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An excerpt from Stop Checking Your Likes 
by Susie Moore

Now more than ever, we as a society are addicted to our phones. Even more so, we are addicted to getting “likes” on our social media posts — and it can work like an actual addiction in our brain chemistry, activating the ventral striatum part of our brains, which is the same area that lights up when we gamble, enjoy a slice of cake, or have sex. This helps explain why it is so easy to base our happiness and self-esteem on how many “likes” we get. But as so many of us know, getting love and approval from outside of ourselves is fleeting and soon we are picking up our phones again, searching for more approval. Author, life coach, and startup advisor Susie Moore is asking us to break free of the outside approval trap in favor of nourishing and loving ourselves. Stop Checking Your Likes: Shake Off the Need for Approval and Live an Incredible Life is not a self-help book, but a “sanity book,” showing a way out of the maze of likes and thumbs up, and showing the way back to ourselves.

We hope you enjoy this excerpt from the book.

Missing. It’s a good word. Too often, our brains skip over the idea that something is missing and just recognize something as being plain wrong instead. This keeps us stuck — and often in despair. As a result, “What’s missing?” is one of my favorite coaching questions to ask almost anyone.

Once I was coaching a lawyer named Elle who made great money and who seemed to have a nice family and a great life overall. She told me she was on antidepressants and couldn’t figure out why she felt so dissatisfied. Everything was “good enough,” so she felt guilty about her lack of joy. I asked, as most therapists and coaches would, “Well, what’s feels wrong? Or off  ? When did this all begin?”

When a doctor can’t identify an illness, they often will classify it as stress or depression. And then we leave the doctor’s office with prescriptions for drugs we don’t necessarily want or that aren’t genuinely a good fit for us. When I hear about this, it often reminds me of the words of the late dancer and musician Gabrielle Roth: “In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions:
When did you stop dancing?
When did you stop singing?
When did you stop being enchanted by stories?
When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?”

For my client Elle, friends were missing. As part of the sandwich generation — taking care of her aging parents and her kids plus holding down a demanding job — she rarely saw her friends. Seeing friends regularly is a proven way to boost our spirits, lower cortisol, and even ease hypertension.

Just making the effort to reconnect with her girlfriends over sushi (or even a forty-five-minute glass of wine after work when that’s all she could squeeze into the calendar) lifted her up so much that her husband now encourages her to do it regularly. He sees a marked difference in her when she spends time with the women she loves. “They bring her back to herself,” he says.

That Missing Piece
On the path to satisfying your deep, personal desires — when things go wrong or feel off (and they will) — you can always ask, not what’s wrong, but what’s missing. I read this statement a long time ago, and it’s stuck with me ever since because it applies to nearly every problem.

When we think about what’s wrong, we panic. When we think about what’s missing, however, we become creative! It opens us up. We don’t have a stress response but a loving, open, innovative, even inventive response.

It’s a question that addresses the same issues — but with way more success. Do you see the giant distinction here? When my mom was fifty-five, she went to college to earn her diploma in childhood education. She had been a math teacher in Poland before she moved to England, and she missed working with children. But with English as her second language, and a strong Polish accent, she wasn’t confident enough to be a teacher in a new country. The woman earned a master’s degree from the University of Warsaw, which was almost impossible, especially for a woman, during the Communist regime after Hitler’s war.

After the years passed and her five daughters grew up, she went back to school. In an earlier chapter, I mentioned that these days, in her late seventies, she still works as a volunteer three days a week at a local school, where they call her Granny. But I didn’t mention that to get there, she had to get a whole new diploma in England in order to start working again and do what she loves. She encouraged the younger teachers, and as a woman living on her own, she cherished the connection to the community her job gave her, as well as the great contentment.

I respect this woman so much for knowing what was missing and having the courage — at age fifty-five — to join a classroom full of women less than half her age so she could pursue what she really wanted. She addressed what was missing. And it’s been paying off ever since.

