How to leverage social media as a therapist with Hayden Dawes
My interview guest this week is Hayden Dawes, LCSW, LCAS. Hayden is a researcher, therapist, and speaker currently working on his Ph.D. from the UNC School of Social Work.
He is on a mission to seek solutions to the behavioral health inequities and social problems that exist in today's society, especially those challenges faced by people of color and LGBTQIA+ identified populations.
I spoke to Hayden about how he leverages social media as a therapist to build his personal brand. Enjoy!
How do you leverage social media as a therapist?
Traditionally, academia and psychotherapy are not places where we think about social media or a public presence. It’s a long game for me. I want to publish a book someday. When I do, who are the people who are going to support me and the work?
It’s not about how big my audience is, it’s about the depth of the relationships I have with my followers. I wrote an invitation to white therapists last year where I explained people often don’t trust their preachers. People don’t trust institutions in their lives. The really big influencers of our modern day culture are therapists. How do I see my role of therapist going beyond the consulting room?
As a therapist, how do I leverage my community of followers to change and shape our culture? If Brene Brown, as a social worker, can raise the collective consciousness of how shame is so pervasive, then I can do the same for the challenges faced by people of color and LGBTQIA+ identified populations.
What does it mean to create authentic relationships online?
Building authentic relationships and being influential is all about being vulnerable and showing who you really are. My pettiness on social media is part of my humanness. Because having a shady and petty side is what makes me, me—of course, I’m not a brute about it.
If anything, we need more authenticity in all of our spaces, online, or not. I’ve also come to realize that authenticity doesn’t mean disclosure. I don’t share every detail of my personal life, but I am myself and people seem to resonate with that.
People feel connected to me even if they don’t engage with me on social media. Marketing can feel like this really big endeavor, but one small gesture can give people a sense of security and trust. As humans, we have to operate from a secure base, and that secure base can be a daily email newsletter or post on social media. Don’t underestimate the power of showing up and being there every day.
What’s #RadicalPermission?
Back in 2018, I decided to write a permission slip to myself every morning for 100 straight days and call it #My100Days. Every morning, I would ask myself, “What is it that I’m needing today? Is there something to feel? Is there an action to take?” To hold myself accountable, I took a picture and posted it on my Instagram.
When COVID hit in 2020, I felt like my world was getting smaller. I thought, “What if I shared my practice with people?” For 14 days, I invited people on Instagram to do it along with me. I had them tag me and tag a friend and it spread. Then complete strangers were telling me how transformative that one moment was to them every day. My follower count went up and so did my sense of community.
I continue the practice today on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #RadicalPermission. If I give myself permission, it gives you permission to give yourself permission. It makes all of us a little bit braver.
What does being a compassion warrior mean to you?
On the surface, compassion might be viewed as weak or soft. It is anything but those things. Compassion literally means “ to suffer together.” To be a compassion warrior means you’re willing to head into the world’s pains to help alleviate them. It also means you’re taking your place next to other aspiring compassion warriors of the past, present, and future who have tried and are trying to do the same.