Inspiring Women: Sharon Hayes: Putting the Social in Social Media

For many, Sharon Hayes needs no introduction, having been profiled for her social media savvy in publications such as The Huffington Post I've found that her daily interactions and positive messages on Twitter, Sharon shows how to use social media to good advantage because she gives so much through the medium. I remember Sharon tweeting about welcoming everyone we encounter on Twitter because all of us were new once. She doesn’t like direct messages via Twitter but prefers to engage in conversations via her stream and also offers a lot of strategies for getting optimum usage out of Twitter.

However, most influential for me is Sharon’s concept of “snacking.” Social media and our multitasking, technology-driven culture embodies a condition Sharon aptly calls “relationship snacking.” (Another woman I admire used the phrase “treating others like fast food.”) And this is possible not only with an uncountable number of Facebook friends or Twitter connections but in every day encounters among family and analog friends. Not giving the time of day and not being equal to the relationship, I see this for myself so often. Sharon acknowledges her own difficulties, neglecting friendships over time and feeling resentful when others multitask in her presence. That’s why her Twitter usage is so striking, inviting others into conversation, sustaining the interchange and showing genuine concern.

I’m also drawn to Sharon’s words on information snacking: “We skim and get the general idea of information rather than absorbing and understanding it.” I’m especially guilty of this activity. Sharon suggests filtering, taking the time to understand what’s relevant to us, and “take action.” It reminds me a quote from Hesse, “only the thinking we act on has any value,” and the distinction between information and knowledge explained to me by a teacher “knowledge is what you have after all the notebooks have been burned.”

Sharon has two intriguing books scheduled for publication in 2012, My Paradigm Shift, which is about her own personal growth, and another highlighting others' success stories, Don't Tell Me I Can't.

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Ten years after

It was quite a time for me even before the planes hit. In the middle of June my then wife told me she was a lesbian. Even though I was able to get help from a minister and my therapist, I kept it entirely within myself to protect her privacy. As such I really didn't get the help or advice I needed. I was floundering, looking for answers that weren't there, instead of planning how to take care of myself and our children, who were then 7 and 4. Later, after the planes hit, my therapist remarked that my wife and I were like terrorists, carrying around this information that would have such an impact, like bombs we were going to detonate.

The news should not have come as a surprise to me. In our bedroom, a few days before, I noticed in the closet a book with the subtitle "coming out later in life." The following Friday night, after our friends departed and the kids had gone to bed, she said "I have to talk to you," and fear quickened me. She said something to the effect of I love you, you're a wonderful husband and father, and I gasped and I felt my heart racing and as if it was rising into my throat. "I think I'm a lesbian," she said. The upshot of it was while she and my daughter went away for several days it was up to me to think of what I wanted to do. I had been fearful that she was leaving right then or asking me to leave. Anything but immediate action, that's what disturbed me most. It didn't occur to me to ask, why is this my problem? The prospect of making any decision overwhelmed me, but wasn't it more fear that was driving me, dread at the prospect of insecurity, thinking I couldn't afford divorce or imaging how a breakup could be facilitated. We had just bought a house with another couple who lived upstairs. Not too many months before, with a job, housing payments, child care, I thought to myself, I'm so leveraged I couldn't even kill myself. Now it seemed even more complicated.

In the ensuing summer days I went to work, took my to son to daycare, picked him up, rode home with him on the bus, drove around, had incomplete conversations with acquaintances and strangers, wondered about my own sexuality ( the Ox-Cart Man or the man on the Goodwill box seemed to have benign smiles and I flirted with a guy in the supermarket,) but for the most part did nothing. "Is it weird having me around," I asked my wife. "It's weird having me around," she answered. Early in August she asked me to sleep on the couch and so every night I would and try to wake up before the kids so I could fold up the convertible, but my daughter caught me at it, and she was not fooled.

