I go through the typical love/hate stages with social media often. Most of the time I can get past the obvious social media sensitivities like “how come this person is always on vacation?” or “this person posts so much better content than me.” but sometimes I get triggered and it’s taken me a little perspective and self care to uncover what those fears were really stemming from. First, I am a firm believer that we are all in it to win it so my comparison attitude is based from a deep rooted crippling perfectionism that I have only started shedding over the last 2 years - obviously something I need to work on a little more. I do feel like we all can be successful and it takes for me to see how someone else is successful to remind me that I can do it too. Trust me, there are times that I have woken up from dreams that all of a sudden the new trend is to not treat your skin and I would be completely out of work. But after 11 years I still manage to get more questions, new clients and seem to be increasing in my success with each year. So why does an instagram sometimes make me want to give up? Or at least crawl under a pillow for a few hours.

Well to begin with, I have a lot of self care to do because I struggle with anxiety that leads me into unexpected bouts of depression. My only way of getting out of those pits is to eat really well, exercise and focus on the things I love. Sometimes that means I take a few days off of social media and my computer in general. When I first got into skincare I didn’t expect that I would ever need to be so vulnerable in how I showcase myself to the world. There is a level of openness that I can get to with my clients, family and friends but for strangers to see what I do and reach out to me for helps really overwhelms me.

Social media has been a vital part of my business for the last several years. It started out when my sister created a facebook group called “Hayley’s my esthetician”. I wanted to die when I saw it because I thought it was the most audacious and narcissistic thing to do. Little did I know that people would be willing to follow what I had to say. Years later I found myself switching from a private instagram profile to a public business profile and somehow it was still really tough for me. It still felt like why would anyone care what I have to say or post?

I get advice all day long about how to monetize my business, increase my following or become the “it” skincare guru. But all of this at once terrifies me. Even if this is the only level I can achieve in terms of success at least I know that I’m doing my very best. One day I hope to completely shed to fear of success but I think that for now, the fear keeps me honest with myself. It reminds me that I’m still a person and not a machine.

I’m sharing all of this because it’s easy to see a personality on social media and feel like you know everything about them. It’s easy to read my website profile and think I’m the answer to all your problems. The truth is that I’m a person with a capacity to feel everything on the same spectrum of emotion as you and sometimes those emotions can turn dark. Luckily, writing helps me tremendously with getting to the root as to why I may have these thoughts to begin with. I hope my candid expression of insecurity can shed some light on what I’m sometimes going through or potentially speak to you in a personal way. I'll never ignore my responsibilities to an individual in need. I just have to be okay that I may fall off your radar by taking care of myself and not flooding your social media pages with my posts. I’m grateful to have reached the 11 year mark of becoming an esthetician last week and will continue to work towards being your best therapeutic skin coach. I'm learning that it's okay that I may not be so apparent on social media and have to hope that I’m not forgettable. Grounding myself and keeping some elements of privacy helps me get my head straight so your care will never be compromised.

As always, thanks for reading and if you have any questions or comments feel free to post below. Until next week... xo - Hayley

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