How a Facebook Post Exploded My Life

A few days ago I posted a video on Facebook. No big deal right? Actually, for me, it was a very big deal.

You see, I had been missing from Facebook, social media and definitely my own life for years.

So I went on air and made that very confession, a confession that took all my courage and then some:

I was hiding and had been in hiding, in one way or another, since age seven when I was brought to North America as an immigrant kid.

On the first day of school the teacher brought me to the front of the class. “Let’s welcome our new student,” she said. “He’s from Iran!”

My teacher’s enthusiasm was not matches by my peers. In front of me all I saw was a sea of blank stares and in that instant I made up a story that would impact the rest of my life: they’re judging me.

In that moment I decided that either I had to please people, or better yet, not show up at all.

I went into hiding.

This subconscious choice then had a ripple effect, steamrolling every aspect of my life. Nothing stood in its way. Friendships, school work, my athletic endeavors, then my career as an actor and writer were pummeled.

Every time I would come to the edge of discomfort, that place we all must break through in order to fulfill our mission, or a goal, or to just be ourselves, I would pull back, I would retreat. I would hide.

From my own experience and from the responses I’ve gotten as a result of sharing the video, I know many others also suffer from this brutal and debilitating psycho-spiritual dis-ease.

When I posted the video on Facebook it was only to the two hundred or so friends I had, most of whom hadn’t heard from me in years. Remember, I had been missing. This was my very first public post.

The response was immediate and overwhelming. People I hadn’t heard from in decades, some from that very class, over thirties ago, sent me messages. More than a few made me laugh: “…. sorry about the blank stare.” Others shared memories from my youth I had long forgotten and new friends left words of acknowledgement and encouragement.

A theme was emerging. One of connection, and if I dare say, love.

Within forty-eight hours, from those original two hundred people my message had somehow spread to over six thousand people and counting just on Facebook. The message obviously resonated.

Exposing myself the way I did by sharing a simple truth about my life and the subsequent reactions that followed has given me a freedom I haven’t felt since I was that seven-year-old kid.

It has given me a confidence in others and myself I hadn’t previously had and if I had it, it has been covered up by my insecurities.

I was living in a false story, one where the world was standing in judgement of my every move. When you live such a story then the mind looks for evidence that the story is true, to convince you that your paradigm is the right one.

The ego’s work is to protect this paradigm at all cost. To keep you hidden and fearful.

The cost is your experience of life. Your self-expression, your true self, and ultimately your freedom.

The lesson here is that what I had feared all along, that judgement, was a fantasy of my own making. It was disconnected from reality, yet I made it my reality.

Now, I guess the question has to do with choice. Do I retreat into the old paradigm, or live into the new one?

In essence, will I allow fear to stop me again?

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