E012 - Boost Your Voice Online - Unblock Your Throat Chakra

Hello dear friend. 

It’s great to be sharing with you again and in this episode we're going to investigate how a blocked Throat Chakra affects you in the online world, or how it could prevent you from having an effective and fun online presence. 

Watch the video or read the transcript below: 

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We're going to be investigating exactly what happens when you go online, let’s say… intending to communicate with people or advertise your business or just to express yourself and have fun but your throat chakra might block you from being your most empowered self. Simply put, it might shut you down. 

So, yeah, thank you very much for watching this. Hopefully you'll get a lot from it. Before we go any further, if you're into this kind of content please subscribe to the channel. You know I keep saying this in my videos and some of you lovelies keep ignoring me. Now I know you're watching this right now – I'm talking to you actually, not to somebody else who's standing behind you. You. 

So – Would YOU mind subscribing? And even better - would YOU mind commenting to let me know how your online voice is? Pause the video and go for it.

There’s a reason for my insistence here. If you want to overcome a resistance or a block to your online presence, you’re going to have to overcome your habit of being a passive consumer, scrolling through Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. So if you wanna level up - pause, comment, and resume. (long pause…)

Great. Let's move on. Okay, so, I think one of the very first steps that is useful when looking at our online presence is to UNDERSTAND OUR WHY. Because I think that, if at a deep level, we don't want to do it, it’s reeaaally good to look at that and at least honour the parts of us that think this whole social media malarkey is actually awful. If you have that belief, it’s going to play havoc with your ability to be online.

If every time you go to post, a part of you is saying “I hate myself when I do this and I actually hate social media”, then good luck with being consistent! If that's the underlying feeling there’s gonna be quite a large saboteur element alongside your efforts to express yourself online. 

It’s worth considering a mindset shift for this. * This is how it is * This is how humans interact right now * I accept and work with what is * Most importantly, if you're going to do stuff online – DO NOT  MAKE IT ABOUT YOURSELF. When we make it about me and whether I've posted, whether they liked what I did, and whether they approved of what I did, and “Eek what do they think of me” – it becomes an incredibly selfish act and actually very painful. 

And the moment you switch it around, and make it about sharing, opening up, being of service and contributing to the common good - it gets way easier. It’s simply not about me. 

It certainly helps if you feel like you've got a bit of a purpose and you want to contribute. SO the question is, WHY do you want to be online? Defining that helps. 

Then, if a few people don’t like the way you're expressing yourself, perfect, it’s good to weed them out and help them unfollow you so you can get on with following your purpose and your reason for being here. For example, part of my purpose for being here is to serve and help people. It’s that simple. And to do what I love. 

So yes it does take a bit of courage but we hold true to what we’re here for. 

Next I want to talk to you about imposter syndrome. I think this is a pretty famous notion and for good reason because we all suffer from it. And it's a huge thing in the coaching and consciousness and social media world and gets discussed a lot.

What is it? The notion that everyone feels like an imposter a lot (in life and in work) Like you don’t really know what you're doing a lot of the time and you’re making it up and you’re frightened of being caught out. 

And the truth is, all of us doing things for the first time are making it up as we go along, ask any president who has to look confident when they arrive in office. But the truth is, they are clueless when they get there and are pretending a lot!

And if you're going to get good at being online, you’ll just have to work through that. In other words move through it, forgiving yourself for having NOT A CLUE. 

Because that's the thing about famous musicians’ and artists’ experience, is that all the way along they mostly don’t have a clue, and they are all just making it up as they go along. And if they just happen to succeed, it’s often just by lucky accident (and perseverence!) but with a lot of pretending and looking vaguely confident and making a lot of mistakes. And modern social media asks for authenticity, so it’s now even fashionable to let people into your vulnerability and humanity. What a gift!

So to develop an online presence we push through the imposter syndrome, push through not knowing, and make a lot of mistakes in the public eye. Are you ready to make mistakes and be authentic and be human? 

So, the next obstacle – perfectionism. Give me an amen if you’re a recovering perfectionist! This is a big one. Hand on my heart I am absolutely a recovering perfectionist, and I've got miles to go on it. To define it in this context, it’s the need to have a manicured and perfect public image, or for all of one's work to be perfect, before it gets seen by anyone else. 

Of course this is the death of creativity and spontaneity, it's the death of dancing like no one cares. It's also the death of singing and speaking, because if we're going to do this thing online, then we need to be prepared to turn on the camera and be imperfect all the time and let people see our imperfections. 

So - how do we heal this? The good thing about this is you can train through it at the behavioral level. In other words – the more you JUST DO IT - practice being imperfect, embracing and laughing at your humanness, the easier it gets. And consistent pitching up is required here.

So if we relax our perfectionism, keep trying and pushing through, and make it NOT ABOUT ME, it gets easier. And we let our ugly-beautiful real self appear online, to be of service and to playfully explore this medium.

