A Chat About Vulnerability, Courage, Perception, and Showing Up Anyway.

The streets we drive down provide the perfect mix of people and anonymity to foster hideous ‘road rage’. We hear regular accounts of carnage and mayhem. A shooting. An assault. An anger outburst, between two strangers. Offense at human error or perceived stupidity that ends in disaster. And road rage is an ‘easy out’ for the angry and damaged. It’s so much easier to swear and curse at a veritable stranger, than to express our true sentiment to unfair friends, family and universes. 

Similarly, much like rush hour traffic, social media is well positioned to offer a certain type of person the ideal forum to work out their pent-up frustration, anger, disappointment and shame. It’s a breeding ground for bullying, bashing and hurt infliction, largely without consequence. Because, not only are we in different ‘vehicles’ to each other. But we also exist in such different realms that, in some instances, we may as well not exist at all.

Whenever I post, I am often reminded of Brene Brown’s injunction “NOT TO READ THE COMMENTS”. But boy! I’ve been given a run for my money this past week, and it’s been ROUGH! 

I’ve had an online platform – “THE SHRINK ON YOUR COUCH” – in earnest, for about 18 months now. I am a psychologist with a very busy private practice, and 15 years of uninterrupted service in that practice.  I spend 35-55 hours per week consulting with adults and couples in my physical office, and I am in the fortunate and rare position of truly loving my work. I am generally well-regarded, and the lion’s share of my referrals are by word of mouth. I say this not to appear arrogant, but to indicate that I am not an opportunist or a bottom feeder. 

I am a credible and experienced professional with a contribution to make. Who has, in recent years, stepped up to make that contribution more broadly than in the confines of my consulting room.

I love to write. I produce blogs and articles inspired by themes and issues that I find to be recurrent in my own practice. My vision is to encourage people who are not necessarily in therapy to reflect on their lives and circumstances, and to benefit from the perspective of a psychotherapist without needing to leave their home. I publish short videos on my Facebook pages, and also create really special online courses which people who wish to engage with my content more intensively are able to purchase. 95% of my content is provided at absolutely no cost to my readers, and it is trulymy joy to serve in this way. An expensive joy, I’ll have you know! Much to the surprise of the uninitiated, an online forum is infinitely more expensive to run than a physical practice ever would be. But I honestly find it at least as gratifying to receive word that I have inspired or assisted someone with a life challenge, as I do to receive a ‘ping’ on my phone notifying me that someone has purchased a program. 

With all of this context laid, I must tell you that I am war-weary this week… I’ve been through the cyber ringer and found that I am notbulletproof. I fully subscribe to the view that your words, actions and perceptions are wholly about you, as mine are about me… Something about me or my presentation may remind you, consciously or unconsciously, about something or someone pleasant or unpleasant that you have experienced. But if you and I are not intimately acquainted, and I evoke strong emotion in you, it really is your stuff. Because it can’t be about me. You don’t know me from Adam.

But this conviction has not fully steeled me against some of the brutality in the online space.  Just this week, I have been called “greedy, fake and sad” for charging for my services… Two people lambasted me last week for the audacity of using my qualifications and experience to make money (I kid you not).  I’ve been using my experience and qualifications to make money since I graduated, as I’m sure you have too!

And then, just this morning, I awoke to a frenzy of activity on one of the Facebook pages I own. Yesterday, I had responded to a lady who had reached out to the members of a different group that I am part of, sharing a particular kind of pain, and specifically asking, in as many words, for inspiration. She requested links to any articles, groups or accounts that might benefit her. I invited her to join my group, directly aligned to her struggle, and popped a few links to relevant (free!) content that I have prepared. 

Well blow me down with a feather if the owner of that group didn’t decide to attack and lambaste me for being quote “dirty and shady”, unquote, for doing so! (And please note: this particular gentleman joined my group several months ago under false pretenses, with the express intention of bombing his content out there and attracting followers. I didn’t mind, because I’m not in any way inclined to care. But I HAD read this lady’s concern and attempted to meet her right at her point of need). 

But this, I’m told, is “dirty” and “shady”. 

I realise what this man’s assumption was: He thought it problematic for me to post in the comments, rather than to just dump my information on the group “wall”. He was obviously laboring under the misapprehension that this was my attempt to be covert and ‘under the radar’ of his watchful eye. This is ridiculous, but it’s his perception of my behaviour, and I have no control over that.

The truth was that he hadn’t read or understood what the lady was asking for. If he had, he would surely have understood the thread. I think he made some reference to my using ‘clickbait’, which really is a foreign concept to me. I don’t bait anyone to click anything! Everything I do online is to attract my tribe and repel those notmy tribe… I want to work with people who relate to me and what I produce.

