ORDER YOUR COPY

TEN

WANNA BE MY FRIEND?

CONNECT OR NOT TO CONNECT?

The modern friendship question – Wanna be my (online) friend? 

I bet you think it is harmless who you follow online – that old high school acquaintance, that funny meme account, or even that sexy model who does nothing all day long except take photos of herself. But you would be kidding yourself and setting yourself up for a setback if you believe this. Our lives are shaped by what we see and what we hear as much as by the people we surround ourselves with. We believe we are responsible for our actions but not our thoughts. Yet our thoughts are shaped daily by the content we consume. Want to change your thoughts? Change the content you take in. Be mindful of what you listen to and what you look at. Read about people you want to be like, follow those who make you want to be a better person, and I promise you, you will slowly but surely morph into them. What have you let go of only to be replaced with something better? Think of all the times in your life that you left a job and got a better one, broke up with somebody and got a better partner, or lost something only for something better to show up in your life. Make a list.

What Does It Really Mean To Connect?

Connection is the thread between us and the people we choose to invest our time into, we are choosing to invest in forming a foundation beyond merely an acquaintance level. This investment is an investment of our self, energy and time.

connect (verb)

To feel close to someone or have a good relationship with them connect with; She has a remarkable ability to connect with a wide variety of people.

Overstanding who you choose to connect with, both on and offline, is not something to be taken lightly. It is important to recognize the value of what you put into people and invest in the right people. Choose to invest in people who not only elevate you but also have the potential to. Those with potential may not be successful yet, but they are going to be you see the habits, you see the mindset, you know they have a winning strategy in life, and that will inspire you. Time to align. Are all the people we are connected to, both online and offline, actually our friends?

What Does The Word Friend  Mean?

Originally?

friend (noun)

A person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.

Modern update?

friend (verb)

To add (someone) to a list of contacts associated with a social networking website.

I am friended by twenty-nine people who I have not friended back.

Old English freond "one attached to another by feelings of personal regard and preference," from PIE *priy-ont-, "loving," present-participle form of root *pri- "to love.

It is to love – a friend is a deep connection of love and overstanding. Distortion of this term in our modern society has taken something from us – it has devalued our friendships, as there is no separation between those we barely know and those we know deeply as the word used to convey.

What Does Acquaintance Mean?

The digital world has expanded our average circle of connection, thus increasing our network of acquaintances far beyond those we would have reached in the physical only world.

acquaintance

A person one knows slightly, but who is not a close friend.

Social Media connections are acquaintances, not friends. This is an important reframe – friendship is much deeper and provides a special love between two people, which is why it is such a rewarding feeling for both involved when you have a best friend. Using the word friend to explain strangers is changing the meaning and will cost us in the long run. In the game we want to be able to distinguish between a friend and acquaintance. Take mental note, who in your circle is truly a friend, and who is an acquaintance?

Is Social Media Deepening Your Connections Or Dissolving Them?

Why are our relationships not fulfilling us the way they used to? Over-connection, which is not a real, deep emotional connection, is causing so much hardship to society. We have been conditioned to chase MORE friends, LARGER follower counts, and greater POPULARARITY. However, this pursuit has proven to be misguiding and damaging us.

Depending on what generation you are from, you may or may not remember what life was like before technology. Or maybe you were late to the game or never really entered the online world – lucky in a way. As someone who is REALLY online, let me tell you it has eroded my relationships. It is almost as if the more we “connect” online the less we are connected overall. Our core need as a human is to be understood, not to be liked. This is why we can feel so empty when we have so many friends. Because we catch up constantly online, we’ve become over-connected, yet we have never been more disconnected from one another.

How Do Friendships Positively Affect Your Energetic Body? 

To truly experience the benefits of friendship and sense of community, you have to connect in person. As you have learned it is in these offline connections that our energetic bodies can blend and merge. This connection cannot be transferred through the screen – it is fragmented by the screen.

I believe our soul knows it is not being understood correctly that it is being fragmented. 

What Is Fragmentation?

How do computers fragment? Computers at the most basic level break down data into fragments.

fragment

A part broken off, detached, or incomplete.

The data is taken apart and then put back together. When is the last time you took something complex apart and then put it back together? Bet it didn't go too well. IKEA, anyone? But this is true through and through. If you were to bake a beautiful cake and then take it apart into pieces, sure, you could put the layers back together in the same fashion, but how is that cake going to look? Nothing complex that is taken apart goes back together EXACTLY how it started. 

Imagine there were energetic replicas of you floating around in the minds of all the people you know – and that each day you show up online with a new fifteen-second glimpse into your life, the cord is strengthened. We know too much about each other and not all of it has context (see Social Media distorts context of being able to fully overstand other people). Offline, we take time to get to know one another. We think about who we allow into our home and who we would share face-to-face interaction with. AND few of us implement the same rules online – do we verify and authorize each follower? It is common practice to have an open social profile now. Who are we connected to? Do we even know? Could we possibly overstand all the connections we have formed across all the digital networks and platforms we show up on? Gone are the days when it was impolite and unheard of to ask someone their political views or what they earn. By oversharing, we have allowed the connection of others to feel privy and entitled to information about us (aka evidence they use to confirm or deny their version of us). This is where the fragmentation and energy drain begins.  

Now, before we dive deeper, know this can only occur because we have allowed it to occur. I know; stay with me. By participating by logging on and sharing, WE choose and thus make our energy available to be tapped into for corroding. We offer up significant amounts of data with little thought to the order or perceived message it will deliver – often with no context. Seeing a fifteen-second series of videos of a person expressing their feelings, behavior, actions, or ways of being gives no context and thus is often taken out of context, allowing others to create their own version of that person. This same event occurs with the information you share. We used to spend years getting to know a person, learning all about them and how we felt about them, by spending time with them. Now it happens in a split second without much thought. This has become a norm, something everyone does. And if these past years have taught us anything as a society, it could be how many mindsets and perspectives there can be about a single event – meaning EVERYONE sees everything differently.  Imagine how many versions of you are floating out there in people's minds?

Does that mean they would not have come to that conclusion if they spent time with you in person? Of course that is possible. And often not the case. In person, in the energy of another, you pick up on their tones, experiences leading up to ways of thinking, and, if you have known them long enough, why they are the way they are. When we spend time in person with one another we heal each other – we can feel each other's energy. This is completely void when communicating online, which is a huge contribution to the cause of why the divide has been so possible. In person, we feel when someone is being sincere. And our feedback response systems would allow us to feel empathy, as our souls can pick up on soul resonance and the truth feels different. You cannot feel through the screen – at least your energetic body cannot – and for that reason, it is much easier to confirm one's opinion online and never really change it. The logical mind can pick up confirmation of all you see to confirm the belief you already have, but feeling the emotions deep enough to change a limiting belief or hard way of thinking is difficult because we process online data more to the brain than to the mind.

ORDER YOUR COPY