18+ Restriction to Facebook?

Is social media inappropriate for teens today? This question was raised around a dinner I went to last night. I nearly fell off my chair and died when many of the others there had damned platforms such as Facebook and Twitter unsuitable for teenagers today.

Social media can be an amazing way to connect & reconnect with others, find new opportunities and keep up to date with current happenings. However there is a certain protocol one follows when setting up a profile and making sure it is a clean, appropriate space for people to connect with you. For example, using last nights 1am photo in the club as your LinkedIn profile picture probably isn't going to get you many job offers (except in a bar).

But are these tips being passed down to the next generation to utilize or are parents sticking there heads in the sand deeming these methods of communication unsuitable?

Would love to know your thoughts on the matter & what you've done to ensure your teen uses social media to the best of their ability.

Empowering thoughts - Gratitude

Previously I had promised you a blog on empowering thoughts. There are many thoughts that are powerful, one being thoughts of gratitude. Gratitude is the key to our hearts. With gratitude we open up ourselves to feel love for who we are and what we already have. Without gratitude for where we already are in life, we can never move forward, because we are then in fact resisting our own being, our life, our journey. Being grateful creates a spiral upwards, where the more you are grateful in your life today, the more you will attract/draw to yourself to be grateful for tomorrow.

I’d recently completed a gratitude challenge on facebook. The challenge was to post five things I was grateful for in a day for 1 week. I could not repeat a gratitude and it had to be something I truly felt grateful for. This has been a big learning experience for me and I’ve gotten so much out of it. On the first couple of days, I had posted the things that I was usually grateful for, my families health, the support around me & the opportunities that present themselves. After these first couple of days, I had to start really thinking about what I was grateful for outside my general spectrum. Things that came to mind were things I hadn’t really considered before, like the music that puts me in a great state of mind, for time and that I have clean air and water. It made me realise there are so many things in life that just work out I had been taking for granted.

Also, I learned a lot about the people around me. When I was expressing gratitude, it made the space for others to step up and do the same. The change we can inspire in others is powerful and this is just one example of that.

I put you all to the gratitude challenge! So tell me, what have been your wins out of expressing gratitude?