A year off social media part 2
No longer thinking in instagram captions:: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED On NOVEMBER 14th 2023
Hello dear soft heart,
This is part 2 of my year off social media series. To get the context, you can read part 1 here.
Okay, so where were we?
Ah yes…back in 2020, Instagram was the only social media account I had left to my name. I had deleted my Twitter account and my Facebook one too. I had no other platforms like Snapchat or Linkedin and had yet to officially decide I would not use Tiktok when it became super popular when the pandemic hit.
I knew I wanted to use Instagram to market three launches that year (this was my pre pandemic business plan at the beginning of the year). I wanted to fill my 3 signature group coaching programs with students who were keen to do some holistic trauma resolution work- my group coaching programs; nervous system health mastery, a journey to pleasure and claim your value helped us do this. I also knew I wanted to write my memoir - what came to be my 2022 book Can You Turn The Lights Off?, at some point during the following year. I knew for this, I would have to step away from my daily Instagram presence around content to focus on my writing project.
More than all of this, something else was becoming increasingly clear: I knew I was extremely tired. Instagram for me was a way for me to overwork and it completely enabled and supported my workaholism.
Since I would post daily on there at the time, I ended up with thousands of stories in my archive where I was giving away free resources, education, etc. And I had hundreds of posts filled with self-help encouragement or rhetoric. Instagram was a life coach’s dream during this time. Sadly, as most of us realized soon enough, we did not own any of our content that we could spend hours making, posting and interacting with on a weekly basis. We also didn’t own any sort of list of our followers data wise. We were at risk of getting shadow banned (which meant your posts wouldn’t be prioritized in the algorithm so most your followers would not see your posts) if we used certain words like p*triarchy (still used to making a letter a * in the word to avoid such thing).
Me in my instagram uniform - Beachy natural hair, red lipstick. It actually was apart of my branding; the red lipstick; the laid back beach girl style, a bit boho, but also a bit classic french. One huge thing about not being on social media for me: the selfie urge disappeared. & I never think of branding anymore.
^ She’s a laid back beach gurl~ (with diagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder)
When I was thinking of leaving my daily posting on Instagram to focus writing on my book, it felt like such a huge lifestyle change, that the intensity of it surprised me.
I noticed that I felt like Instagram was the only reason I was surviving. And I felt like I had to be on 24/7 in order to get my needs met - and I mean this literally, I thought I’d have no money to pay rent, buy food, run my car, if I was not on instagram all the time doing this daily presence and posting thing. I for sure believed that I would die without Instagram.
This felt pretty intense even for me, even as I was the one with the distorted thinking rambling through my thoughts about this. And so…
I got curious.
Me, at Tiny Beach, Ontario. This photo is from the first months of my cold turkey withdrawal from ativan. Since I felt that my survival was in jeopardy without being on instagram, I felt pressure to keep needing to find the positives of life at the time and tried showing off the good times on the ‘gram as much as possible. What immense pressure!
Okay, it feels disproportionate that I feel like I will die without a social media app/ platform, what is going on?
I started realizing that because I became a workaholic as a hyper response to not having my needs met properly in development, this was about deep survival stuff for me, which Instagram was implicated with as it was my main marketing avenue and a main way I found belonging in the world.
I knew that when a need is not met in development, we start to develop stress responses to try to meet this need - typically, we develop hyper or hypo ways of responding to the unmet need. My need for safety and protection was not met in childhood and I developed very hyper responses to meet this need. The largest hyper response for me was to work all the time to make sure I had enough money so that I could be and maybe even more importantly, feel safe and protected.
So to me, not working, and also not overworking, meant that I was not going to be able to meet my needs for safety and protection. It was coupled like that in my nervous system.
That is terrifying.
So I came to realize: welp, this is not just about Instagram. My relationship with Instagram is simply just revealing to me something that is alive inside of me.
So orienting to that…
I first had to challenge untrue beliefs. Yes, I thought I would die, literally starve to death or freeze to death eventually, without Instagram, but that wasn’t true. Yes, I thought I would die if I was not a workaholic. But that also wasn’t true. My thoughts, worldview and my emotion(s) that were understandably fabricated and stemming from my trauma felt like truth.
But they weren’t necessarily true.
When dealing with pretty significant trauma things though, I wasn’t going to just white knuckle my way through and be like, heyo, it’s not true!! So get on with it!!
It wasn’t empathetic enough to the trauma and how it impacted me to say, well obviously there are a bunch of ways to make money that involve not overworking or even being on Instagram, so relax, why don’t you?
Me, fully participating in the work from anywhere (and especially in beautiful places) entrepreneur trend on instagram. It was in the culture of entrepreneurship to go live in places in Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean and in Indonesia (think Bali vibes) at the time and work there set against a tropical background usually wearing some sort of athleisure wear.
I had to go slow with my nervous system and show it slowly but surely (titration), that I was not going to die if I wasn’t a workaholic. Which then meant, I wasn’t going to die if I wasn’t daily posting on Instagram.
