The hardest thing about sharing online for me….

Is also the most freeing.

The hardest thing about sharing online for me….

I thought about it this week.

What’s the hardest part about sharing online for me?

I’ve been sharing online since when I discovered Myspace and Facebook way back when we were so savage as to rate our Top Friends and then shuffle them around if we’d had a disagreement.

But I started really growing an audience 13 years ago.

Some say that online expression is the best shadow work you’ll ever do and I believe it.

Allowing yourself to be seen, truly seen by people in your own real life, can be a feat on its own. Some struggle with intimacy, vulnerability, safety.

But being seen by tens of thousands of strangers who all claim to ‘know you’?

I’m not sure we were ever designed for this insane dynamic.

As a species, we’ve had to adapt to it— the unnaturalness of having enormous amounts of people hold an opinion about you, without ever having had a conversation with you in their life.

I know this is true for celebrities, but look how many of them either have no social media, or go absolutely insane with a televised meltdown. Fame is not healthy for most. Here we are— thousands if not millions of regular Jo-blows are experiencing a fame that can be thrilling at first but incredibly challenging once the excitement wears off.

Fame or not, having a public audience takes guts. Only those who have one, really know this.

For some, it really is as easy as ‘posting and ghosting’, but for most of us it’s not.

Even after we exit the comments section and throw the phone into the drawer, we’re still there mentally.

Some of the strongest and most outspoken women I know personally, have recently decided to completely tap out from talking on ANYTHING other than their own work, because they were at breaking points, mentally.

Contrary to what the internet mob thinks— you don’t anyone a mental breakdown. You don’t owe anyone a frizzled nervous system. You don’t need to cook yourself silly in order to prove you are a good, caring citizen of this world.

You probably know this about me if you’ve been following me for any amount of time— I take extended breaks when I need them. Sometimes they’re 1 month, sometimes they’re 9 months. I always, always am off social media around the births of my babies because I simply refuse to let craziness into that sacred space.

Social media has changed so much since my first baby was born in 2017 though.

I’m not going to harp on about it— WE KNOW!

It’s never been easier for an everyday person to have a platform, to share their views and to create fame.

But we have also never had access to the details of so many global atrocities.

We are also living in a time where social media is used for such intense psychological manipulation, that family members are cutting each other off for having different political beliefs. People have become such shallow and reactive thinkers that it’s freakishly robotic.

Me-angry-because-me-told-to-be-angry- but-me-not-angry-about-dat-because-my-overlord-said-it-don’t-matter.

These things are not natural, but sadly they’ve become normal.

It’s never been easier to have a voice (yay!), or to create fame (yay??).

It’s also never been trickier to navigate this dynamic, while trying to achieve the kind of peace our nervous systems were actually designed to know…. as part of villages, who found their news out from the local billboard and simply were not expected to respond to every worldwide tragedy.

Some women are just trying to post their sandwich recipes, or share their poetry as an outlet while they raise their children… meanwhile the internet expects them to be United Nations reps, forming perfectly articulated statements about complex world issues they know nothing about.

People storm into complete strangers inboxes and tell them what they need to do with their money, their time, their voice, their platform, their lives.

There is a complete erosion of any kind of boundary between a person’s online profile, and the actual person behind it.

The entitlement culture is off the chain.

People expect, that because they follow someone, and because that someone may happen to sell their work online, that it means they owe them a specific stance, a specific outrage, a perfect statement as if they’re the president of the world.

“Well, you sell to us so you actually DO owe us a statement.”

Complete and total delusion. As if you’re locked in a room and strapped to a chair, being forced to watch this influencers personal informercials.

We forget the freedom we have to unfollow.

We forget the personal responsibility we have.

Here’s the thing I want to say to this idea.

Because people have a platform, it does not mean they have a responsibility to perform for you.

They do not have a responsibility to be the social justice warrior or activist you want them to be.

They have a responsibility to their own integrity— which means speaking when compelled to, when they sense they know enough to contribute something of value, knowing whether they actually have the capacity to be embroiled in the intense internet tornado while they have tender things going on in their own homes.

People owe themselves their integrity.

Strangers don’t get to decide what that is.

Sometimes silence is integrity, too.

It doesn’t mean someone ‘doesn’t care’. It could mean that they care about something more— like the people within their homes who need them or their own integrity which says ‘you don’t know enough about this to contribute something of value’.

It blows my mind that complete strangers believe that without knowing someone, and what is going on in their private lives, that they are entitled to waltz on into their world, and SHOUT IN ALL CAPS telling them WHAT THEY NEED TO DO AND WHAT IT MEANS IF THEY DON’T.

They forget that these words do something to the average person whose skin might be thick but is not Eastern European kinda thick (I bow to Eastern European women honestly).