Gradually I told my immediate family, my brother when he came to visit from France. He questioned why my wife was adopting such a rigid definition of her sexuality. Telling my parents, however, is one of the most painful memories I have. Looking back, I made the mistake of trying to smooth things over rather than letting them, especially my father, feel their grief. Perhaps because I have so much trouble sitting with my own discomfort.

Later in the month, I learned that the research institution I worked for was going to be absorbed by a large university, with an uncertain future for all. No one would say anything. There was a vague notice from the president in each person's mailbox. A group of professors from the university would visit on September 11 to visit the labs and evaluate the scientists, and your librarian was the last on the docket.

We had an ice cream party with our neighbors at our house. They invited all their friends, I didn't invite anyone. There was pretense, but I had been keeping it up all summer, what was another afternoon as the sun shone and the peaches ripened. September came and school started, bright cool sunny days. On a certain Tuesday I dropped my son off at day care as usual, and headed in to work. Soon a woman who worked with me told me a plane had hit the World Trade Center, and I thought it was maybe pilot error. Not long after that she came back to tell me that another plane crashed and that these were acts of terrorism. I tried to find information from CNN or some other web site but nothing would load on my computer. I had a half-assed radio and turned to any station I could find and heard Peter Jennings talking to some official about what had happened and how it represented a failure of intelligence. Later a television was placed in the lunchroom as we ate our customary Tuesday lunch, with our guests from the university. Someone's flight had been cancelled. My colleague who brought me the news was concerned about her brother, a New York City policeman. An older scientist was desperately trying to reach his son who lived in New York, whereabouts unknown. Our guests from the university sat at different tables, I remember one nervously looking around at the television. The show went on, however, and it wasn't until around six that the trio came to the library and I talked to them but I imagine they had their fill by then. Eventually I made it home to see my father dropping off my daughter. He remarked on the similarities with Pearl Harbor, which he would remember, and his last words as he walked off were "sad day."

Ironically, the day before had been our thirteenth wedding anniversary. I bought my wife roses. I don't know why. Maybe I wasn't able to let go. Several weeks later I moved out, renting a couple of rooms from a taxi driver not too far from my house. The first night I slept there I felt a sense of peace and relief. Much of my subsequent activity was driven by fear and avoidance, nevertheless.

(And Sarah (who is also called Chris, not the result of a Road to Damascus experience to my knowledge,) was not finished. Another story for another day.)

So the marriage ending, the turmoil around work, and the trauma of the national situation I think of as a triple whammy. Personal trauma, institutional trauma, and then, above and beyond, national trauma.

Eerie days followed. Sadness. People more distant. Trash cans removed from the streets and subways. Flags flying, whipping from cars and trucks driving past. Groups of people, especially kids holding candles at night. The troubling sight of the photos of the suspected hijackers, one by one, in the newspaper. Events in subsequent years I do not remember so well, but those days I recall vividly.

And today, a clear blue sky like that Tuesday ten years ago, occasional hum of helicopters and sudden roar of fighter jets, I try to exercise a little imagination and think of what this day is for others in the world, particularly those who lost someone, a parent, a child, a friend, and waking up every subsequent day with loss and grief that doesn't go away.

I recommend Pema Teeter's moving ongoing story series reflecting on the month of days leading up to September 11, 2001.

Questions of Travel

Today's #Trust30 prompt from Chris Guillebeau is about travel. Where would I go and what would I do to get there?

I'm not much of a traveller. Throughout my life I've experienced free floating anxiety whenever the prospect of going anywhere is on the horizon. "Airport stomach," my first wife and I used to call it, and she claimed she never had it until she met me. I suspect because I made a lifetime of putting things off for tomorrow, a travel date represented the most anxiety-provoking thing for me, namely, right now, today, I have to do the thing that was planned, not just put it off for the future.

I've relaxed a little since then, feeling life's hold a little more loosely. Just starting a new job I don't feel I can take time off in the future. I have traveled little. My favorite city is Paris. I love the historic buildings, the art, the gardens, the Seine. However, I would like to visit Strasbourg, where my brother has lived for years. He has a new family and a baby on the way. Many times in the past he has asked me to come visit him in France. We connected twice in Paris (on each of my visits with former wife and current wife,) but I've never seen his French city on the Rhine where evidently the streets still have German names.

