Silence on The Air Waves
After a social media break, some reflection, a lot of integration, there's some news coming your way!
Where do I start after a four month hiatus?
Well, the beginning sounds good. After my last therapy session I felt it was time to stop examining every shadow within myself with a microscope and finally begin focusing on integrating and loving myself fully. You can read all the personal development books, listen to all the podcasts, learn alllll the things but if you don’t give yourself time to integrate it, what’s the point? You’ve just become a walking self help encyclopedia without any real wisdom to show for it. When people say, “do the work” (a term I hate, by the way) it also means, “slow down, digest, take a small step towards implementing in your own life, repeat.” So I took some small steps. I had the tools from therapy and the lessons I garnered from my plant medicine experiences. I was ready to accept where I was and simply live, be, breathe, sit, relish. These past four months have been so wonderful. I took a social media break too for just over six weeks and if that doesn’t slap you in the face with a some serious truths, I don’t know what will. Social media is a poison. It’s one you don’t even realize has seeped into your soul until you find yourself surprised an hour has passed since you started scrolling and you feel icky without really knowing why.
I decided to take a break after my eldest daughter told me she was upset that I had posted about her on my Instagram without her permission. What a kick in the gut. What I thought was funny and deserved a laugh, she saw as embarrassing and humiliating (if you’re on my IG, I’m referring to the Snake Incident of 2022). That was my first nudge towards leaving the platforms. The second came when I offered advice to someone over IG. I rarely comment or participate in discussions on socials because it’s not usually the place for it but in this circumstance, as a fertility coach, I felt I had the knowledge to help this woman get ahead with her health. I took her response to me as snarky and rude. It pissed me off. Actually, I was fuming mad. I thought to myself, “the ONE time I try to help someone I get this rude ass reply. WTF?” After an hour of replaying the conversation, I realized I was inferring her tone and her attitude. It was ME who was seeing something ugly in something that may not have been meant as ugly. My interpretations of things were becoming so twisted and divisive. Social media was making me ugly. It was time to go!
During my break I learned a few big lessons that you may take value from:
Like the country song goes, you find out who your friends are. When you aren’t linked in to socials, you miss out on a lot. People post anniversaries, create invitations, sell things, make announcements and you will miss these. It’s a little like out of sight is out of mind. You realize your Facebook friends aren’t really your “friends” and even your real friends may not be as invested in you as you are in them. (Which is okay, it’s just a realization that comes.) My phone is much quieter now. People don’t message me or text me nearly as much because I’m not initiating anymore. I noticed it was usually me making the effort with ‘friends’- texting, commenting, DMing, calling. When I got away from my phone, I got away from my friends. My circle significantly shrunk. I stopped saying, “I should check in with X and see how she’s doing” and started saying, “Kids, what adventure should we take today?”
Social media has infiltrated your life in ways you don’t even realize. I can’t tell you how many times I would pick up my phone, start scrolling through apps unconsciously and then stop and think, “why did I just do this? What am I looking for? Why did I pick this up?” The addiction is real and it doesn’t even feel like an addiction because we. are. all. doing. it. Look around on the bus, in the waiting room, in the restaurants. Everyone is scrolling! My phone would give fake rings or pings and I’d run for it (because your phone actually does this to keep you on it!) I was Pavlov’s dog. The need to check in was rooted in something deep: The need for acceptance, validation, community and most likely, all of the above! Did someone comment, like, share? Did I miss something happening in someone’s world that I found interesting? What’s going on with A and B? Did C have her baby? It’s an addiction to the “Know” and an addiction to the dopamine, each like a little hit of dope-amine. Kicking it was hard. Hell, I’m still fighting it.
You don’t need social media like you think you need social media. As a writer and blogger I would continually say, “I need socials. I need to build my following.”Dare I ask what writers did before Facebook? Similarly, what if I needed Marketplace to buy something? What if I missed someone’s invitation? A birth announcement? A big move at work for someone? After a couple of weeks of socials, I didn’t worry about this anymore. I was too busy living my own damn life. I had exponentially more time with friends, with my kids, with my husband, with myself especially. If I wanted to find something to buy I went to Kijiji. Or asked someone to keep an eye out on Marketplace for me. I began to forget about Facebook and Instagram and although sometimes I did wonder what certain people were doing, I knew it would only cause envy so I’d distract myself. You absolutely do not need social media for anything. Not for sharing pictures with family in another place, not for buying things on Marketplace, not for staying in the loop of your closest 683 “friends”, not for building a following for a career, not for anything.
With all this being said, I’ve got all my kids in school or daycare this fall so I’m going to finally, fiiiiinally write that book I’ve been dreaming about since I was a kid. I’ll share snippets here as I go along, you know, like little Sips of something really delicious (insert winky face). I won’t be sharing Sips on socials anymore after this one because I’m heading back into Life Without Socials so be sure to tell all your Facebook “friends” that they’re going to want to be along for this ride and to subscribe for weekly inbox delivery.