Taking Care Of Ourselves On Twitter

Written By Don Shetterly

One of the things that I think we forget to do is take care of ourselves on Twitter.  It is far too easy to get sucked into the social media unconscious world before we know it.

There is so much that I enjoy about Twitter including many of my followers.  I love great discussions by others on my follower list.  I love it when others share how they are coming through their own struggles.  The ones that strive to make a difference in the world get my utmost respect.

How can you take care of yourself on Twitter?

Follow The Right People

Yes, I know it isn't easy sometimes to know who the right people are too follow.  There's a lot of games played on Twitter and even trying to check out a profile and the tweets of someone, sometimes you just get fooled.  Be careful and when you see people crossing the line, kick them off.  When they really cross the line, that's when I report them.  Sorry, but when someone is bullying or abusing others and being disrespectful, they need a time-out!

Mute Words

You may not know it on Twitter, but one of the best features is the "muted words" function.  If you go up to you your profile picture, click on the "settings and privacy" menu item, you should see one in there that says "muted words."  All you have to do is start adding in the words you don't want to see.  It doesn't mean you stop following people.  You no longer have to look at those conversations which you don't want to see in your Twitter Feed.  It is a way of taking care of ourselves on Twitter especially when things trigger us.

As new words come up, I just add them to my list, and that is the last of that issue I have to worry about on Twitter.  I'm not trying to hide my head in the sand.  I just don't wish to see tweet after tweet all day long of stuff that gets far too overwhelming.

It's Not Our Circus

One of the best things we can do in taking care of ourselves on Twitter is to realize that not every issue is one we need to engage.  If we remind ourselves that it's not our circus, we can give ourselves permission to walk away from the tweet.  After all, sometimes you're better to walk away than engage and bring yourself down into the mud pit with everyone else.  I've written about rolling around in the mud pit with everyone else.  When you do that, no one can tell you apart from the ones you're fighting.  A mud pit makes both people look the same.

Put A Stop Watch On Your Twitter Time

One of the things with social media is that it can suck you into this world.  Before you realize it, the hours have passed by quickly.  There is something about this behavior that is almost unconscious, and it can consume your time.  Put a stopwatch on your Twitter time.  It helps us take care of ourselves on Twitter.  The world will exist if we are on Twitter or not.  The world will continue regardless of what we tweet or not.  We've traded in taking care of ourselves in life with spending far too much time on Twitter and social media.

Don't Be Part Of The Problem

I see a lot of tweets that come through where they make me scratch my head in disbelief.  Even people who claim to have love or are enlightened or have the answers.  Sometimes those people can be some of the worst offenders.  We often tend to respond on Twitter without thoroughly thinking.  Sometimes the words we say can inflict great harm on others unintentionally.  Of course, you can't always know that, and you can't always prevent this.  Everyone has their own triggers.  Just make sure you think before you type.  Respond with compassion and respect and love.  Before you respond, think about how you would react if someone said the same words to you.  Make sure you're not a part of the problem you despise because very often, we are.

Here's to taking care of ourselves on Twitter!

Taking care of ourselves on Twitter is essential.  I'm sure there are things I'm missing here and please leave a comment below on what ways work for you.  Let's help everyone by sharing what we do.  After all, we're in this social media world together.  

Follow me on Twitter, @MindBodyThought

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Blog Post And Images (c) 3/04/18 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required in writing before any part of this blog is reprinted, reworded, transmitted or used in any format. 
• Feel free to share the blog post LINK and a brief summary.  

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Constantly Connected To The Job

I did this one for a long time and it almost cost me my life and the world that I knew.  I didn't realize how having to be constantly connected to the job was killing me.  It was keeping me asleep.

The example of Frank from the blog post Are You Asleep could have been me in many ways.  Read an excerpt here from that blog post:

Yes, his employer forces him to take at least one week a year away from the office, but he's constantly checking email and working on projects.  He doesn't realize he is asleep.  (read the full example)

In my job I worked from home, but the employers and people above me did not care if I had time to myself.  They would claim up and down, all day long, that I should only work 40 hours a week.  They had to say that because otherwise they were breaking the law in how they had us report time.

Of course, in the next breath you would get chastised if you could not keep up with 150 to 200 calls a day among 400-600 emails and conference calls, traveling, and training techs.  These were just some of the pieces of the job.  They balked at giving you help, but thought that you could accomplish everything in 40 hours.  The support calls came all hours of the day and night because they didn't know how to schedule any of the project, and they didn't know how to hire the right people to do the job.

I got to a point where I could not function and life was nothing but an annoyance.  There was no time off.  The project had to continue, unorganized as it was, while the main company made millions.  They sacrificed my life for millions of dollars.

