By Gabrielle Bernstein on January 6, 2012
Do you refresh Facebook fifteen times an hour to track the likes on your status? It’s likely the answer is yes. In some way or another, many of us have become slightly (or not so slightly) obsessed with the social media feedback loop. While it may seem like a sign of the times, it’s actually just another way we reinforce a desperate need to feel good enough. Social media has offered us a new way to anesthetize a deep-rooted feeling of lack: The more likes we get, the better we feel.
But what happens when the “like” button isn’t pushed or the retweets just don’t happen? Then what? A social media meltdown, maybe? Do you experience an unconscious sense of self-lack, uncertainty about your last post or, worst of all, do you spend the next hour refreshing your page for some semblance of positive reinforcement?
If this resonates with you, trust that you’re not alone. Remember that last scene of “The Social Network”? Even Mark Zuckerberg refreshes his page for feedback.
I too have struggled with the social media feedback loop. Early in my career as an author, speaker and dot-com entrepreneur, it became super clear to me that social media was the most powerful way to carry my message to the masses. I worked up an unhealthy obsession with it: My boyfriend would ban me from posting during dinner, and my mom could only get in touch by tweeting at me. At the time, I didn’t perceive it as an issue. Thousands of folks were liking my fan page and retweeting my posts — it was heaven for my ego.
Then, one afternoon, I noticed myself wasting an hour watching my Twitter feed and Facebook fan page for positive feedback. As a self-help book author and Spirit Junkie, I found this behavior quite alarming. I turned away from the screen and said out loud, “Uh-oh, I’m addicted to social media feedback.”
Rather than beat myself up or deny the reality of my obsession I chose to work toward creating a more balanced relationship with my online status. I’m a big fan of 30-day plans, so I put myself on a social media detox. No, I didn’t shut down my Twitter page or deny my fans. I did quite the opposite. I continued to post as frequently as before, but I made a 30-day commitment to ignore the retweets and seriously lay off the likes. I dedicated a half hour a day to respond to my fans and monitored my Twitter correspondence.
Remember, the issue was not social media. In fact, I love social media and am endlessly grateful for the service it provides. This was an issue of self-esteem and a deep-rooted need to feed my ego through other people’s positive reinforcement. The hours I spent seeking feedback from my fans were hours wasted on a false belief that some number of comments or retweets would make me feel any better than I already did. But when I backed off from this positive feedback loop, I cleared space for self-love and self-soothing. For a month, I meditated and affirmed my sense of self-worth instead of frantically checking my notifications. I deepened my connection to my own inner spirit by putting the kibosh on my social media feedback obsession.
This 30-day practice did me good. A month of daily repetition broke me of the obsessive pattern and enhanced my sense of self-worth. When I no longer cared about responses, I could spend more time focusing on sharing what I honestly felt rather than what I thought might get the most retweets. Ironically, this practice increased my social graph. Without even trying, I grew my fan page by 1,500 members in 30 days and got more impressions on Twitter than I’d ever had before.
Once I placed my social media strategy on sharing great content rather than wowing my audience, I shifted the energy behind my correspondence with my fans. When I was looking for feedback, the energy behind my tweets and posts was needy and manipulative. But when I started tweeting for Twitter’s sake, the energy was clear and released. Energy is in everything — even in your Twitter feed.
If you too are a social media feedback junkie, consider my 30-day practice. Get honest about your behavior, commit to lay off the “refresh” button, and clear space to share honest content rather than some canned comment that you think might get a ton of activity. Enhance your self-worth from the inside out and shine light on the Twittersphere.
For more information on how to optimize your life, visit: gabbyb.tv
Photo credit: Lee Hopkins
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By Gabrielle Bernstein on April 13, 2010
A topic at the forefront of my mind has been the unfortunate fact that women still earn 20% less than men.[1] I am totally pissed off thinking of my hardworking female contemporaries under-earning. My immediate reaction is to blame men, society, and government for putting us women in this situation. But the self-help junkie in me knows better. Rather than blame others for my discomfort, I chose to turn inward. I asked myself, “Why do these statistics make me so angry?” And after calming down, I realized why; my inner voice (aka “~ing”) responded, “You’re angry because you too are under-earning.” Wow! My ~ing was right on the money. It’s not that others are undervaluing me, it’s that I am undervaluing myself. My anger was the result of not knowing my own worth.
This revelation caught me off guard. For nearly a decade I’d perceived myself as a kick-ass businesswoman. I’ve been an entrepreneur since the age of 21. I’ve started several businesses, closed tons of deals, managed my books, paid my taxes—you name it. With this kind of track record, what gives? Why am I still undervaluing my worth?
