Happy Spring, friends!  In the natural world it’s the season of new growth after a long winter hiatus and this year I feel my personal experience particularly reflects that seasonal shift.  Today I want to share a peek into my current thinking about my blog,YouTube channel, social media, and current life perspective as it relates to my online sharing.

Spring has sprung in my neck of the woods!  I love watching nature wake up after its winter rest.  If you’ve been hanging around here for awhile now, you already know I’m a real seasonal kind of gal.  I enjoy changing little things around my house such as decor and bedding with each season.  I even (subconsciously) change up my diet and workouts.  I’ve noticed over the years that my moods and motivations ebb and flow with the seasons as well.  Spring is a time of rebirth in both the natural and spiritual worlds and I typically find myself feeling rejuvenated with this season.

Last week I posted a video sharing my frustration with the increasingly negative atmosphere of certain social media platforms.  It’s incredibly disappointing as a content creator to have the joy that my online sharing brings me squelched by a few unhappy Negative Nancies who feel the need to spread malice.  I understand that the words and actions of these people speaks more about them than me and I truly don’t give their comments any mind personally.

I’ve been sharing online long enough to feel confident and secure no matter what people might think.  What does bother me, however, is how this malice affects others.  While unnecessarily mean spirited comments roll right off me now, I see others absorb and be affected by them.  It breaks my heart to know that this happens around my content.  While I am not an active participant in this negative atmosphere, I cannot help but be involved as it floats around my posting whether on Instagram or YouTube (which are both where I see the most mean action in my experience).

I’ve struggled over the past couple of years with finding the right balance of how much to share.  I’ve felt in years past that perhaps I’ve overshared and subsequently felt the need to pull back.  The thing is, I love sharing my life on the internet.  That’s kind of a weird thing to put into words, but it’s the truth.  It feels so right to me to film videos and write blog posts about things both big and small, special and mundane.  Feeling the need to pull back and censor my sharing first to protect myself and my loved ones and now my audience (hate that word but I can’t think of a more accurate descriptor at the moment) from the increasing amounts of negativity that anonymous online sharing attracts sucks the joy right out of what is otherwise a purely happy practice.

I’m often told I should just “ignore the haters” and that censoring my content only “let’s them win,” but I feel too deeply responsible for protecting the people who support what I share and try to stand up for me to do so with a clean conscience.  There’s two sides to online sharing and I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the thousands (mind boggling!) of wonderfully kind people I’ve had the pleasure to interact with on the internet over the years.  I so appreciate the amazing support and encouragement I continue to receive and from people who have never met me (!).  That’s the beauty of the internet and being able to connect with people from all over the world who I would never have the opportunity to cross paths with in my ordinary (and introverted) existence.

People care about me and I care about them.  I want the places I choose to share online to be supportive and safe outlets for a community of caring folks.  It’s become increasingly clear that I cannot foster that kind of environment on all of the platforms I currently share on, so I think it’s time once again for me to start making different choices.  This is, as always, a learning process that continues to evolve with my feelings about the current internet climate and my own personal life happenings.

Right now I am itching to share again.  I took some time off over the past three months as I navigated new mommyhood and life with a newborn.  That was my priority then and still is, but now I feel like I’m at a place where I can and want to be both a Mama and a content creator.   Blogging is calling to me the most right now so I am going to answer that call and see where it takes me.  I still plan on putting up videos on YouTube (which I always share here, too) and posting on social media, but how much and what I choose to share and where is changing.

I’ve been able to cultivate a safe environment here on my blog so it feels right to settle in here for awhile at this point in my journey.  I’m going to experiment with posting more frequently and more casually here and I hope you will share with me if you’d like by interacting in the comments.  Please rest assured that I am actively moderating comments here and will only allow those that foster a safe and positive environment.  Constructive criticism of my content is of course allowed and encouraged but negative comments with no purpose other than to spread malice and/or bring down others will be not be approved.

I know many of you are disappointed that I’m not sharing day-in-the-life style vlogs currently.  I am, too, to be honest, as it’s my absolute favorite kind of video content to make, which is why I think I’ve recently taken to SnapChat with such enthusiasm.  I can post little snippets of my day and interact privately with people without public comments bumming everyone out.  You can follow me at prettyneatlivng (no second “i”) if you’d like to hang out.  Snap me so we can chat!  I hope to start sharing more day-in-the-life style content here again, as well.

I’m excited to share without the fear of playing a part in cultivating a negative environment.  It makes my heart sing to be able to do what I love.  I’m not going to make any promises about a posting schedule or content topics right now so as to just let myself share freely and let it be like it was in the beginning: the pure and simple joy of sharing honestly.

Thank you for being a part of this journey with me.  I can’t wait to see where this path takes me next.  You can bet I’ll share about it with you!

Here’s to sunny days ahead!  Wishing you lots of love and sunshine this spring ☀️

 * This is not a sponsored post.  All opinions are genuinely my own. *