Last week I decided to listen to a whisper that had been getting louder inside, that constantly posting on social media was doing me NO good.
I needed a break; so I declared a moon cycle away from the apps on my phone and after going through the conversation in my mind of fear stories I knew it was time. I didn’t want to enter this new decade with something so heavy hanging over my heart.
My reasons? I’d been noticing my actions were stunted or swayed by social media, some may think that’s extremely weak of me, that I shouldn‘t care, but honestly I did. We’d do something as a family and if I didn’t feel it fitted in with what is seen to be a yogic way of life, I wouldn‘t post, I didn’t want to be judged or miss understood. I also was constantly thinking about what too post, we’re told as self employed service givers that we “must” keep posting, that we “have to be seen”, and I get that, but what it means in reality is that’s you never truly switch off, even the days that you have “off” you’re really switched on, always thinking about what to write, getting a good picture and checking the comments.
Some people are capable of saying they only go on for 15 mins a day at a certain time, but what I know about myself is I’m an all or nothing kinda girl, I can’t eat one small piece of chocolate a day, I have to eat the whole bar or declare I’m not eating chocolate at all and I’m the same with social media I’m either all in, or all out.
I also have a pretty strange idea of actually how much time I have in any given day and find I come up with wild schemes to post and go live so often that I’m scrambling around trying to get a spare moment! Not good.
But most of all, I’ve been struggling with the feeling of overwhelm for a while, sleepless nights and being a new mum has meant for the first time my usual ability to stay on has felt strained beyond belief and what I can normally do has felt even more of a struggle.
I committed to slowing down in November and as the slowing has really taken hold it has given me time to really notice when things feel good and when they don’t. The constant pressure of social media and posting, a pressure I totally wasn’t aware of before was definitely not feeling good.
And the final thing that caused me to jump ship and take some time, a comment from my mum, that it’s so engrained in us that we don’t even know what it’s doing to us anymore. From someone who doesn’t buy into the social media generation, it’s easy to see that she sees a different side to it, and the side she sees is an ugly side.
Social media has been great for me, without it I wouldn’t have a business, so this isn’t me rubbishing it, but it’s me saying, check in, see how you feel, can you do it differently? Are you just doing something because everyone else is? Is that thing causing you to make decisions that aren’t really your own? Could it be time to take a break?