Because this was hard, what I had to make sure I didn’t fall prey to was avoiding engaging with this process.
First, I told myself, I am not a workaholic. I just have a passion. I have a purpose. I just love what I do, it makes me happy!
Then I considered some definitions, here’s one I got:
A workaholic is a person who works compulsively. A workaholic experiences an inability to limit the amount of time they spend on work despite negative consequences such as damage to their relationships or health.
Okay, so yes, averaging 12 hours on screens per day between my laptop, my monitor, my phone, was actually creating consequences such as damage to my health, and also… harder to admit, but to my relationships too - especially the one with myself. I had no hobbies beyond work. And every interest I did have, I somehow found a way to relate it back to my business. 12 hours times 7 days per week is 84 hours. There are 168 hours in one week. I spent half of them working.
I had to go slow, but I had to move forward still. I couldn’t just go oh damn, this is so scary and you don’t have to push yourself at all because it is so difficult.
There was a healthy medium between gentleness and also between being called to engage. Basically, I was acknowledging the pain I lived from my unmet needs and what it had led me to. However, I was not forcing myself to take responsibility for my pain, because I didn’t cause my initial wounding that led me to maladaptive ways of coping. I did deserve better. I deserved things like a consistently safe and non abusive home when I was growing up, secure attachment, emotional attunement, resources both physical and financial to help me meet my needs, etc. That’s a given. That is, what I believe, a baseline for every child. But what I was taking responsibility for though in this process was my desire to heal. It was my desire to heal that was prompting this whole thing to unfold.
If I didn’t have a desire to heal, I wouldn’t have even questioned my workaholism or the way Instagram was tied into it. But I did question it. And so, I had a desire to heal.
I could either let my desire be suspended into the ethers, never claiming it, or I could own it and on the other side, have more health and wholeness. In other words, I could heal if I took responsibility for wanting to.
From this place, I was able to start to go on the journey of healing I did not expect when I first felt: the way I am doing this Instagram thing is depleting me. My relationship with Instagram, truly came to touch and activate my deepest wounding, my greatest fears and my most true longings for my future.
They’re just out here tryna sell us some consumerism through targeted ads based on our usage of the app, and uphold capitalism for themselves and those who benefit them as well you know? Meanwhile I am over here having an existential crisis, or perhaps, an existential awakening through the platform.
Talking about it with colleagues, it was at this time that I realized that I was far from the only one who was being initiated to healing through what was presenting itself in my relationship to the app.
Me in a very artsy sort of blurry shot that was popular on instagram for a bit, in the Vancouver airport, waiting to take an amazing flight to Seattle. It was a clear sunny day at golden hour and we went over vancouver island, and honestly still to this day, it is the best flight I have ever been on. I felt I was in heaven. I was so present, it was the first time I forgot to document properly in my SM days.
The 3 years of Instagram will she won’t she:
STEP 1: STOP SHARING EVERYTHING (2020)
At first, I took a 6 month Instagram sabbatical that wasn’t really an Instagram sabbatical, but I thought it was because I stopped sharing my whole daily life from a to z on there. This was from April to October ish. During this time, I was writing my memoir in 2020, and I only went on the app to promote my group coaching programs or classes I was doing during these times. I didn’t share any personal updates or much of my daily life anymore. I shared a few food pics ‘cause I love those! But even then, it was truly just to tell people about the classes. All selfies were also just something to hopefully get people to read the caption of. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but for someone who was chronically online and sharing for the past several years daily, this was huge for me.
The first great thing started happening: People were still coming to classes even though I wasn’t on Instagram daily anymore. This was great proof to my nervous system that we could still survive without overworking. We were still working, and creating quality content and classes that matched that, but we were beginning to not be over-working. Brava! I continued like this.
A bougie rose petal bath I made myself in 2018 ish. I stopped sharing these parts of my life.
STEP 2: LOG OUT GURL (2021 part 1)
Then in 2021, I decided to log out for roughly 3 months (12 weeks). March 21st to June 12th, and I had the greatest time of my life. This was the very first time in over 10 years that I was not on any social media platforms at all for an extended period of time. I truly feel like those 3 months of my life were some of the best I have had in my entire life. I was so free and so happy and truly in the present. I planted my first garden, I started learning about permaculture, I made friends with local farmers. I went swimming. I started having enough energy for a walking practice. I read books again. I remember there was an early June heat wave and it was so hot that my mom and I slept in the living room on a mattress with all the windows open because it was cooler there and I was so unbelievably present and giddy and life just felt… real again. No one would know about what I was doing, and how happy I was, and that made it even more special - entirely mine.
The second great thing started happening: My nervous system was finding new fulfilling ways to feel resourced with belonging and even safety (the gardening, the swimming, the friends with farmers, the connection with my mom) and I was reclaiming a level of privacy I didn’t know I missed from childhood - memories that were your own and a sense of satisfaction for the mundane - no need to show off, no need to grow or expand or reach more. It felt like peace.