When I felt down for a period in my adult life, I forgot to ask myself this question. I kept thinking instead, What’s wrong with me? I’d sit in my office during conference calls, gazing out the window at the New York City skyscrapers, and I’d constantly think, Is this all there is? The big buildings all around me felt like they were making it all worse — a ruthless reminder of other people’s manifestation of their big dreams, while I was listening to cheesy jazz on-hold music waiting for someone who was late (again).

One morning when I was at my corporate job in one of my on-rotation pencil skirts, I was sitting in my freezing office. Doused in artificial light as usual, I numbed my boredom by scouring Pinterest. I saw a pin that struck me, a quote from Mary Oliver: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

“Not this!” my soul screamed.

It was time to fill the hole left by what was missing. Deep down, I knew. I loved to write, and I loved to help other people work out their personal problems. These two skills came naturally to me, but these parts of myself were not active in my job at all. And so it began: my side hustle as a life coach and writer. It marked the true start of the rest of my life. There was a gaping hole in making what’s become my life’s work a reality, and I had to fill it. Overnight, after I signed up for life coaching classes at New York University, I felt different. Let’s not overthink this. What’s missing can be found. It’s willing and waiting and wanting to be found. And fast. But no one else can help you harness your inner desires, because no one can feel them but you.

Remembering that you don’t need anyone else’s approval (and that no one else knows what they’re doing either!), answer this one question:

What’s missing, my friend?
So you don’t love your career — what’s missing?
So your relationship’s in a rut — what’s missing?
So you want to be closer with your distant sibling — what’s missing?
So you don’t feel energized most days — what’s missing?
So you feel life is passing you by versus really being lived by you — what’s missing?

I want to stress that this doesn’t have to be super serious or significant. You don’t have to start a side hustle or a charity, or save the world. As with Elle, the solution can be as simple as one night out a week with a pal.

Being in Harmony with Your Needs
Remember this truth: how you spend your days is a direct, honest reflection of your truest priorities. There are no exceptions to this.

Because finally taking that trip to France, making amends with a relative after years of conflict, or even enjoying a simple glass of Chardonnay with an uplifting friend on a Tuesday night might be the remedy that you need. And you want to be in harmony with your needs, not at war with them. Happiness cannot exist without harmony.

Doing new, hard things, from launching a business to stretching your body physically, is even easier when you can ask yourself this question:

Where’s the pressure for me to be perfect out of the gate at this new thing?

In. Your. Head.

I’m willing to be bad at rock-climbing, among other things — and have a blast nonetheless. Because it’s no one’s job to be good at everything. So you can resign from being perfect at any endeavor right now. Phew. You can relax! There’s nothing to prove. Remember, life is to be enjoyed, not endured.

Think for a moment: What is something you’re willing to be bad at? And why might that be good for you? Trying something new is good in and of itself, and while that particular thing may not be what’s missing in your life (rock-climbing in particular wasn’t necessarily missing from mine), it’s the fact that you’re trying something, stretching yourself, getting out of your comfort zone, and opening yourself up to finding what’s missing that matters. And that’s what doing something fun and new and challenging like going rock-climbing (if you’re not normally someone who does that!) can bring to you. Right now I’m psyched to have more nature and physical beauty as a part of my world.

Whatever you decide to try, doing your best is enough. And don’t let the world (or social media) fool you into thinking that fame, fortune, and the adoration of others is the answer to what’s missing. If that were true, rich and famous people would never kill themselves, when sadly, suicide is more common among celebrities than it is among many other populations.

So let’s relax into it, okay? This life thing is meant to be full and fun. The next time you don’t feel great, or you feel plain restless, ask yourself the delicious, curious question: What’s missing?

Think about it. Needy, unhappy, draining people rarely have questions. Because there’s no curiosity there! That’s not you. You have needs, yes, because you’re a human, but you’re not “needy” — because you don’t just want to complain about your needs. You’re curious and open and willing to satisfy them. That’s why you’re reading this book.

Remember, curiosity fuels wisdom. Even our sockless friend Albert Einstein said, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

There’s no pressure. The answers will present themselves when they’re met halfway with your willingness. Stop searching for a problem. When you search for problems, you’ll find one (or several) just because our brains like finding answers. Do yourself the favor of a lifetime and locate what’s missing instead. It’s a fun space to be filled as opposed to something terrible to be fixed. Then see what happens!

