The Importance in Social Media Fasting
Leading up to my social media fast I had taken notice that my relationship to it was covertly becoming more and more unhealthy… again.
The unhealthy relationship dynamics first began to take root around in my late teens-early 20's. I had gone through a phase where I was massively addicted to Twitter and the constant validation I received from it. In hindsight, I can see clearly that I was miserable, depressed, and in a place of disconnect. Twitter was a welcomed escape from a life that I was unable to admit to myself I despised. It was also a place where I could easily and cheaply access the feeling of “mattering.” A feeling that I was unable to cultivate within my being.
Yet, it was also a place where I could express some of my deepest insights and thoughts to others who felt both resonance and appreciation for them. Twitter showed me the potent catharsis available in pouring my ever-flowing well of insights into the world. It taught me that I carry a strong desire for shared self-expression —and through that— to be seen, heard and loved for it. It also unearthed the desire around creating resonance for others. I learned a large part of my being is fueled by creating space for others to feel seen, heard, and loved. Oppositely, it showed the severe lack of resonance in my real life, making the little blue bird an even more seductive place to escape to.
And now, here I was again. Holding more awareness, yet still slipping into unhealthy dynamics. The deliciousness in being oh-so-human. I found myself using my Facebook page as a way to further identities I was attached too, around being both very spiritual and connected to the Earth. I still consider myself to be in relation to both of those things, but I also see that they’re just lovely ego-attachments. I don’t need to prove anything outside of myself for them to be real. More and more I learn that some of the most powerful magic is quiet, internal, and unseen. Also, I am just as much filled with profanity as I am with Spirit. As connected to the Earth as I feel, everyday I meet parts of me that are still in disconnect. I am all of these attachments, and I am none of them at the same time.
During this time I was also using my Facebook as a way to send subliminal messages to my now-partner through brooding poetry. I was attempting to process — but mostly just share publicly, a deeply emotional journey I was going through. I used the internet as a way to hopefully, invoke feelings of shame in him for how he had treated me. It didn't work.
The first week at the farm, I found myself glued to my phone — taking pictures of everything. It was my first time in the Pacific Northwest and my love affair with the forest was taking on an entirely new dimension. I started to recognize the frantic nature of my energy as I attempted to capture everything on camera. I also noticed that in needing to capture and post everything, I was evading myself of purely just being in the experience.
As my time went on, I answered fewer texts and messages. I took fewer pictures. I lost my desire to post on Facebook. The message came through loud and clear. I was being asked to be here now (something I non-coincidentally had tattooed on my fingers before leaving). The forest, the farm, and the beautiful animals and beings there had medicine for me. Medicine that required me to be fully unplugged, in my body, and present to receive. So, I listened. I decided I would stop using social media for one year. One year turned into three.
(A caveat: I don’t think social media is inherently bad. Like with all things; it’s not the thing, it’s our relationship to it, our intention with it, and how we wield it. In order for me to come back to it from a grounded healthy place, I needed to step away. Now that I am back, I am genuinely excited. As I continue to tend the soil of my business, I see vast sky of connection, collaboration, and expansion that’s available. But I also can see how easy it is to slip into using it unconsciously.)
As I begin to step back online and use social media again, I am feeling the importance of sharing the insights from this deeply healing experience. This is what I learned and how I’m stewarding a new relationship to social media for the health of my soul, my body, and my business.
It’s important that we find out who we are, free from screens and social media.
During my social media untangling, I began to notice the identities I was attached to and how I used them to receive validation on Facebook. One day I had a vision where I saw all of my different attachments as energetic pieces of clothing I had picked up and put on… “Hippie”... “Vegan” … “Herbalist” … “Astrologer” … “Healer” … “Nomad” …In the vision, I watched myself slowly begin to take them off, look at them, and lovingly let them go. I began to understand that none of these things were actually me. I saw how as we go through life, we’re truly allowed to be anything we want to be, whenever we want. And just as easily, we’re allowed to be none of those things, whenever want.
I understood that social media can further out evolvement if we allow ourselves to be the malleable, changing beings that we are. Or, it can hinder it; if we find ourselves receiving so much attention/validation for a certain part of our identity, that we become frightened to let it go.
