Digital Intimacy: How much honesty is too much?

to the dungeon we go! today's listener SUBMISSION is all about navigating honesty, transparency, and intimacy when running an online presence & business. we explore oversharing and vulnerability, authenticity and digital intimacy, and entertaining the possibility that saying the damn thing could get you more of what you want, not less. ADVICE DOM's got questions and answers!

c'mon down to the cave for some spanky, slappy, advice-giving. BECAUSE SOMETIMES PEOPLE JUST LIKE TO BE TOLD WHAT TO DO.™️

call in and SUBMIT (your own question) --> 760-820-9070

~show notes~

• enter to win a free coaching session ~ when you leave a 5-star rating (only) and a written review, you'll be entered into a monthly drawing for a free 90-min coaching session with dana (value of $388). DM (@danablix instagram) or email a screenshot of your submission—take it right before you hit submit—along with the review name/title. winner announcements will be made across platforms!

/// sound-editing/design ~ rose blakelock, theme song ~ kat ottosen, podcast art ~ natalee miller ///

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Crying in my jacuzzi. Crying in my jacuzzi. Crying in my jacuzzi, crying in my jacuzzi.

Speaker 2: 0:37

It's advice time. Hello, you're welcome. Let's spelunk deep down, down, down, down down into the advice. Dom cave, make our way into the liminal dungeon where a dear listener, and maybe by proxy you, is gonna get spanked with some advice. Ish, because sometimes people just like to be told what to do. I know, I do. Yeah, even a dom calls in a little dom energy Now and then. So who do we have today? Let's check the answering machine. Look, cell service down here is a little spotty. So we got a good old answering machine, old-fashioned analog. We love it.

Speaker 1: 2:03

Oh, okay, I think this is it. I can tell it's Luke. I wanted to be submitted for a question for Advice, dom. Um, I am struggling with how much personal information to include in my online presence and my business. I feel really drawn to be really honest and transparent and vulnerable, but I'm also wondering if talking about, for example, gay sex could alienate certain people or like political things I feel like I sometimes shy away from. So I guess my question is kind of about being self-conscious, being authentic and actually like business, like how much do you share or not, and does it alienate people? I'm curious what you would say. I'm ready to be advice-domed and you can use any part of this recording and I hope that the question gets answered. I hope you're good Hug.

Speaker 2: 3:18

Bye. Thank you, luke. Thank you for your submission. I love this question and so deeply appreciate it because, luke, I know that you are not alone and the thing that stands out most is when you said I feel really drawn to be really honest and transparent and vulnerable. There is desire in your voice, in that request to yourself, in that permission giving. Will you give yourself permission to be that vulnerable, to be transparent? This is an important question for any human to ask themselves when they are in relationship with others and for folks who are putting themselves out there in the world with an online presence, when there is digital intimacy involved or attemptedly cultivated. So I hear desire, vulnerability, risk Risk is inherent. But I also want to bring on to the table here motivation. How do you want to feel in your life, luke? Business is just a part. How do you want to feel when you share yourself with the world? This might change over time. It might change a lot. Give yourself permission to change your mind, to experiment, to try things out. I know the interwebs have a forever memory and that can be a little intimidating, but if we remember that creative intimacy only comes through true personal risk, then you get to ask yourself if you want to cultivate intimacy in your online presence. Maybe you do, maybe you don't.

Speaker 2: 5:17

I do hear from you that you're interested in stretching, but there's fear, which is absolutely understandable, because the internet is not the kindest place in the world Doesn't mean that it's not full of kindness. It's really almost like a void, and sometimes it can be helpful to think about. What you put in might be what you get out With the vulnerability and risk. Ask yourself, or ask the part of you that is nervous or scared what are you afraid might happen? Are you worried about being projected upon by others? Who are those people? Are they the invisible peanut gallery of your mind? Do they really matter? Are they worth shaping yourself around? What if, by being your truest self, you attract your truest people? I can overshare. I think it used to be a TMI situation, because vulnerability for vulnerability's sake is just that. It can't just be TMI. So what are the boundaries? If you want to share and you want to stretch, think about your boundaries, Because vulnerability with boundaries, well, that's something and you're going to learn by experimentation. We rarely, if ever, know when we're being leaders. So you being in this experimentation, perhaps you have some people around you trusted humans or non-humans, more than humans, but you have a trusted support network to hold you in the beginning of this experiment. Maybe you give them some parameters, some boundaries, some requests to beam you energy. As you do the vulnerable things, you might be inspiring others, even in those small steps. Maybe that matters to you, maybe it doesn't.

Speaker 2: 7:24

Inside of the nervousness or we could call it self-consciousness, inside of that fear, that concern could be worth looking at. If you feel safe, or what is your relationship to a sense of safety and security right now, if the world is just swirling and moving beneath your feet and you don't have any solid ground, it might not be the time to stretch into your vulnerability online. You might need a little more rootedness, a little more groundedness. Maybe not, but it's something to consider. And there's a difference between safety or security, which mostly is just, can really just be an illusion. But if we honor that, those feelings of safety and security can be real, we also want to recognize that they are not the same thing as comfort. So you might be able to come from a place of safety and security in terms of your experimentation and your stretching and your vulnerability and your cultivating digital intimacy. You don't have to call it that, but to recognize that it might also make you feel uncomfortable, and discomfort is not the same as harm or lack of safety. Perhaps understanding for yourself the difference between those might help.

Speaker 2: 8:53

Also, I wish people talked about gay sex heaps more than they do. There's so much heteronormative biz on the interwebs. We are all up with the gay agenda here, so we'll tune in. Perhaps looking at your relationship to queerness, talking about it, does it feel scary to talk about it in new and different ways. Perhaps this is a question, then, to consider of who are your people? Remember what I said about being your truest self can open the doors to attract your truest people to you, because not everything is for everyone and not everyone is for everyone. You're amazing, luke, and you're not for everyone. So who do you want to be for? Think about your relationship to boundaries. Think about your relationship to perhaps having difficult conversations, to being uncomfortable, I think.

Speaker 2: 9:53

Finally, I just want to ask you, luke, are you willing to be messy, to perhaps get it wrong, to try and fall down on your face and get back up, to risk, and are you also willing to perhaps do it in a way that no one else around you has done it or doesn't, maybe you're creating something new. So remember that you can have this however you want it, and you don't have to do it all at once, little by little, then all of a sudden that's the only way it ever happens. You've got some difficult questions to ask yourself, perhaps some uncomfortable feelings to have, some difficult conversations to have with those parts of you that may be pulling back, even though another whole self and presence, part of you, wants to move forward and has these deep desires. Be in communication with those parts, love up on them, love them fiercely. They'll be your greatest allies if you let them Give yourself permission to try. Remember that nobody is for everybody and it's for the best and it's for the best, whether it's gay sex, radical politics, sheet pan recipes or whatever else.

Speaker 2: 11:21

Floats your boat, dear Luke. Bring your heart to it, bring your courage. Your people are always there waiting for you and if you, dear listener, resonated with anything from Luke's submission, send some loving energy his way. Luke, luke, luke, luke, luke, luke, luke, send it, send it, send it and feel free to send over your submission down in the dungeon answering machine. Just call 760-820-9070. That's 760-820-9070. We receive all submissions Crying in my jacuzzi. If you enjoyed what we did here today, go over to wherever it is that you are listening to this podcast and give us a rating as many stars as your heart desires. Five stars though theme music and other musical bits by the very talented kat otterson, sound design and editing by the effervescent rose blake long. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I look forward to playing with you more in my jacuzzi. That sounded dirtier than I meant it, but you know what I mean.