Joni the FaceLift Facialist

I’ve been thinking a lot about what actually makes someone feel authentic online.

And I don’t think it has much to do with confidence, knowing what to post or even being comfortable with what other people think of you.

I think it comes down to how much of yourself you’ve actually learned to own.

Because authenticity isn’t about sharing everything or giving everyone access to you.

It’s about being able to own all of you. The person you were, the person you are and the person you’re becoming.

You don’t have to share it all.

But you do have to belong to all of it.

I wrote more about this on Substack ↓

Stop Waiting to Become Someone Worth being Seen Authenticity isn’t about how much of yourself you share. It’s about how much of yourself you’re willing to own.

I think we need to humanise successful people.

We’ve started looking at people who achieve extraordinary things and assuming they must be more motivated, disciplined, evolved, regulated or somehow more fu***ng together than the rest of us.

They’re not.

Success has ebbs and flows. So do confidence, capacity, creativity and motivation.

Maybe we’d compare ourselves less if we remembered the people we’re comparing ourselves to are human too.

You can achieve extraordinary things and still have ordinary days.

Both can be true.

I’ve spent some time sitting back and observing Instagram instead of constantly contributing to it, and after reappearing over the last 24 hours, I realised something.

Everyone seems fu***ng exhausted.

There’s this race to be seen, heard and relevant amongst millions of other people trying to do exactly the same thing, and I think it’s doing something to us.

We’re becoming quicker to defend, quicker to assume intent, quicker to turn someone else’s perspective into a threat to our own and increasingly unable to disagree without making it personal.

Somewhere between feeding the algorithm, building authority and trying to stay visible, I think we’ve forgotten what we actually came here to say.

So I wrote about it.

Instagram needs a nervous system reset.

Not because we need to agree with each other. F**k that. Different opinions, perspectives and conversations are what make a creative space interesting.

But surely we can disagree without needing to destroy each other in the process.

Maybe the internet doesn’t need us to speak louder.

Maybe it needs us to feel safe enough to listen again.

I’m hanging out a lot more over on Substack these days, sharing my opinions and musings because, unlike Instagram, you don’t seem to get prosecuted for having an opinion over there. You actually get celebrated for having one.

So if you like reading the thoughts that fall out of my head when I’m left unsupervised, come and join me over there. 😂

As much as I’m meant to be on sabbatical, taking time away from being the creator has put me in more of an observer position.

And apparently, I can’t stay quiet about what I’m seeing. 😂

So I’m opening the conversation.

What concerns you about where the beauty industry is heading? What have we normalised that you think needs questioning?

Tell me below. And share this if you think it’s a conversation our industry needs to be having.

The Fish Rots From the Head Down.

My latest Substack is about the responsibility of educators, the discernment of practitioners, and one question I think our industry desperately needs to ask:

Are we treating women’s insecurities, or are we creating them?

jonihodsonilias.substack.com