I have spoken out about a lot of controversial stuff over the years, sigh. Here I am about to list some of them and I can feel the life force drain from my body as I do so…. as if my soul is saying ‘Stop! we don’t do this explaining thing anymore!’.

I spoke out when it was said they were replacing ‘breastfeeding’ with ‘chest feeding’. Yeh, that was fun!

I spoke out at the very beginning of the covid shit show, and you can imagine the kind of backlash that got me. Super fun!

I’ve spoken out about abortion and the horrors of late stage abortion. Popular topic? Nope.

I have done a lot of work and funding in the birth space— something I care about deeply.

I have shared accounts of the horrors in Iran.

I’ve spoken out about many things happening on my home soil— Australia because it is where I actually understand the landscape.

I have donated enormous amounts to everything ranging from Indigenous causes, to homelessness, to domestic violence and countless private go-fund-me’s.

The list goes on, but I won’t let it drag out here because I am not a performing clown. I’m not a United Nations representative. I’m not a politician. I am a mother, an everyday person, a flawed and hearty eldest daughter who wants so much to do good and be seen as doing good but….. I do not need to get a good girl badge from strangers who I have never, nor will ever meet.

I have watched as people I know in real life post with such hypocrisy, even saying things that could be deemed hateful towards my kids and I.

I believe so much in free speech that I recognise that although I wouldn’t echo their posts in my own, they have a different worldview and are also living inside an algorithm that is feeding them more of the same.

We all are. I won’t let that destroy real, meaningful relationships.

I also have friends who post in opposition to some things I talk about but STILL…. in our interactions with each other it is nothing but love. We have an agreement. We can disagree, but we know each others hearts.

Yesterday I posted a quick reel here about his ‘barging into strangers inboxes’ phenomenon. It was also laced with a certain spice on a topic I am very passionate about— self responsibility. Eldest daughters have this in spades. FOR SALE: RESPONSIBILITY. YOU NEED SOME? HERE! TAKE IT!

Many agreed, some didn’t. Bla bla bla it’s the nature of the internet. We are dreaming if we want to only post things that slap. Even a post of yourself with your newborn baby would have at least one person in the comments section saying ‘SOME OF US DON’T LIKE BABIES YOU SELFISH BRAT.’

Today, I felt obliged to engage in the comments of this video— to explain my point to those with sincere questions and then to get into the nuance…. but you know what was happening in my own household?

A very, very sensitive day for my own eldest daughter. She needed me.

The comments section did not.

Inside I could feel this deep discomfort with leaving the comment section untended to.

Will they know what I really mean?

Will they know my good intentions for sharing the message?

Will they know what I had to overcome to even press post on that bloody video?

Will they know that I am good?

This is the hardest part about sharing online for me.

The desire to be seen as good.

It’s that no matter what, people will always, always, always have a perception of me that I can’t control.

I used to shout from the rooftops about everything that I donated. I wanted people to know that even though I broke free from the generational money curses of my lineage, that I was generous. One of the good ones, me.

It matters to me that I’m generous but it also use to matter to me that people knew it.

One time, I gave a large amount, several thousands of dollars to beautiful friend who was starting a business. I believed in her so much and I genuinely wanted to help. I have always believe that blessings are to be passed on.

I went to her event where she launched her business and shared her story, and she told the audience that she started her business with just 30c in her bank account.

She totally left the part out where she had a friend who was willing to help her.

I worked my ass off to break strongholds, overcome harassment, threats and hate, to become someone who could afford to be so generous with everyone in my life.

A part of me innocently did want to be seen for that.

I wasn’t doing it for brownie points, but I wanted to feel seen for the extent to which I’d go to help people— that goodness.

Time and time again, God showed me that you cannot expect to be seen.

You should not rely on being seen.

You must only do things only because you are compelled to from the most honest part of you.

Because as my mum always told me— goodness is its own reward.

This has been the hardest part for me about sharing online.

Will they know that I am good?

As I have grown, I care less and less.

This is the initiation for those who want to have longevity with their public expression— you have to let go of the need to be seen as good.

You definitely have to let go of the need to be seen as ‘nice’.

You can have integrity, or you can be seen as ‘nice’ all the time.

But you can’t have both.

I’ve got a whole lot more to say on this topic soon (the end of the nice girl is upon us)….

but for the next two weeks, I have to focus my creative attention on something very exciting.

My new Body Luxury book just cleared customs.

It is as beautiful as the journey I have been on.

It will be ready for your bedside table in fingers crossed just under two weeks time. It’s taken over a year in just production, so, as you can imagine I am itching to show you all the cover.

Lotsa love,

PK XXX