To Share or Not to Share
These days I spend time within online discussion forums that include complex topics. From holistic health to communication, from shadow realities to future visioning, from Covid narratives to gender/sexuality discussions — I’m engaging in big topics with even bigger questions.
So much of what’s being shared resonates with me. Sometimes I experience a variety of resonances on multiple levels of interbeing. I get impulses of wanting to jump into these discussions, but often feel it’s not my place. It’s not that I don’t feel confident in my sharing. Rather it’s about wanting to honor those spaces for others to share.
Sometimes I feel I’m unable to formulate a seemingly non-intrusive way to chime into the already deeply affecting discussion. How do I not make it about me, when I’m feeling it should be about others? What if I don’t have the same concerns as those who are sharing? What am I to do when I feel compelled, and believe I can share with compassion?
What if those contributing are speaking from a placing of hurting or a place of trauma? What if I don’t have the components of trauma or a healing journey around the specific concerns of what’s being discussed? Do I still have a place in the discussion?
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I believe nearly every personal has some underlying trauma. I have my healing journey., as do those who are taking part in these discussion. How much does it matter to contain discussions based on shared trauma. If the differences of identifiable trauma are too apparent, is it enough to be able to relate due to having a broader significance.
Even when proceeding with compassion and care, will my sharing seem obtrusive? Is it simply enough to relate with others on those specific topics despite our differences? It depends on the space, and the moment, right?
I find is when I’m one-on-one with any individual, simply connecting around a shared healing journey is usually enough. Or at least it has been for me when I connect deeply regarding these matters in person. Our shared humanity, our shared joys and pains, our deeper traumas, our unfolding healing journeys — can connect one another.
When online, I also see how these components of interconnectedness and interbeing don’t always translate the deeper essence when done through a computer screen. I’m not dismissing online connections. I’m grateful for this modality and all it can bring. I’m left wondering if there’s a disconnection that will always be present with online connections.
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The broader ideas and expressions of concepts and beliefs can translate through the means of online relating and discussion forums. Acknowledgement of whether one is reading and fully hearing what another is saying, can be noted and measured. One can carefully construct many thoughts through phrases and sentences to clarify so much of one’s experience and perspective. There’s breadth and understanding from that point of entry.
Does it reach the depth that an individual’s need in a particular moment? Even with the breadth and understanding of heart-guided sharing, there may still seem to appear a disconnect rather than the overlap to signal interconnectedness.
Is it that our need for wanting to be heard shows up more strongly on these platforms than our need to hold space to listen to others? Is it simply too much of an extension, by this particular design, to ask for? To genuinely ask “What is it like to be you?” if it’s feeling like that inquiry isn’t reciprocated?
When can such a reciprocated format of inquiry be initiated? If already headlong into continual woven discussions (both within the online discussion forums and our larger interpersonal worlds), can we interrupt the pattern? Can we extend ourselves the “right amount” (whatever that may be) beyond oneself? I don’t know. Would such a proposition feel better whilst having the tougher discussions? Perhaps it would.
