The ‘Self’, Social Media and the Sunflowers

I’ve been noticing that social media and in particular LinkedIn is a funny old platform to promote the ‘self’.

But like many of us, I contain multitudes of self:

• a mother

• a wife

• a civic officer in higher education

• a gardener

• a mindfulness practitioner

• a volunteer

• a military-connected family member

• a friend

• a football mum and fan etc etc

The more I get caught up in trying to be better at any of these roles, the more I try to promoted a ‘self’ on social media, the more I miss what’s right in front of me.

Sometimes just thinking about these roles and who I should be takes me further away from being in them. Because presence, not performance, is what allows me to show up meaningfully in any of them.

And here’s the thing I keep learning:

Getting too attached to outcomes or expectations of the ‘self’ pulls me out of life itself. The more I strive, it gets obsessive, the less I achieve, in a meaningful way anyway. Such a paradox!

Striving to be better, to be more, to be something other than I am, it can be subtle, but it’s exhausting. Me, me, me, self self, self, constant selfing. And it’s teaching seems to come round again and again. But returning and resting in the present moment, even when it’s hard, or messy, or joyful is the wisest way I know to move through the world.

These last few days have been a gentle remembering:

To connect with the beauty of life. To notice. To be.

Just to share a moment that pulled me back into awareness. Sunflower. Camouflaged bee. These moments are missed, but not today.

Because in the end, it’s not the idea of who I need to be that matters.

It’s being at home with how I am, now. Sunflowers, bees and the breathe.

Breathe. Rest. Come back home to presence.