In Real Life Connection vs. Engagement

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after a week of work, writing, and running. It’s treadmill season at the Orchard household and I did something to my back the other day when I was running. It hasn’t gotten any better, and I fear I’m going to have to go to the doctor and get it checked out. It has been four days and it hasn’t gotten back to normal. Ugh.

But enough about that. Today, I’d like to talk about staying connected. With social media we can connect any time for any reason, but is it a true connection? I don’t think so, there’s nothing like taking the time to sit down with family and friends and spending good quality time with them.

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The social media platforms, be it Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, main intent is to keep you engaged. Behind the scenes, they analyze your likes and comments to learn what your interests are so they can plant more of those interests in your feeds. This keeps you on their site longer, and it appears like you’re connecting with friends and family, but in reality, it’s more about keeping you engaged than connecting with people.

Don’t get me wrong I love social media because it allows me to stay in touch with friends in other states and countries, but it doesn’t take the place of a true connection with your family and friends right here.

Just the other day, I had brunch with some friends and then we spent the afternoon painting together. It was an In Real Life Connection. One in which, I’m learning how to paint, and I must say Bob Ross is right, there are no mistakes just happy little accidents. 😉 But I digress, the point I’m trying to make is we need in person connection now more than ever. If we lose the ability to read social cues and body language, we’re going to set the human race back to the caveman era.

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Evidence suggests there is a correlation between the rise in suicide rates and the rise of social media. We have more access to more information than we’ve ever had. That means we have access to chat rooms and forums that are pro-suicide. Our kids have access to these forums. So, if you’re dealing with a child with some mental health issues and they find their way to one of these forums, it could be trouble.

Cyber-bullying has led to suicides as well, especially among the younger crowd. Social media has become an avenue for that also. So, it’s more important than ever to make sure you have a connection with your loved ones. We can never truly know what’s going on in someone’s mind unless we watch for the signs.

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But that’s not where I want to go with this. I digress again. Sorry. What I want to say is that maybe Social Media is the symptom, and the real disease is lack of connection or disconnection.

I believe that if it’s not the sole cause, it’s a big part of it. So, keep the communication open with your family and friends. Stay connected. Make sure your kids learn how to make an emotional connection with their friends, so they won’t feel isolated.

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So how do we stay connected with so many distractions?

1. Engage in a common interest like hiking or biking or robotics
2. Have family night where you play a card game or board game
3. Watch a movie together once a week
4. Take a family vacation

These are just a few ideas. There are many ways to make connections with your family. How do you connect with yours? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!

Finding your Community

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’ve been busy this week with work, writing, and family. Now that winter is almost upon us, I’ve been preparing by making sure my kids have coats and gloves that fit. I’ve also taken some time off to go hiking. I’m hoping to get a couple more hikes in before the snow flies and we start hibernating.

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But enough about that. Today, I’d like to talk about friendship and connection. I remember in my teen years, many moons ago, I had a group of friends that I hung out with constantly. We did everything together. Bike rides, skateboarding, sleepovers, and slumber parties. They were my support group and I supported them.

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I miss those days. I feel women need their groups of friends to feel connected and part of a community. We need to get back to that in our society. I know social media allows us to stay connected over long distances, but it’s not the same kind of connection. Something gets lost over the internet. The ability to read facial expressions and get a hug. The ability to actually touch someone is gone. This is something that’s desperately needed in our society. Remember the old quilting circles? We need to bring them back.

So, how do we do that in our bustling world? We go back to those days of quilting circles and start anew. If you don’t like quilting, you could get a group of friends together to play cards, or do something creative like painting, or join a writing group.

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These are all ways to recreate a community. It’s always good to create one around an activity, or common goal. That way everyone is focused on something positive, and they can forget about their troubles for a while. Whenever I get together with my group of friends, I always come away from the gathering inspired and motivated. It’s refreshing to be with like-minded people.

This last week, I got together with my artist friends and we went on a hike then painted together. Even though we were all working on our own paintings there was a sense of community and support. I left that group inspired to keep working on my writing. Sometimes we time away to refresh so we can continue working on a long project such as writing a novel.

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So, there you have it, need something to boost your mood? Start your own community. Create your own quilting circle, or writing group, or hiking group. You’ll be glad you did. It’s cheaper than therapy. 😉

How do you find support? What kind of groups would you like to create? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!

Do You have a Creative Family ?

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after spending the weekend hanging out with fellow creatives. I was invited to sign books at an Arts and Eats Festival this weekend. It was great to meet with people and talk about my books and art. I spoke with painters and photographers and learned some new things about each medium.

This is right after setting up. We’re chatting while we wait for the crowd.

