If It Is A Popularity Contest I lose Every Time

Something about me: I want to be popular. 

Like down to my bones I want to be: Trendy. In. Cool. Hip. Well Liked. Really… Loved. Notorious. Adored. Beloved. Accepted. Approved. Famous.Yep. All that + more. Whew. Hard to admit I’d really like to have all this attention. One part of me screams that it is selfish, needy, and shallow. Another part of me. The deeper and intense longing part of me screams “YES! All this please”.

Who knows why I want it so bad. Without a huge drama filled explanation I will say I spent the better part of my adolescence trying really hard to be popular and instead received ridicule, mean-spirited teasing, and exclusion.

Oh yes. That is it. exclusion. One of my biggies. Thanks to every experience I had growing up- and gratefully I now fully love that I endured this- I created a self-defense through empowerment class called the ‘I Am Initiative’. I lead seminars and parties for girls teaching them the inside out matter of self-defense and the importance of self-love. All because I know SO deeply what it feels like to hate yourself, to want to be someone else (Caroline Hennenkamp, the cheerleader, more specifically), and to wish for acceptance and approval. For inclusion.

My driving force in adulthood has been to include others. 

And then I got on twitter. I wanted to be popular again. I wanted “followers”. I wanted MORE people following me than I followed because somehow that showed a measure of my popularity. Ack. 

Here I am again. Really?

I seek inclusion. I desire being included. More than adoration, fame, or any of the others I want to be a part of something. And even more than that I desire to lead this something.

Enter a new guideline for myself. I follow who I want to follow on twitter, even if it means I am following more people than are following me. If someone follows me (and they are not a spammer or fake twitter persona) I follow them back to GENERATE more inclusion in my life.

How does it feel? Liberating. Good. Right. Awesome.

This is the first of more posts I will be writing on Desire. 

My mission: To want what I want with all my heart.

How am I doing it?: Going through ‘The Desire Map’ by Danielle LaPorte. Get your own copy here. You won’t regret it. Unless you’d regret feeling better and being happy.

I’d love to hear what you think. Have you ever not been yourself so you could be “in” or cared about your “numbers”, i.e., friends, followers, clients, students, and email contacts.

Leave a comment. I’ll be sure to include you and respond. xoxo, LVA-