next day and thought, ‘what the hell have I done?!’

I’m not talking about a party flashback (although, God knows…). I’m talking about the big life-changing decisions that force you into a frightening place of immense vulnerability where your future no longer seems secure as it was. The result: terror and regret. But mostly terror.

Yesterday I signed a lease on a practice room at a holistic health centre in Inner West Sydney, from which I’ll be offering reiki and angel card readings, two days a week. I’d been talking about doing this for months, and I think everyone was as bored with the subject as I was. It was time to put up or shut up. So I did. I put down a hefty deposit and signed a lease which I’m bound to for a year. At the time I felt emboldened, confident and optimistic. But within hours I had that gut-wrenching ‘oh-God-what-have-I-done’ feeling. I don’t need to tell you this is a significant financial risk on my part. There’s also more than a small element of emotional risk too – if I don’t get a healthy client base I’m going to look and feel like a failure. 

As the landlord was asking me about my target audience (um, anyone with a pulse?) and my marketing plan (don’t even know what that is), I suddenly realised I’m in way over my head. I do not have a single client, and I don’t know the first thing about how to get any. I know I’m good at energy healing and angel communication (well, so my feedback indicates) but I also know ability and talent are immaterial if you can’t get anyone to walk through your door.

Guys, this is terrifying. The only thing keeping me from having a full-blown panic attack is the faintest hope that this *just might* work out. And the sense that if I don’t give it a go, I’ll always wonder whether it might have.

In a way, this reminds me of last year when I quit Auckland and moved to Sydney – a decision which also defied logic and threw me into an uncertain future, both financially and personally. And here I am again, staring at a foggy road ahead. Feeling woefully unprepared, but mildly buoyed by some brilliant person's quote that goes something like this: ‘No one is ever really ready for anything’. I’m whispering that silently, and often, to my Richter-scale-level thudding heart.

I know how much is riding on me backing myself and promoting my skills, and I’m genuinely unsure whether I can do that. There’s only one way to find out.

Situation vacant: the job that makes you happy. Will you apply?

I’ve got a few friends in the process of changing careers and I’m really excited for them. There’s a powerful energy in the air right now, inspiring people to take steps in new directions. As I’ve discussed on this blog before, 2015 is facilitating life changes big and small.

Considering we spend more hours at work than in any other capacity, it’s crazy to even consider languishing in a profession that makes you unhappy. Yet a lot of people who book angel readings tell me they are feeling trapped in jobs that bring them neither challenge nor satisfaction. This is something I really struggle to relate to – thank God.

When I was at high school I had a friend who really wanted to become a teacher but her parents discouraged her from pursuing this profession because her earning capacity would be low. I’m so grateful that my parents imposed no such pressure on me – they gave me the freedom to choose a career that I knew was right for me, irrespective of financial factors; journalism was never going to make me a millionaire. Although I’m currently changing the scope of my work to include reiki and face-to-face angel card readings (stay tuned for updates soon!), I’ve really enjoyed my time in magazines and, until recently, I haven’t been bored. My creativity has always had room to flourish, which was a priority for me from the outset.

Last weekend I went away with a group of friends, and during one of our chats a mate told me that in 10 years of employment he’s never had a job that fulfils him. He’s taking steps to rectify that now (yay). I don’t have any advice for anyone in this situation – it’s your life, and only you can figure out how to make yourself happy – but I would like to pose this question to you: if you know what you want to do but you’re not doing it, what is holding you back? If it’s money, I’d gently suggest you re-evaluate your relationship with money. I’m sure that, like myself, you know plenty of people earning six-figure salaries who hate their jobs. Those people are spending copious amounts of that money trying to make themselves feel better – and that coping mechanism is not working. Truthbomb right here: work does not have to be an endurance test.

If it’s the time required to retrain in a new career that’s holding you back, consider this: time is going to pass anyway. You may as well spend that time getting to where to want to go. This is not just a job, it’s the vast majority of your waking hours, and you have a lot of say in how you spend them. You are not trapped. Even though there’s no such thing as a perfect job – every role has its drudgery and dramas, God knows – there is such a thing as a job that makes you feel content, fulfilled and, ideally, valued. Go after that. It’s worth the time and financial disruption. It’s worth the punt.

This is, after all, the only life you get.*

PS: You’ll notice my post is missing a familiar but tired cliché... you know the one: ‘Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.’ I haven’t busted that out because I think it’s misleading. Even when you enjoy what you do, work is still work – no matter how fulfilling it is. If I had a choice between poolside cocktails and filling out my GST return, you can bet I’d choose the former.

*Not strictly true, from a spiritual perspective, as we all get multiple lifetimes… but let’s not muddy the waters….

I saw the sign, and it opened up my eyes

We all get messages from the Universe by way of intuition (which you probably know as gut feelings) but the problem is that often our logical minds intervene and discredit that message. ‘Oh you just made that up’ or ‘you’re just being paranoid’ are the typical arguments my brain comes up with. But asking for signs can really help get clarity.