Yet I was so busy at the time that I didn't even realize what was being done to me.   I got to the point, medically, where I had to take time off -- and they still called me.  There was no escaping it.  A few months later, I said enough was enough.

The funny part is, there was much of the job that I loved, but they had worked me to death. I say shame on employers that do this to people.  If you can't respect your workers and their lives, you don't deserve to be in business.

This is so commonplace, but it is a practice of being asleep and unconscious and numb.  Sure, it is your job and livelihood, but it comes with serious costs.  There is nothing that is worth giving up your life - no amount of money or time.

NO, it isn't easy trying to get out of this or even realizing you have options.  We get sucked into it because we think if we work hard, we'll get ahead.  Yet, the end point of the working hard to get ahead game never ends.  It just requires more and more out of us.

At some point, you have to wake up or hope you do before it is too late.  Working in this way and constantly being connected to your job is not living.  It is not human.  It is being controlled and manipulated by those whose only existence is for the power of greed.

Make sure you check out the next part in this 11 part series

 Part 9 is "Asleep By SmartPhones"

 

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Asleep Burning The Candle At Both Ends

Back in the days I started out doing massage, I was so mind blown at how people just race here and there.  Burning the candle at both ends was just common practice in the people I met.  I never quite understood that one.  It is a way in which we are asleep.

In the example posted on 6/13/17, Josephine thinks that she can burn the candle at both ends of the stick.  She can't let anyone down, but she complains that she is the only one that can do anything.  

We just don't understand that the human body is not designed to run day and night with no stopping and no rest. Our minds needs downtime.  Our bodies needs to breathe.  We need silence and stillness to reconnect with peace and joy.

In addition, the rest and downtime allows our nervous systems to catch up and process what we have experienced in our days.  It helps our cells and tissues repair themselves and pull back to a state of balance and normality.

If we push ourselves day in and day out, we may get away with it for a long time, but sooner or later it will catch up with us.  Most of the time we are oblivious to the disastrous effects it is having on the mind and body.  We are usually numb and asleep to what is happening behind the scenes.

We don't see it and often we don't want to see it.  We'd rather go on oblivious to what we are doing to ourselves.  Then, when we get sick, we gasp at what has happened, but we fail to see the connection.  We just look for someone to keep us in a numbed and asleep state.

Being human is learning to interact with our mind and our body.  It is about taking care of ourselves and through doing that, we become better acquainted with who we are.  Beating our mind and body up is not living.  It is self-inflicted abuse that we do to ourselves.

I remember a therapist one time looking at me and telling me, "Don - you need to give yourself a break.  You are beating yourself up too hard.  You are your own worst enemy.".

Yes, we are our own worst enemies and when we are asleep and numb to it, we project that on to everyone else.  We think that everyone is the problem, when the problem could be resolved within each one of us if we chose to do so.

Hopefully, you'll learn from what Josephine is doing to her body in the example from the blog post on June 13, 2017 - Are You Asleep?

Make sure you check out the next part in this 11 part series

 Part 6 is "Sleep With Pain And Difficulty"

 

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Taking Care Of Yourself In Times Of Stress

We've all had those moments in life where we endure much more than we wish we had to face.  We go through times when the stress level is so high, we wonder if we can make it through.  Taking care of yourself in times of stress is important but not always easy.

Recently, we had one of those moments in our house and family.  There were a few days where sleep was hard to come by and we lived on the edge of reality.  Everything seemed like it was lost in time and we just went from moment to moment not knowing how the situation would turn out.  It was a time of extreme stress.

One person asked us during this time, "are you taking care of yourself?"   Unfortunately we had to say no.  We didn't get any sleep the first night and then subsequent days we did not get much sleep.  We were rushing to and from the hospital and waiting to hear any tidbit of good news.  However, we were not taking care of our self.

Helping Yourself To Help Others

Many years ago after I was in Bridgeway Psychiatric Hospital recovering from the paralysis of Conversion Disorder, I was introduced to a thought I had never been introduced known.  We were in group therapy and the doctor was talking about helping our self in order to help others.

So often we help others at the expense of helping ourselves.  It is easy to do and sometimes it is part of the human experience.  It is hard to see someone in pain, especially if you are highly sensitive like I am.   I don't like to see people suffer or animals for that matter.  I generally feel all of their suffering much more intensely in my own body.

Sitting in that group session that day, the doctor asked the question.   If there was a banquet table full of food and there was you and another person, but only one chair (one place) at the table, what would you do?  Would you eat first before the other person or let the other person eat first?