I enjoyed spending time with such amazing and supportive people. I have found that not only fellow writers are supportive but so are artists, photographers, and sculptors, too. Anyone who’s a creative knows how difficult it is to get your work in front of people.

It was a great time to talk about different ways to reach the public. It seems that marketing is something all creatives struggle with and it was nice to bounce ideas off each other and find out what works for some and doesn’t work for others.

If you have an opportunity to participate in your local festivals, I strongly encourage it. It’s a great opportunity to get your name out there and to start building a local support system. It’s important to do that, so you can get a grass roots kind of thing going for you.

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It’s also important to have a creative “family” because not all artists have family that supports them or understands why they spend so much time with their art. You will need the support of your creative community during that time.

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Mentors are another great addition to your creative family. They can guide you through the mire of people who want to take advantage of your creativity, and they can also offer you creative advice regarding your craft. A good mentor is golden.

Another aspect that I need to bring up here is your creative community can also offer you constructive criticism. There will be people who criticize your work without offering anything constructive on how to improve it. Don’t listen to these people, they’re not your people. Your creative community will tell you where you need to improve and more importantly how to improve in a gentle constructive way. You need this to grow in your craft. We all do.

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So, there you have it. The reasons why you need to develop a creative family. Do you have one? How did you meet yours? Leave a message, I’d love to hear from you!

Technology’s Effect on our World

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’ve been busy working and writing this week and I’m making progress on my WIP. I’m seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

But enough about that. Today, I’d like to talk about technology and it’s impact on our society. I had a class reunion this weekend and I got to see friends I haven’t seen in a long time. It was nice to catch up and walk down memory lane with them. Some of them, I’ve been able to connect with on social media and chat via messenger with them. It’s a great way to reestablish old connections.

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With social media it’s easy to stay connected and catch up via chats, but there’s nothing like face-to-face interaction. I worry about our future generations where most communication will take place via the computer. I’m worried because I feel they won’t have the ability to read facial cues when talking with their peers because they won’t have enough practice with real life communication.

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I’m also worried because I feel our young people don’t get enough physical activity. I see my kids and their friends spending so much time in front of a computer that they’re not getting enough exercise. Childhood obesity is on the rise and I feel the main reasons are the added sugars in our processed foods and the fact they’re not physically active.

So, even though technology has given us the ability to make connections over many thousands of miles, it has had a negative effect on our health, and it has also made our in real life connections more fragile because social media’s main goal is to keep us engaged.

They don’t want us to leave their site. So, they place items in our feeds to keep us there. Different articles on things we’ve liked. For example, if I like a random picture of an elephant, I’ll find more elephant pictures and articles showing up in my feed. There’s a documentary on this phenomenon called “The Social Dilemma.” If you haven’t seen it, you need to watch it. It’s on Netflix and it explains this whole process.

How about you? Do you feel technology has had a negative impact on our physical and mental health? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!

In Real Life Connections

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after a busy week of writing and work. I did take a day off and spend some time hiking with one of my gal pals. It was so nice to meet in real life with a friend and go hiking. I appreciate these moments together and the deepening of our connection.

I appreciate my gal pals. It’s so important to make time with your friends. I’ve found through the years some friends leave to travel their own paths. Sometimes there’s a falling out that makes us sad, but inevitably, we find new friends whose energy is closer to our own. I feel we develop more authentic friendships instead of situational ones as we grow older.  I’ve found some awesome friends who support me, and I support their endeavors. The friends I’ve kept along the way are the ones I just clicked with. They get my wacky sense of humor and enjoy the same things I do.

We have to honor the ebb and flow of these friendships. Sometimes, we can be extremely close and get together often. Other times life takes us in another direction for a while. The bond is still there, but it’s stretched to accommodate the distance we have to put between us. There are friends who’ve left me to pursue another path, I honor the history we have together and if we were ever to come back into contact, I’m sure we’d pick up right where we left off.

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The circle of friends I have now, I value with all my heart. I have an artist friend who I’ve been spending a lot of time with. She’s showing me how to create some beautiful art. This is good for me because it’s another avenue for me to express my creativity. In our moments in her studio, I’ve shared details of my life and she’s shared details of hers. What I’ve noticed is that we’ve had similar experiences along the way, so we understand each other. She is wise beyond her years and I appreciate her wisdom.

I feel with the age of the computer, we’ve lost some of the ways we connect with our friends. Just working on a project together is immensely satisfying. There’s something to be said for those old quilting circles and I remember years ago getting together to play cards. I miss those days. I feel we’ve become lazy because we connect on social media now. It’s not the same. I believe this kind of loose connection is one of the reasons the suicide rate is rising. I worry about how future generations will interact. How will they make real connections over the internet?