But as we do this some leviathans from the deep may arise - one of them is the feeling of shame. In other words, feeling judged, less than, not good enough in the eyes of others. Shame is defined as an unpleasant self-conscious emotion typically associated with a negative evaluation of the self, withdrawal motivations, and feelings of distress, exposure, mistrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness. Whew, a lot of feelings may arise, even at a subtle level, and I’d urge you to really feel what happens when you post. 

As someone who works with trauma, it's interesting to observe people (including myself) who shy away from social media, and very frequently shame can be at play here, resulting from trauma and early developmental wounding.  And with that may come a low level unconscious terror of being judged or condemned by THEM. The people out there. In other words if I make strong statements online, I will be judged, hung, drawn and quartered, or burned at the stake. This stuff can be lurking in our ancestral DNA, or past lives, whatever your belief system. Modern science shows that trauma can be passed down through multiple generations via our DNA.

So there can be a radical kind of shut down in the throat chakra, and it might relate to shame, or subtle or gross abuses in household environments, or sexual shaming, all of these will shut down the throat chakra and therefore an online presence... just like that!

So, just go gently my friends, go gently. 

And so we need to nurture and hold ourselves as we put our fledgling posts out and just be really cautious and safe within ourselves and look after ourselves as we do it. I have infinite respect and love and care for all the traumatized, shamed and anxious beings out there. We’re gonna be OK. Let’s take a deep, conscious, loving breath.

Okay, next. ANXIETY. So anxiety is also a huge one, alongside vulnerability. So if we are suffering from anxiety in some shape or form then putting our stuff out online can be anxiety provoking. Especially if we have social anxiety of some kind. Social anxiety does not make a social presence easy but it is healable and there are great tools for managing it. 

And with all of this, in my experience and I'm not a social media maven by any means, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. So actually the ugly part is at the beginning because for a very long time and I include my work in this, no one gives a shit and for the most part they ignore you. 

And because actually they're just interested in what's in it for them, and generally as one is developing confidence we tend to drop constipated little posts, and it takes a while to develop mastery and flow in this, of course – you have to be prepared to go through the ugly phase that involves no approval and little reward. And if you're anxious and vulnerable, you're going to have to just tough it out through the initial months and years of developing the skill set and finding your voice online. Can I repeat that again AND FINDING YOUR VOICE ONLINE. 

And the gift is that even here we have to face the dysregulation in our social engagement system, which is what you'd experience in a crowd of people. So the gift is that you can heal in this environment! Going online can be a healing process if you do it consciously.

When you open up Instagram it’s highly unlikely that anyone is gonna attack you – and you are actually very safe, even though your nervous system might be saying otherwise. And as you post more you can prove to yourself that very seldom will you be shamed and never outcast. And all of the fears and feelings that arise can be met and worked with - and in many cases, released. In other words, with your social anxiety, you can work with a clinician or healer or self-medicate with TRE®, tapping, breath, meditation, and so on... and all of this will help to make the online world safer and more fun to play in.

(Breath)

So what do we do today when we're suffering from Throat Chakra blocks that prevent us from being online? Well, there are a lot of resources available for free online, and the techniques I mentioned before for releasing some of the social anxiety, shame and general anxiety triggers that you've got. 

At the most basic level, one mindset shift is to stop looking for approval when you post. Because you just won't get it. Do it as part of following  your purpose, or because you want to FOR YOU, and perhaps for those that you want to serve and help. Don't do it for your needy self because that’s a recipe for not getting your needs met.

And so, explore it playfully. not expecting anyone to play with you but just try stuff and try not to give a damn. 

Doing it and failing is completely part of the recipe too. So if you can embrace a mindset of playfulness, embracing failure and looking like a fool - that can help. Because there's no pride to be had in this, and it's not going to prop up our egos. In fact, it'll probably do the opposite.

Now - consistency: as the cliché goes, success online is only a question of whether you have the courage and follow through and be consistent. That will be the measure of whether you will succeed. Don’t give up. And also to try and keep going through the fearful and discouraging moments.

Let’s talk perfectionism: (breathe) letting go of perfectionism is an incredible lesson that going online offers. The invitation is to be more real, raw, just as you are and learn to be authentic. So, to pitch up as your real self – your real, imperfect self and let the world see that. 

And now - to turn full circle, JUST ALIGN TO YOUR WHY. Take a deep breath, remember why you are doing this and for whom, and post for that reason.

And that's all that I have to say today, and thank you for being with me. I hope you enjoyed this. Yeah. Much love. 

And if you want more resources on this subject, please click on some of the other videos on either side of me. They're about unblocking your throat chakra from every angle known to humanity. And if this area is your block in life, I've got you covered. Please subscribe and let me know if you enjoyed this by commenting below.