Nothing real happens on Facebook. Anyone serious about the inner world is better helped by staying offline and studying themselves. Not the good self, but the one that has sabotaged itself for so long that it feels weird when the pain stops!

Yes, self-sabotage is painful, but it is so deeply-ingrained in us that we don’t even know we are doing it. As I look back on my life, I was taught to be nice. That word “nice” especially applied to little Southern girls like me. Girls that wanted to please at the expense of their self-individuation.

At some point I became extremely agoraphobic and avoided all social occasions. I had a great intelligence and wit but it was smothered in niceness. If only someone could have told that younger version of Vicki that one day she would become a writer.

She was already writing poems in third grade. She majored in English and psychology in college and graduated magna cum laude. Instead of using her degree, she married and settled down. Then the first tragedy hit. Her only daughter died. Twenty something years later, her husband died.

Now she is in her seventies and a force to be reckoned with. Not because of her niceness, but because she was told “Don’t be so accommodating. Act a little tough.” Her late spiritual teacher came to her in a dream just to tell her that.

Since then she has been kicking butt online. She refuses to play on-line games with people on the path. The ones they play involve subjugation and they are quite boring to her.

She has left the world behind and now lives free. She may come on Facebook but she doesn’t stay long. She has angels on her shoulder and they are encouraging her to speak up, don’t be shy. You are a gift to those that can receive you.

And maybe they are right. I am willing to believe.

Vicki Woodyard