“Candid” instagram photo that was so not candid in Hermosa Beach, South Bay. Getting off social media means I no longer think in Instagram captions and in Instagram moments.
STEP 3: MAYBE YOU COULD BE CHILL? (2021 part 2)
Then after my 3 month break, I still wanted to sell my classes and programs and knew my book was going to come out in the following year so I still wanted to stay on Instagram, but I was like, hey emily, do you think you could be a chill person and use the platform without being addicted to it?
At this point I had begun to understand how over stimulation was affecting me an autistic person and how social media contributed to it, so I felt solid in having a plan of action on how to take care of myself vis a vis the whole thing. Thus I started taking breaks and normalizing that. It looked a little something like this: I would log off on the weekends from Friday to Monday. I would time my posts with my cycle so I would be posting and interacting with folks when I had the most energy during the month. I would post and attempt to go back to my surroundings, and not refresh to see who liked (and who didn’t) or who replied to a story (or who didn’t). I also started an official newsletter after years of being lax around the consistency of one, to connect with clients past, present and future. My business had more structure. I was realizing and engaging with the fact that my marketing could exist in other ways that weren’t ever related to Instagram. And I trusted that.
The third great thing started happening: I started realizing that one of my huge problems with Instagram was that I had no office hours. That’s why it felt like I was working all the time, because I practically was. I was reachable no matter the day, almost no matter the time. I lived in the office nearly 24/7, even sleeping there metaphorically. I used to sleep with my phone beside my head. I started leaving my phone in another room when I slept, and I didn’t check it first thing in the morning. I wasn’t logging 12 hours a day of screen time anymore between my phone and computer by refreshing and replying and producing and scrolling and scrolling. It was more reasonable, 4-5 hours per day on average. A reasonable workday flow. I didn’t feel worried - everything would be taken care of within office hours. I felt like I was healing something so deep. And I was. I was proud of myself.
2020 and 2021 and my changing relationship to Instagram healed my workaholism. For real.
By then, I had a life outside of work. I had significant hobbies, my body was stronger (I actually had time and also probably more importantly - energy- to exercise and build strength), I was freer, happier. And my business had not failed at all. I still had clients. People told me they loved our work together. All of it was okay. I was safe. This was all the best proof for my nervous system to trust that we did not have to overwork to stay safe… I relaxed.
And by the end of 2021, my second book, Can You Turn The lights Off? was done. I had written the first draft, the developmental draft was finished, and edited. All it needed was a final line copy proof read (where we check for any lingering errors), and then the design/ format and publishing process would be taking the writing’s place. I was so excited.
Giving up workaholism, slowly but surely, through the help of my changing relationship to Instagram as the medium led me to writing a 400 page book, of nearly 120k words. I was amazed. My artist self hadn’t been this fulfilled since I was a kid.
I felt like I had figured this Instagram thing out. I was a balance master. Look at me, I thought! I did it!
And I had figured a lot out. I don’t want to take that away from myself in this time, but this isn’t where the story ended.
Right as the calendar turned from 2021 to 2022, I experienced familial trauma, a chronic illness coming out of remission, a consequent autistic burn out I could not quickly bounce back from, and more that led my relationship with Instagram to taking a dark turn.
I had reduced my screen usage by 60 %, I had office hours, I had started a newsletter and discovered that my marketing could happen off the app and still work, my art had been prioritized, I felt a privacy I really loved, and I had real hobbies and a blossoming sense of self that was returning post instagram addiction and overall workaholism. I felt like I now had complete free will around how I was using and interacting with Instagram. However, no longer feeling like my survival was tied up into the app, opened up a new dynamic for me and it - I began to be afflicted by seemingly paralyzing social comparison.
I was comparing myself in ways I never had before on the app. Where I had felt confident, now I only felt wild insecurity that I wasn’t used to. I was ravenous and I felt like I was not good enough, my life was not good enough, my home was not good enough, my car was not good enough, my clothes were not good enough, my hair was not good enough, my teeth were not good enough, my body as a whole was not good enough, my pace was not good enough, my decisions had been the wrong ones. My past words and posts were all naive and unhelpful.
So what happened next?
La suite in part 3 of the series 1 year off social media…
If you are liking this 3 part series on my 1 year off social media, these essays are free to read and share, so share it with a friend or ‘heart’ the post so I know you’re here with me. <3 If it’s making you think about your own relationship with social media in a way that feels healing, I’d love to know what you’re realizing, so leave a comment below. Our experiences are rarely singular and it feels good to know we aren’t alone.
If you’re new here, my general disclaimer is that I always write from my own experience and I have not experienced every single context known to earth, so you might appreciate some things I write/ wrote and others may feel incomplete for your context. I always encourage everyone who reads my work to take what serves you, and leave the rest. I love other people’s art too, so send me yours! If you’d like to get part 3 of this series, you can subscribe to my newsletter The Soft Heart Newsletter on substack.
Lots of love and until next time,
Emily