That’s why I often ask my angels to give me a clear sign to confirm that the messages are accurate. It’s not a good idea to ask the angels what that sign should look like, but if I have made a decision I’m feeling uncertain about, I often say something like: ‘If it’s for my highest good for me to (accept this contract, for example) please give me a sign that I can clearly understand.’

Typically angels communicate through these signs:

Music

– a particular song that’s meaningful to you might come on the radio unexpectedly, or with lyrics that confirm what you’re already thinking;

Feathers

– may be left in your path or on your doorstep, for example

Coins

– finding coins in unexpected places (ie not your purse!)

Butterflies

– if you notice a swarm around a particular bush, that’s a sign

Clouds

– it’s not unusual for faces to appear in clouds, or sometimes the outline of angels.

This is not an exhaustive list. Sometimes the angels can be really creative and sometimes they’re just really, really obvious – a scenario I covered in this blog post.

Because I communicate with the angels so regularly, they often send me signs without me asking for them – they know that I need reassurance, even before I know it. For example, on Wednesday I was walking to a health appointment that I was feeling apprehensive about. A white feather floated out in front of me, almost brushing my nose, and I knew that was my angels letting me know it would be a favourable outcome (and it was).

Of course, I should point out that you should never use signs as an excuse not to make decisions for yourself. You’re the one in charge of your life. It’s really just a back-up for the occasions you are feeling deeply conflicted. It would also be remiss of me not to mention that you can get carried away with looking for signs, and that’ll lead you down a path of looking for hidden meaning where there is none. I clearly remember an occasion when I was walking home from work in Auckland a few years ago. I saw two feathers and got really excited about it and immediately started trying to deduce the unexplained message. (FYI if you have to think about it too much, there’s nothing there – if it’s a genuine sign your intuition will tell you what it means.) Then I rounded the corner and saw a dead seagull on the footpath – and almost cried with laughter. In case you were wondering, the Universe really does have a sense of humour. And sometimes a feather is just a feather – no hidden messages whatsoever. To know the difference, you have to trust your intuition. Which also happens to be the answer to every problem, ever, BTW.  

Why you should never lose your sense of wonder

I spent an hour watching humpback whales last Sunday and it lifted my mood far more than my daily meditation had.

The reason this excursion onto the rolling ocean turned my weekend around comes down to one very powerful word: wonder.

I had been feeling flat all weekend, struggling with some familiar demons and oppressed by a general sense of futility. I knew I needed to put some distance between my negative headspace and reconnect with hope, which is a fundamental ingredient when you are trying to bring about change. It took about 45 minutes to get out of the harbour and into the open water, where we waited. And waited. And waited. About 40 minutes later I finally caught a glimpse of a mama whale and her baby surfacing to blow out air, and it blew my mind. I saw two more whales after that and I think I said “oh wow!” about a million times. It was – and I’m not exaggerating here – extraordinary. 

Three days earlier I had attended a talk with US writer Leigh Ann Henion, who, as a young mother, realised her world had become too small. So she set off on a ‘wonder pilgrimage’ to see some of the world’s most astonishing natural phenomena – scaling active volcanoes and witnessing vast animal migrations. And then wrote a book about it, entitled (funnily enough) Phenomenon.

“Wonder is an underrated emotion,” she said. “It makes people feel more generous, more connected and more satisfied with life, and makes them feel less materialistic. The reason time passes so slowly when you’re a kid is because you’re always having new experiences.”

If climbing into a deep ravine isn’t an option or even a preference for you (me neither), there are other means to view your world like you’re a wide-eyed child again – and to reap the wellbeing benefits of those experiences. Think: visiting zoos and wildlife parks, star-gazing centres, bush walks and mountain-biking trails, just for starters.

It’s so easy to become immersed in day-to-day life and to forget that there is more to our existence than just work, home life and a steady stream of obligations. But being amazed – *actually* amazed in the true sense of the word, not just in the flippant way we throw the word around these days – is how we reconnect with the world around us. It puts problems into perspective and helps in appreciating the impermanence of what we have. 

About two years ago after I had been struggling with mood so low I had thought I would have to go back on anti-depressants, one of the first signs that the fog was starting to clear was when I started to notice incredible detail around me. Sensing this was significant, I started challenging myself to spot as many beautiful things as I could on my way to work every day. They were small, of course, but as I’ve noted on this blog before, the small things are really the big things. Snail trail patterns on fences, intensely coloured petals, gnarly tree trunks...  you get the picture. This sounds ridiculously twee, I know, but it really was helpful. I wouldn’t say it changed my life but for small moments it got me out of my own head and closer to a state of gratitude for what I had rather than despair over what I didn’t (which had been the root cause of my toxic gloom). It added momentum to a subtle internal shift of ‘looking at the doughnut, not the hole’, so to speak, which was a solid platform for getting myself out of the hole that I was in. When you’re in a deep pit of suffering you can’t see anything but the blackness. Noticing and appreciating beauty reminded me of the colours of joy, and urged me to continue riding out the storm so I could experience more of that. It gently whispered to me: it’s worth the struggle. 

This is why inspiration posters urge you to never lose your sense of wonder. I don’t think I’ve lost mine, but it does go MIA from time to time. Next time that happens I’m going send out a search party. And board a boat.