Social Media Break
Today marks halfway through my 2 month social media break…wild right?
I don't know about your relationship with social media First name / friend but if social media and I went to therapy we would be in an anxiously attached relationship(IYKYK). 🤪
I knew that things with my relationship with social media needed to be recalibrated when I was scrolling whenever I had free time, going to the bathroom, or when I got bored. I started thinking, "WTF?" When I started using social media for my business, I began by sharing my story on social media and building my personal brand. I went to school for marketing, so I knew that I could do this, and as I started to dive even deeper into social media, the more I LOVED it.
Isn’t it ironic how the things that we know we need to change in our life are often the hardest things to give up? For me, I always know the thing that needs to shift, but over my time doing my own healing work, I have found that this is a sign of being in freeze mode. Is that my body gets stuck in freeze, and I have to do things to mobilize so that I can feel empowered to make that next step. Because so often freeze for me has become a home base, a safe place. It is a place where I have lived most of my life, and if I stay there for too long, I then go into self-shaming.
What prompted my social media break is that I was talking with one of my best gals, Ashley, and she mentioned that she was getting off social media. I didn’t really ask her a lot about it because I immediately dismissed that there was no way I could do that; I mean, I run an online business, so how could I take a break from posting (hi-limiting belief). But every time that I spoke to her, and she was giving me an update on her life, this piece around her getting off social media came up. I finally asked her, okay, how did this come about? And she said, "I listened to this podcast, and I felt convicted to take some time away." I reluctantly asked her to send me the link to the episode which she graciously did immediately.
I started listening to the podcast Ash sent, and my heart felt a HUGE amount of relief; okay, so this is a thing.
The part that got me was that this lady that was being interviewed was in trauma recovery as a therapist, and she started seeing all of her clients come in with signs of PTSD without having what psychology would call a Big T trauma. She went on to talk about all the things around social media and its impact on our mental health. One of the statistics that she mentioned is around the Boston Marathon Bombing. She said that they researched the people that were there vs. the ones that watched the marathon and the tragic events that followed. That the ones that watched the marathon had greater signs of PTSD than the ones that were in the event. She goes on to explain that the reason why is because when you are in a traumatic event, your body has a rush of hormones like adrenaline that make you act, aka run aka flight. Right? So when you are watching these events on your phone, you still get the same hormones that take place as if you were there in real life, but you don’t have any place for those hormones to go, aka you don’t get off the couch and run when you see the thing on IG.
As I was listening to this podcast, everything started to click, and I thought okay Ali, you can do this for 2 months to reset and see what happens to your body, nervous system, mind, etc., and here are the top things that I have noticed:
1.) The first 2 weeks were the hardest, every-time I wanted to distract myself I would reach for my phone. It was a subconscious reflex that after I would reach for my phone I would be like why do I need this?
2.) I feel like I am getting my brain back. What I mean by that is that there is so much more room for my own thoughts to come through.I have felt like I can actually think and work through things without constant task switching. Being on social media is influential to how you think. I learned that right now we are getting the same amount of information we would get in a week in the 50’s that we get in a day. That is a lot to process and your subconscious holds onto all of that even if you are not actively thinking about it.
3.) I have more room for deeper connections. My number one thing in life is to do the deep work every damn day and show up as the best version of myself. Getting off social media has freed up more space for me to create deeper relationships for my husband and our family, my clients and my friends.
4.) I have more space to create. I love creating events, community, and content that helps others feel less alone. I grew up with a creative, my mom, as an interior designer so I have lived the creative process. I would watch her day in and day out on creating living spaces for her clients, and what I witnessed a lot is needing space to let your ideas come to life. This time has allowed me to take these ideas that have been on my vision board for my business and bring them to life for you. I am so excited to share more soon.
5.) It’s allowed me to stop focusing on me. Y’ALL (yes I just used Y’ALL) but social media is not social. It feels like the new age keeping up with the Jones' and while that might be controversial because I am also on social media posting branded photos I just want you to know that you only see 10% of my life and most people’s lives on social media.
On that note, when people share every single thing that happens in their day it is called trauma dumping and it is not healthy. There are a lot of narcissistic tendencies (tendencies this is not to say these people are narcissistic because that is a STRONG word) that show up on social media that are treated as normal and I am here to say they are not. There is a difference between working through something offline and then when you have enough time and space sharing that when it is appropriate v. sharing in real time as you are processing. This is not to shame anyone that has done this because hi, I have done this too. But we cannot change things that we are not conscious of.
P.s. I listened to Jenny Wise Black (the guest on 3 different podcasts and she also has her own podcast if you are interested in listening.
Shrink Chicks Podcast, listen here. (mentioned above)
Off the Vine w/Kaitlyn Bristowe, here.
Motherhood Meets Medicine, here. (FOR ALL THE MAMAS)
Okay that is all for now!