Because the authority in your life always knows how to fill that space once you pass her the mic. So pick it up, will ya?

Check this:
Complete the “What’s Missing for Me?” exercise. Freewrite!
Keep asking yourself, “What else?” Keep going until you’ve written it all out.
Take a few breaths, and review your list.
Take action on one thing this week that’s missing for you. And another the following. Journal on your emotions after taking the action and notice what arrives for you.
Let it be fun (and easy).

Susie Moore is the author of Stop Checking Your Likes and What If It Does Work Out? which was named by Entrepreneur as one of the “8 Business Books Entrepreneurs Must Read to Dominate Their Industry.” A former Silicon Valley sales director turned life coach, she has been featured on The Today Show, as well as in O Magazine, Business Insider, Forbes, Time, and Marie Claire. She lives in Miami, Florida with her husband Heath and their Yorkshire Terrier, Coconut. Find out more about her work at www.Susie-Moore.com.

Excerpted from the book Stop Checking Your Likes. Copyright ©2020 by Susie Moore. Printed with permission from New World Library.

A week ago while visiting my husband's mom in Virginia, a strange thing happened to me. On this particular evening I was reading the book "Phenomenon" by Sylvia Brown, and was about to turn in for the night. I bookmarked my page and noticed the next chapter was entitled "Astral Travel." Though I was excited to read about it, I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I went to bed thinking I would read it the next day. I drifted off to sleep in a matter of minutes, and then suddenly I felt myself leaving my body. (I felt sort of half awake at this point). It began with my hand and arm leaving my body, and then it was as if I was moving at a thousand miles an hour in a black, swirling hole. It scared me! Then Slam! I felt as if I was thrown back into my body with a great force. I woke up frightened and unsure about what had really happened. Was I dreaming because of the book I was reading, or did I actually have an experience where "my body" caught my spirit leaving and then freaked out? Any thoughts or advice would be really helpful. My date of birth: 6-4-70 - Karen

Dreamchaser:

Over the years, I have mentioned this very subject over and over in this column. I am glad to talk about it again, however, because it happens so frequently to people.

When we go to sleep, our soul leaves our body and goes to where it most needs to be in order to fix whatever happened today and prepare for tomorrow. Sometimes it works very hard, and sometimes it just plays by itself or with other souls.

Dreams, by the way, are the journeys that our souls go on every night. Sometimes we remember our soul work, and sometimes we don't. Either way, our souls DO leave and travel and learn every single time we are asleep. Scientists have yet to prove why our bodies need sleep; it's because our souls must have time to do their work when our human mind is not in the way.

What happened in your case was that your mind was not fully asleep yet. Your logical, human mind was still relatively conscious of what was going on around you. When your soul lifted off, your human mind was aware of it.

Usually our souls wait until REM or deep sleep to lift off. When your soul realized that your mind was still active, it jumped back into your body. That was the SLAM you felt. When you woke up, your human mind was searching for a "logical" explanation as to what had just happened.

This can also work in reverse, by the way. Our souls can wake our bodies sometimes before our minds kick into gear. Have you ever woken up and not known who you were, where you were, what was going on, etc.? Then it took a little while for you to shake out the "cobwebs" and come back to reality? That is when your soul pops back in before your human mind is awake, clear and ready to be cognizant of what is happening.

Your mind was running on high gear because you had been reading new information. You were learning and growing and evolving, and it was exciting for your mind to filter into your soul and back up. The cycle was working, but you were too tired to stay awake and read more.

Your human mind was ready and wanting to learn about astral travel. Your soul was saying, "Go to sleep so we can integrate what you have already learned." Part of you was ready to sleep and part of you was ready for more exploration. The two were running on conflicting schedules, and you caught it happening. So in a way, the book caused this, but it happens on a nightly basis anyway. Because you were conscious, you just happened to catch it happening this time!

You can learn how to astral travel while you are awake. Keep reading! I wish you many more conscious experiences with astral travel!

*****

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.