I hope they’ll see the positives of the internet but also the negatives. I feel fortunate that I have the friends I have and we’re able to get together in person as well as connect on the internet. How about you? Do you have a circle of friends you connect with? What do you do when you get together? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!

Let’s pull Together and Do This!

 

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after a long week of work and writing. I finally nailed a scene I’ve been struggling with and it feels so good! 😊

But enough about that. I came across this meme on Facebook and it inspired me to write this post, so I thought I’d share it with all of you. It’s mainly for us women, but guys can help with this too, so keep reading.

For years, women have been trained to search for their physical flaws and try to fix them. We’re bombarded by ads for makeup, clothes, and physical fitness equipment that shows us how to improve our appearance. This has made many corporations and plastic surgeons rich while tearing down women’s self-esteem. The message we’re receiving is, the only way you’ll feel good about yourself is if you use this product, buy these clothes, and get this type of plastic surgery.

It’s up to us women to pull together and say:

 

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We’re a powerful force when we come together. A force to be reckoned with. So, let’s do it. Let’s pull together and create an environment of support against this onslaught that tears us down.

Instead of focusing on our faults, let’s focus on our health. Let’s exercise because it’s good for us, not to look better. We’ll look better because we’re healthy and we’ll feel better because we’re healthy.

 

Photo credit: Ed Yourdon on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Let’s focus on our diet, not to lose weight and try to be model-thin, but because we want to take care of our health. We’ll feel better if we eat healthier. The outside will take care of itself if we focus on the inside.

Photo credit: CameliaTWU on VisualHunt /CC BY-NC-ND

This same concept can be applied to our mental health. Let’s change our negative self-talk to positive. Let’s forgive ourselves for our imperfections because let’s face it, everyone has them. Let’s practice giving some of the love we give to everyone else to ourselves. Let’s teach our daughters that it’s okay to think of ourselves. To take care of ourselves. To set boundaries. We’ve come a long way, but we’ve got a long way to go, too.

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Let’s make our health and happiness a priority. If we take responsibility for our own happiness and chase goals that we want to achieve, our relationships will be better. Our relationships won’t be the only source of happiness for us and it’ll take the pressure off our spouses. They’ll be able to work on themselves and pursue their own happiness.  Once we do that, we’ll find we’re happier and our relationships will be better. It’s like the ripple effect of tossing a stone in the water and watching the ripples float farther and farther away until they pass through the whole lake. We can do this. Who’s with me? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you!

 

 

The Art of saying “No”

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after an eventful weekend. My computer died this weekend, so of course, I had to rush right out and get a new one because, you know, writing, right?

 

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So that’s why this post is late. But enough about that. What I’d like to talk about today is Social Media and its effects on communication skills.

I’ve noticed a trend happening with social media and that is when someone sends you an instant message, and if you don’t want to chat with that person, you don’t respond. You just ignore the message. Now, I understand, maybe you don’t want to chat with that person or don’t want to participate in the activity they’re asking you to do, but is just ignoring them and hoping they’ll get the hint the best course of action?

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This trend is disturbing. Why? Because we as human need to be able to say no. We need to be able to do it without offending the other person. What happens when we’re in a face to face situation and we’ve got to tell the other person we don’t want to do what they want to do?

What if that person is your boss? Are you going to just walk away and pretend he didn’t ask you to participate in that meeting?

 

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This is a skill our kids will need to master if they’re going to make it in the working world. We need to communicate negative information in a diplomatic way. Social Media is breaking down the barriers in a lot of ways, but it’s also putting up walls.

I find it so odd that people can’t say no and just be honest and say: “I’m not interested in that kind of activity, but thanks for asking.”

That’s not offensive in the least. It states your lack of interest, so the person doesn’t feel rejected, and they’re able to recognize this rejection isn’t personal, and it’s polite. You can say no without hurting your friend’s feelings.

Another positive aspect of being able to say no is that it communicates your lack of interest in that activity, so your friend will probably remember this and won’t ask you to do it again.  Being able to say no allows you to establish boundaries.

So does ignoring messages on Social Media, but ignoring messages damages the friendship and creates an environment of distrust. Your friend is left wondering why you’re ignoring them. Did they offend you? Are you upset with them? Telling your friend “no” is also good for them. They aren’t left hanging and wondering what happened between you two. They can move on and ask another friend to participate and your friendship is still intact.  So, learn the art of saying no in a compassionate way. You’ll be glad you did. 😊

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Thanks for stopping by and reading my post. How do you tell someone No without offending them? Leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you!