Rethink the TMI
By Nancy B. Loughlin
Published in News Press on November 14, 2017
There is such a thing as oversharing.
The combination of our celebrity fixation with our social media crutch makes Citizenfour’s observation so apt: What we used to call freedom, we now call privacy, and we don’t have either anymore.
Standing in our truth is not the same as broadcasting it.
Conversational sharing of our secrets, revealing our sins, suffering and shame, can make us relatable to others but only on a superficial and misleading level.
The bonds forged by oversharing are a parody of connection, and they construct ramshackle bridges. Dark tales of our pasts, the ones of pain, abuse, struggle, humiliation and failure, are decontextualized snippets and do not encompass our light.
Attachment to these stories, particularly to the retelling of these stories, cages us in these stories. Oversharing is an addiction, and we risk allowing our shadows to block our light.
Instead, let’s all connect on the summits of our aspirations and service instead of in the ditches of deficit.
Why congregate in the self-absorbed mud?
Release yet protect yourself.
When you find yourself oversharing and overexposed, sit on the floor with your legs straight in front of you. Take Sage’s Pose.
Feel the open vulnerability of your heart center as you straighten your back.
Pull your right knee to your chest while keeping the right foot flat on the floor. Wrap your arms around your thigh and, for a moment, feel protected.
Now open from a safe, controlled place. On the exhale, twist to the right from the belly, staying tall.
Leverage the twist. Place your right hand on the floor behind you and press your left elbow against the outside of your right thigh.
Hold the twist, feel the release, for ten breaths.
Then, go deeper with Lord of the Fishes. Cross that right foot over your left thigh, and hug your knee to your chest. Hold yourself.
When you are ready, return to the twist, leveraging the intensity with your elbow pressing against the outside of your thigh. If you choose, bend your left leg and tuck your left foot under your seat.
Imagine, while you stay quiet, all that no longer serves you spiraling down your spine, dripping off your tailbone into the earth, mixing with the elements, all that stuff, a collective depository.
Meditate on your need to overshare, your habit of recklessly exposing yourself, your affinity for too much information.
Is the practice rooted in service or in self-absorption?
