On April 20, 2019, I started posting information about Adverse Childhood Experiences on my social media accounts – primarily Instagram.
On March 22, 2020, I started adding posts centered on Bible verses which I found meaningful, helpful, and insightful to my personal and spiritual life. I saw it as an addition to what I was doing, not a pivot to something new.
Then, on August 17, 2020, I started adding some thoughts to each of the Bible-centered posts. Most of them made only implicit reference to the verse, but each of them addressed what I thought was a practical application of the verse. I had hoped that my daily posts were (and still are) inspirational and helpful.
And then a good friend asked me not long ago why I was mixing both “secular” and “sacred” on my social media. It was a good question and came in response to my lamenting that I wasn’t receiving quite the traction in my business which I had hoped for in 2020 (COVID not withstanding).
He said, “Donald Miller [of the StoryBrand framework] makes a good point — ‘if you confuse, you lose’ and that may be the case for you in 2020. Don't get me wrong, I support your doing what you believe in... but I also see a mixed message when I see your posts about faith and biblical references and then see your posts about trauma-informed leadership.”
Yeah. He was right. Good point.
And then I thought about what another good friend often said about me when we worked together, “You’re just a little bit different.”
Maybe I am different. Maybe I don’t hold to the conventional wisdom of how social media is supposed to work. Maybe I don’t write blog articles the way they should be written. Maybe I’m not growing my business the right way because I continue to send mixed messages. Maybe I won’t be successful.
Then again, maybe I need to lean in harder and be more explicit in the connection that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and childhood trauma. Maybe I need to focus not only on our physical and mental well-being, but also on our spiritual well-being.
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Chris
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