My vision and objective with THE SHRINK ON YOUR COUCH is to create really useful, practical, meaningful content, and to provide this to people who want it. Simple as that. I don’t believe I impose anything on people undesiring of it. There is a wealth of content to access at no cost, and people follow, engage and subscribe, or don’t. Simple as that. Their enjoyment and inspiration is my reward. And then there are professional service programs for people who are interested to invest at a greater level. 

Greedy.

Fake.

Dirty.

Shady.

Sad for charging for experience and qualification (to which I simply haveto ask – does she not understand the foolishness of such an assertion…?). 

It’s a lot. It’s a lot to sit with when I give 3000% more than I receive. The online business space is, as I’ve said, an expensiveone.  

I’ve gone out on a limb, in many respects, to ‘show up’ in a way that is quite new to me… 

To stretch myself, to learn new skills, and to share my existing skills in a new way. 

And yes, of COURSE to create a new income stream for myself, to diversify the ways in which I acquire revenue, and to be sensible and savvy in terms of how helping professions are evolving their provision of services.

I won’t lie: I’ve been brave. 

I’ve been vulnerable. 

I’ve been stretched.

It’s one thing to work intimately and therapeutically with a person well known to me, on my consulting room couch. To pour myself into his or her world. And to merge our experiences as we create healthier ways of being in that world.

It’s another thing to fling open those consulting room doors and make myself available for public scrutiny and commentary. I recall a series called “DIVORCE” with Sarah Jessica Parker, that I was at some point obsessed with. Sarah’s character is an art gallery owner, and in one episode pursued a young talented artist, desperate for her to debut her magnificent creations. The artist kept declining requests to exhibit her work, and eventually it emerged in an emotive rant that “showing my work is like putting my vagina on display for the whole world to see”. 

That resonated with me. If we take our work seriously and see it as an extension and extrapolation of our very essence, then showcasing it is exceptionally daunting. 

And brave.

And then to be reduced to criticisms such as “fake” and “greedy” is immensely hurtful and potentially damaging. Perhaps because the critic feels limited in their own world… Bitter, perhaps. Lost. Moralistic and obstructive, rather than expansive. 

My aggressor this morning posted his tirade on my group wall. He expected a victim response, or some sort of counter attack. But I responded in my authenticity and integrity, reflecting to him that this was an incredibly insulting thread to wake up to, and that I’d thank him for an apology. That I had been neither shady nor dirty, and that he had obviously not read the lady’s request, or he would have understood how I had honoured it. 

He didn’t respond, but rather deleted all of his smut off my wall. I took this as a tacit acknowledgement of his error and felt it akin to scurrying away with his tale between his legs.

Until I saw that he had also private messaged me the same nonsense. And even more aggressively, asking if this was a “shrink tactic”. I pointed out that he was effectively bullying me, and expressed how unpleasant I was finding the exchange… (I wondered, silently, if he would address me in such a manner were I right before him). His retort to that was that “perhaps the online space is not for you” … 

But no dude. There are bullies everywhere. Online and offline. And we will all encounter them anywhere that we decide to “show up” and present ourselves. I’m partly to blame, because I do take people’s opinions of me so seriously. Too seriously, clearly. I’m still finding my online ‘sea legs’, and I don’t have quite the confidence yet digitally that I do in my practice. But I know that, to the people who are drawn to my stuff, it is gold.

There was no need at all for him to have felt threatened by me. He is a personal-trainer/coach-type. I target compulsive behaviour, on the forum I’m speaking about. He could really just have been kind. 

But his inability to do so rattled me, because I am rattle-able this week. There are times when it would be like water off a duck’s back, and I would, for sure, take it from whence it comes. But today. This week. This month. I’m a little sensitive. Hormones, life events and huge dreams slow to fruition are wearing me down. And that’s then why words like “fake”, “greedy” and “shady” hit mynerves and set meoff, in my ownpersonal experience that I must own.

So why did I write this article?

Because it’s what I do, really. I feel. And then I write to process. And if my processing can help someone else, then we have all benefitted. 

And to shed light on how our buttons are our own. No one is responsible for not pushing their neighbors’ button. Because these are usually unconscious subliminal processes, beyond our control. 

But we are all responsible for kindness. For respect. For humility.

Because, cliched or not, we just never know what the next person is dealing with in their own world, and how your blurt or rant might just be the one that tips them over the edge. 

Bullies abound. And their trademark is always exertion of force to buffer their own insecurity. To usurp someone’s freedom and peace of mind.

The worst type are the ones who don’t at least acknowledge their brutishness. Just pure unadulterated self-righteousness. It’s a dangerous thing. And even more so when they are bolstered by their relative anonymity.

It hurt me today. 

But I return, always, to Marianne Williamson’s wonderful quote, which I will leave you with:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”