Amelia Knott

I think what makes it especially cringy is, you know, a lot of us use the internet as a place to individuate, as a place to try on new identities or new perspectives or new ways of communicating.

You know, maybe it's different from our families or the place we grew up.

I think digital spaces...

for many of us, and this can be a good thing, become potentially safe or, you know, the accessible places we have to experiment with new identity.

So I think that's developmentally appropriate given when we may have joined social media, but it does leave us with this massive archive of maybe daily images or daily evidence of what we were experimenting with.

I mean, I think it's really challenging.

It's hard at the best of times to be confronted with who we've been in the past.

It's hard...

to watch ourselves grappling with new ideas or trying something on.

Like it's vulnerable to be seen trying.

Maybe that's the important thing.

It's vulnerable to be seen trying something new and to do that in such an exposed way is so vulnerable.

Oh, I know it's kind of annoying for therapists to say, you know, try to have some empathy for yourself, try to offer yourself grace.

But I think one way to do that is getting curious.

Like if it's really bothering you, it might be useful to like have a conversation or journal questions like what was going on in 2011?

Like what was happening in my life?

What was happening in the world?

What was I trying to tell people about myself or what need was I trying to get met?

If I look at my travel blog through that lens, I might be able to be a bit more gentle with myself.

Maybe I was trying to have a different identity from the person I was when I was young and trying to be known for something different.