I turned to the expert, my dear friend Amanda Steinberg, founder of DailyWorth.com (a personal finance email for women), to help me understand this female issue. According to Amanda, “Women still make 20% less than men because we don’t understand our real market value. We often approach jobs and contracts with fear and insecurity, hoping ‘they’ll want us,’ and not thinking about the established market value of what we bring to the table.” She continued, “It’s more common for a female job candidate to ask what the job pays, rather than walking in the door clear about her own bottom line.”
Recognizing this is the first step to realizing earning parity; the next move is to take action toward significant change. My personal energetic change around money could benefit all women and myself. By shifting my own thoughts and energy around earning, I could become a powerful example for women throughout the world. So, I committed to taking the necessary steps towards earning more and loving it.
Step 1: Be willing to feel uncomfortable.
The first step toward know~ing my worth was the willingness to feel uncomfortable. Most change can cause growing pains. To move through them, you must be willing to feel whatever comes up. In my case, even the topics of negotiating or raising my rates or spending less made me feel nauseous. I found that as I entered into these conversations, I’d defend my old patterns in efforts to stay safe. But playing small was no longer an option. I braved through the discomfort and committed to change by welcoming everything that came along with it—the good, the bad, and the ugly. I shifted my inner dialogue from, “That doesn’t feel good. Run!” to “Bring it on!”
Step 2: Practice!
With the willingness to feel discomfort, I transitioned to the second step towards know~ing my worth: practic~ing. The only way to transform my old patterns was to create new ones. I went into practice mode. Regardless of how uncomfortable I felt, I practiced negotiating every chance I got (even if I didn’t want what I was negotiating for). I negotiated in areas ranging from retail purchases to sponsorship deals. Each time I practiced this new behavior, I felt more worthy. Ironically, I enjoyed my practice period. This step helped me transform my fear around negotiating as I settled into a new perception of my worth.
Though things had improved, I still noticed something funky come up during my practice period. Each time I’d ask for what I wanted, I felt as though I needed to apologize for what I’d asked for by over-talking and justifying my requests. Though it was totally cool that I’d acquired the chutzpah to ask, I was still unable to close. Each time, I’d over-talk my negotiations and sabotage the deal.
Step 3: Visualize clos~ing the deal.
This brings me to the final step to know~ing my worth: clos~ing the deal. This step is all about revving up your belief system. When you believe you’re worthy, others believe you’re worthy. Therefore, I tapped into my visualization mediation practice. I’d sit in a 10-minute meditation and imagine myself signing the contract on a massive sponsorship deal. Then, I’d see myself cashing the check. Most importantly, I’d hold the vision long enough to feel worthy. The key to believing is feeling. By holding powerful visions through meditation, I was able to guide myself into a true feeling of worthiness.
With this new belief system intact, I was ready to close the deal. Now that I walked the walk, I had to learn to stop talking the talk. At closing time, I cashed in for some male advice from my boyfriend, who happens to be a killer negotiator. He said, “When you’re finished asking for what you want, shut up.” Man, is that right! In order to truly own your worth and close a deal, you must learn to be silent. There is no need for extra talk, backpedaling, or further explanation when you know your worth.
I continue to practice these tools daily and have experienced miraculous results. I’ll negotiate with anyone, visualize, and ask for more any chance I get; all for the sake of truly know~ing my worth.
You too can know your worth with guidance from Gabrielle’s book Add More ~ing To Your Life – A Hip Guide to Happiness.
[1] Gender inequality: Women still earn 20% less than men. (2010, March 8). Left Foot Forward. Retrieved March 31, 2010 from http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/03/gender-inequality-women-still-earn-20-less-than-men/
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By Guest Blogger on March 19, 2010
By Virginia
I soap my hands up with cleanser and hover over Stephanie’s face. “Go on, get in there!” says our teacher, Miss Jenny. “You won’t hurt her.”
I press on Stephanie’s shoulders and start stroking up her neck and over her chin and cheeks. That shoulder move is key; we learned that if you touch your client’s face right off the bat, they’ll jump out of the bed. Next I start circling into the folds around Stephanie’s nose and all around her forehead until she’s covered in a thin layer of foam.
After spending four weeks with Stephanie as classmates at Beauty U, I know an assortment of random facts: She has a one-year-old nephew. She curses her oily skin. She just had two dates with a new guy, but there was no spark.