And this not visiting my brother, saving money, making arrangements, making a commitment, is part of a larger picture, hiding from my brother, hiding from fear of being judged unworthy by him and feeling the lash of his criticism. We've both grown and I've relaxed over many years and we see each other differently. He has never not been supportive. Whereas I would be influenced by his opinion, I can follow my own influences, and we can disagree and I can not take it personally and assume I'm wrong or that even being wrong is the question. So engaging with this man to whom I am closest genetically and biologically and yet there is such a gulf between us, not just geographically, carries meaning for me to make this a priority with time and money. And it would be great to take the kiddos, though I am not sure how David will react to the French, he's probably watched too much South Park.

Responses to Self-Care, Mindfulness and Social Media chat 3/7/11

I thoroughly enjoyed the web chat on social media featuring Jennifer Louden , Tara Sophia Mohr, Marianne Elliott, and Bridget Pilloud. Tara Gentile moderated.

Some of the themes which especially resonated with me were:

A mindful approach to what I post and share:

- Jen said that she considers, before posting material, “what’s the conversation” “what’s the context” “who am I” “what do I represent,” all pointing towards “mindfully sharing.” I take this to mean posting, sharing something that will contribute to a discussion, that will pointto a useful resource, something given toward serving someone else. She also creates an intention and sets a timer before she engages with social media, and while using it she pays attention to what is going on with her (emotional, mental, physical states,) adjusts accordingly and aims to “share strength and upbeatness,” rather than the contrary.

- Bridget described her mindful approach saying if she is feeling “equally excited and scared when” putting “something out there,” that is when she feels most real, that she describes as authenticity.

- Marianne spoke of “getting grounded before I start” and referred to “limitless qualities of social media,” and that “the body and mind are not accustomed to entering into such a place.” Her techniques include “drop into my body” “relax and release” “bring awareness into my body” (feeling her body being present, her breath and her body sitting and whatever is holding her up) (she also mentioned her Zenpeacekeeper’s guide to Twitter, sounds cool.)

- Tara brought forth insights about the addictive qualities of social media, likening these sites to computer games, noting they deliver similar rewards and feedback and affect dopamine levels. While Twitter and Facebook may not be designed for addiction, they are certainly meant to be engaging, she pointed out, and it is up to us “to be conscious of how we respond” to these networks and “manage” our responses. She also described her approach to posting material "consistent with compassionate and wisdom," and remarked "less is more" and about the importance of "white space."

A lot of the discussion also centered around engaging with others on social media. Here, Tara said, it is necessary to ask oneself “why am I going to social media,” and if one is “looking for validation and reassurance… Twitter may not be the best place to find it.” (In which case, better to pick up the phone or go visit someone or go where people are. Although in the café or the library people will likely be engaged in social media.) Bridget said it is OK to "think of social media like your house," and consider who you want to invite in and not. Jen urged us to ask ourselves the question "why do you want to talk to someone," and to "create our own fishbowl," connect and share with others with like interests who support our efforts.

I admit to being sucked into Twitter and Google Reader and I want to read everyone's tweets and blogs, and obviously it's not possible. And I have to have a certain degree of acceptance with that, and also accept that people are busy. And I was reminded during the talk, maybe by Bridget, there has be a certain give and take. What do I offer someone on social media? How can I support this person? Why would she/he care?

And applying the awareness and the patience and the mindfulness and the presence and the enjoyment and the gratitude that I apply at other moments in my life will go a long way. If I can step back from the computer. If I can know when to post and when to keep silent. If I can "do the work," as Tara says, actually produce something. And just breathe. And have an intention. And be here now.

A great discussion by wonderful, thoughtful, energetic, positive women who each have a powerful presence in Twitter and the blogosphere. Thanks to all for making this happen.