It’s vital that we develop a sense of worth free from attention, influence, followers, and likes
When I stepped away from social media I realized that a part of my worth was coming from the feedback I would get online.
I asked myself, “who was I without this feedback and validation?”
I recognized a big piece of my healing was going to be around worthiness and feeling inherently “of worth.” As I began to foster this, deep within the core of my being — it began to take shape in my outer reality. I found myself surrounded by a group of beautiful humans who reminded me of my worthiness, daily.
I recognized the dire need to separate my sense of worthiness from any attention I receive online. This is when I learned that one like is just as powerful as 300 likes. Why? Because when you approach social media from a place of worthiness — one person finding resonance with you is just beautiful overflow to your worthiness cup. Like with anything, the numbers will grow, fluctuate, and change.
Right now, I view the numbers as resonance. These many people were able to find refuge in my words. These many people were able to take a deep exhale on my website. These many people saw a part of their being reflected in me. This is why if it’s one or 300 — it’s still so exciting.
At the end of the day, who are you without the numbers? What do the numbers represent to you?
Sometimes we are asked to be fully present with something in order to receive the deepest levels of healing available.
There are some experiences in life that are so rich—so full of medicine—that to not be fully present with them is to do ourselves an injustice.
Think back to an experience you had where you were so deeply entrenched in presence, connection, love, gratitude, joy, bliss, expansion, or some combination of the sort. How would it have felt if you had cut it off to grab your phone? Or energetically left the experience to post? What if the next time you find yourself immersed in one of these magical moments in time, you put your phone on silent and just allowed yourself to be there. I dare you.
I believe that, even though as a society we don’t practice rites of passage and initiation ceremonies, we are still creating them and they are still finding us. I think these moments in our lives beg for our presence. They beg for our full being to dissolve into their vortex. They beg for us to fall to our knees, drenched in devotion to the human experience. All so that we may step our whole being through the fire and come out cleansed, purified, and new.
Social media can be a very seductive medium to play pretend about who you are, what you feel, and your life.
When you step away from screens you are oftentimes faced with the truth of who you are and the life you’ve created. A space of realness and honesty opens up for you to acknowledge, accept, and begin to alter.
I’ve observed social media become a really attractive place to pretend like everything’s alright, pretend like we’ve got your shit together, or try and convince ourselves that everything is fine.
We are all messy, imperfect humans yet, many try so desperately to avoid that on social media. A huge reason I selected my first mentor was because of how she shows up on social media. She shows up as herself; full of imperfection, insecurities, and messiness and with a willingness to embrace it all.
Permission
• You’re allowed to create your own relationship to screens and social media that best works for you.
• When you’re feeling confused about what to do or feel information overload, oftentimes stepping away from screens is the first part of the journey back to connection.
• Your presence and attention are some of your most valuable currencies; invest wisely.
• It’s okay to be in an experience before you record.
• Sharing can be medicine. Privacy can also be medicine.
• It’s okay to have boundaries with screens.
• It’s okay to not post everyday if you don’t want to or it feels inauthentic.
• It’s normal to leave your body when you’re on social media; making sure you come back to it is important.
As I begin to connect with more soul-connection humans, clients, coaches, healers, and soulpreneurs, I am seeing this new paradigm begin to form. I am seeing people start to take back their power from social media and determine a relationship to it that works for them.
This is your full-bodied empowered permission to investigate your relationship to it, and create the connection you desire to have with it.
The millennial generation will be the last generation to remember what the world was like before the internet and social media. I feel that because of this, it’s of the utmost importance that we are also the generation to begin to define a new paradigm of relating to it.
Lastly, I see a lot of clients for Human Design who are struggling with their relationship with social media. Please keep in mind that none of us are designed to have the same relationship to it or use it in the same ways.
Some of us are designed to take people in very deeply (this is still happening online, except free of density). Others are designed to have more of a transpersonal collective influence. Some of us are designed to consistently and powerfully impact through our words. Some of us need to live more cyclically, and retract and process, in order to distill the wisdom before bringing it forward.