But suddenly, she stops being Stephanie (aunt, skin-obsesser, dater of spark-less dudes) and becomes just a face — an upside down series of planes and curves that I need to cover in cleanser and wipe clean with a cotton pad. It’s like when you say a word too many times in a row and suddenly can’t remember what it means.
Per Miss Jenny’s instructions, I repeat the cleansing and apply toner. When I finish, she opens her eyes and is Stephanie again. We laugh.
“Remember, we’re promoting relaxation,” says Miss Jenny. That means you want your client to totally unwind and let their guard down. But if Stephanie and I were training for any other profession, I wouldn’t have much reason to scrub the underside of her nose. And I’m learning that it’s a weird feeling to be responsible for someone else’s relaxation when you’re feeling anything but that yourself.
By the way, I know you didn’t ask, but here it is: I have a college degree. And I’ve spent the last six years as a pretty successful freelance writer. I’m telling you that because it tends to confuse people when I explain that I’m in a ten-month night school program at my local beauty school, training to become a certified esthetician. When you say “beauty school,” everyone thinks of that song in Grease and associates beauty school with something that high school “bad girls” like Rizzo and Frenchie do because they aren’t smart enough or rich enough to go to college.
Everyone is not completely wrong. A lot of my Beauty U classmates didn’t go to college and currently work service industry jobs (waitress, daycare worker, home healthcare aide). They’re hoping an esthetics or cosmetology license will be their way out and up. In the current recession, there are also a fair amount of women who are out of work or looking to bring in extra income. (By the way, Stephanie is a guidance counselor.)
I’m not a career changer, though. Like most women, especially, upper-middle class 20-something women, I’m a beauty consumer. I’m enrolled at Beauty U because I want to know exactly what I’m buying when I shell out for a facial, a haircut, or a tube of lip gloss.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, American consumers spent almost $85 billion on beauty products and services in 2008. That’s an awful lot of eye shadow and manicures. I didn’t keep receipts, but I’m guessing I chipped in at least $1,200 of that—between three or four haircuts ($120 a pop, plus products), five or six mani-pedis ($40 each, plus tip), an occasional bikini wax ($50, plus tip), and a whole mess of goodies from Sephora, Whole Foods’ Whole Body section, and my local CVS. Depending on your own personal beauty routine, I either sound high maintenance ($120 for a haircut? It’s New York City), like a slob (only two bikini waxes a year!? Sorry, they hurt like hell), or average, which is how I like to think of myself. And as a just-about-average beauty industry consumer, it made me sad to learn that while we’ve been dropping all that cash, the average salon worker earns just $8 to $15 per hour…including tips.
No, they are not sweatshop wages, and yes, there are super fancy stylists earning much more. But even high-end estheticians earn an average of $15 per hour, 40 hours per week, 52 weeks a year, which is only $31,200. Before taxes. And these are jobs that don’t offer much in the way of health insurance, retirement plans, or paid vacations.
Plus, that doesn’t take into account the human costs. Like, what happens when the cleanser I lathered all over Stephanie isn’t subjected to pre-market safety testing? Just ask Blog Posse member Stacy Malkan: Since the FDA doesn’t require beauty products to disclose all of their ingredients or prove they’re safe, most end up containing gender-bending chemicals, and carcinogens , which salon staff absorb for hours, days, and years at a time. Consumers absorb a steady stream in smaller doses; I apply at least nine products before I leave the house every day.
But what about the other hidden human costs? How does a 13-year-old feel when her mom brings her in for a bikini wax? For that matter, how do any of us feel about ever-more-constricting beauty standards that demand perfection from our every (hairless, invisible) pore? The beauty industry has successfully blurred the line between indulgence and necessity so that treatments that were once viewed as luxuries—manicures, facials, bikini waxes—are now viewed as essential. And while our self-esteem takes a hit, I’d argue that this quest for perfection degrades salon workers too. These are the people we pay to get up close and personal with the parts of our bodies that we hate the most. No wonder most of us prefer not to make eye contact.
Once I started thinking about all the ways women pay for beauty—with our wallets, self-worth, and health—I kind of couldn’t stop. I don’t think we should have to give up on our favorite beauty indulgences. Honest! I just called to confirm yet another $120 hair appointment. But I decided to go to beauty school and spend 600 hours learning to excavate pores, apply makeup, and wax bikini lines in order to get a better understanding of what we’re all really paying. Check out beautyschooledproject.com to see what I’ve uncovered so far.
Virginia is a writer by day, beauty school student by night. She owns 14 tubes of pink lip gloss and hates to brush her hair. You can visit her at her blog .
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