Being Genuine In A Picture-Perfect World

When it comes to being an empath and a very giving and good-hearted person in today's world, it can be very draining and difficult to keep afloat to help your community or audience. In episode 39 of MentorZ, Tima Elhajj talks about this concept with vulnerability and depth.

"Honestly the way I treat people ... I really focus on that encouragement and that support and that love."

All her life, Tima felt like she needed various forms of support from outside sources. This doesn't necessarily stem from her parents, but the idea of "If only I had _____ person's guidance " or "If only ______ could have mentored me in ______ field" made her think that she would have been stronger, faster, more cunning, anything in the field that she was currently working on.

In turn, and by her very nature early on, she has always wanted to be that form of support for other people.

"I just wanna be encouraging and supportive because we all need that wether we say we do or not. I just really focus on it because you don't know who doesn't have it and you could just be that person that, you can just give it to them that one moment, that one day, even if you never interact with them again that could just be that thing that always, always drives them and always pushes them. "

The blend of encouragement, a tender heart, and a soothing voice quickly sparked a unique personality and influencer online. Tima utilized LinkedIn, and overtime began seeing a large following as she kept spreading a positive message.

"This is how I see social media, I just see it as an extension of how we communicate in the real world. It's no different then to how we show up in the real world, and I really don't think you can fake it."

And if anyone here has tried it building a social media profile on any platform, creating a following takes hours and hours of dedication, creation, responding, and showing love and care to everyone that takes the time to look at your work.

Tima has an overwhelming presence of light and hope which she infuses into her work.

"I genuinely do care, I just have this thing where I want to instill hope in people, and think that’s a very sad place when you do lose hope, cause its that thing that keeps you going especially in those dark places if you're going through depression or anxiety or something terrible has happened in your life. And if you've lost hope, that's a very scary place to be in, and in my mind I just want people to keep feeling that beautiful sense of hope. I just think its what keeps us going as human beings and I just want to keep putting that forward every single time."

But as one can imagine, keeping up that image of always encouraging and being supportive can be quite draining. And Tima is quite vulnerable to the fact that she does not have it all together.

"I think when you are such a giver, you do loose energy sometimes because people expect and want more and more from you and that's a thing because you've set that trend... I wish I could just say, you know, I practice yoga every day and I meditate every day and I have my green juice, and it's not the truth. I'm gonna be real, I'm honest there are definitely days where I do, I feel exhausted... of course, I take care of myself. Can I take better care? one hundred percent, one-thousand percent I can but the reality is, you know, I don't know for me right now where there is any real sense of balance."

In life, balance, or at least trying to achieve balance, can become a game of compromise. For example, if I take time to focus on myself it will take time away from family or business. And if I spend time on business, it takes time away from myself and my family.

"If I'm doing this interview, I'm not doing something else and that's ok like I believe in that compromise"

Naturally, we only have 24 hours in a day, and we can only dedicate so much time to the biggest aspects of our lives. This can and will leave gaps, imbalances, and so on. But we as people like to paint a different picture.

"I don’t know if I really believe anyone, I don’t mean to be negative or pessimistic about it but that’s just the truth because like, sometimes I do, I’m like it is literally just me? Cause I know its not just me... we live in a world where, and I say this all the time, it’s so curated like a frozen moment in time. You see a picture or you see a video and even when people are trying to be real it still looks perfect... some people do look like they've figured it all out but then again they don't talk about all of the support that they have around them, you know, they've got their nannies or they've got their cleaners and people that make food for them and I just want to be honest with myself. "

In one way or another, we are all working to find balance in our lives, and it's hard to achieve unless you have more than a few helping hands along the way, whether that be physical chores or emotional challenges we need to overcome. But through it all, Tima shows us that when you gracefully give and work, you will receive.