I don't want to live my life in a Square...
Thoughts and words that are on my heart about the impact of social media on creativity, mothering and my soul
First things first… a little check in with yourself. How are you feeling today? How is your heart feeling? Mine is a little tender (when is it not?!?!) after taking Vesper for her third lot of vaccinations today. The cry that comes when these little beings feel pain shatters my heart into tiny pieces. I don’t think I will ever adjust to that.
If you haven’t tuned into yourself yet for a while… this is your reminder!
On my heart right now…
What’s surfacing for me a lot at the moment, and was part of the reason for creating this little portal over here, is this pull to withdraw my presence from social media. Mainly Instagram if I am going to be specific.
For the last ten years I have shared different aspects of my life on the platform… a huge chunk of my life has been lived alongside it - from my days with the horses, to becoming a health and wellbeing blogger, to doing my yoga teacher training, evolving my own practices and studies, not to mention the pregnancies and births of both of my babies. But… and I am not sure if it is just me… but something feels so out of alignment with me now.
Do you feel it too?
Communication and service is a huge part of my soul work. Expression, sharing… truth speaking… offering tools and practices that just ‘might’ land in someone else’s field and support them… it is at the heart of my ‘why’… and Instagram used to feel like a beautiful creative space to place my art.
But now I am being nudged to take a step back from it. And that feels scary and exciting all mixed together.
Social media in motherhood
One of the biggest reasons for staying - or perhaps it is a reason I am telling myself that isn’t actually true - is for connection. In the absence of a real in person ‘village’ I have built a community on the platform that have seen and supported me through some extremely challenging times in my life. Some of my most cherished friends and soul family have come from this platform.
In the lonely moments of Motherhood - which as I discussed in last week’s post - come thick and fast - particularly in this first few years - Instagram has been a medicine for me. Or has it?
I tell myself this - but what am I missing in real life by being so dependent on the app?
Instagram particularly for me has become a black hole to lose myself in. And I don’t like it.
When things are challenging I find myself turning to the app to NUMB.
When my daughter is whining at me … I often want to disappear into the app to DISTRACT myself from the discomfort.
When I am feeling totally certain of a project or creative offering that wants to come through, it is usually the app that somehow steers me off course.
My mind is so scattered that I can’t fully read and engage in the content I am being shown anyway. I know that part of this is down to Mum brain… but the large majority I am sure is to do with the sheer volume of ‘stuff’ I am being bombarded with.
It isn’t that I don’t want to read and listen and support the people I have chosen to see in my feed - because I have curated it - it is that I simply do not have the space for anything else. My capacity to hold more information has been reached.
When I am on the app I feel constriction in my body. I feel overwhelmed. Even my eyes struggle to focus sometimes. And yet… I keep going back. Just one more dopamine hit.
Do you get that push/pull too?
On creativity
I want to share my artistry. My words… my poems… my sacred creations… and yet the speed at which it is served means it’s only partially digested. I want my art to be consumed in a slow and delicious way… savoured… not as a fast food inhale that is snatched on route to a meeting.
And the same goes for the way I consume art. I want to enjoy it and absorb it and soak it all in - not feel like I have to skim read and move on to the next thing. I want to remember what it feels like to devour someone’s beautiful expression with focus and attention and really allow myself to integrate the impact that it has on me.
I ‘tell’ myself I can’t fully leave the platform because of my business. And perhaps there is an element of truth in that. But… my business, my heart and soul work, is my art and creativity and the platform is not feeding that.
In my journal it has repeatedly come up for exploration…
What would I do if I was not afraid?
What would my life look like if social media didn’t exist?
What would I do differently if I wasn’t on social media?
I have been exploring this for the past few months - and there has been resistance for sure, but also it feels like on the other side of the hurdle - is peacefulness.
I had this powerful realisation while writing the other day that so much of my life is living to fit into an Instagram square. It was never a conscious choice but I try and fit my creativity into how it will be portrayed on Instagram. My business… my poetry… my Mothering even… all moulded into a square.
I don’t want to live in a square!
I am not proud of how much I have come to depend on Instagram, it almost seems ridiculous to be writing this, and yet that is exactly what it has been created to do so I refuse to shame myself for it… to fuel comparison. To fuel consumerism. To fuel the brutal epidemic of ‘not enoughness’.
The rise of influencers, and specifically in relation to the space here, ‘mumfluencers’… project a perfect picture of Motherhood, or share performative vulnerability - and while I will fully acknowledge that I am serial oversharer myself - some of it just feels so inauthentic. You can feel when something is for the ‘gram… versus a true lived experience.
Social media is sadly perpetuating the perfect mother myth (look up Dr Sophie Brock’s work on this if you haven’t already)… it’s sapping creativity… it’s stealing our time… and I don’t think - if we are really honest with ourselves - it is giving us much joy at all.
When I think of who I am becoming. Who I want to become… and how I want to be with my children…. social media seems to take me further away from that.
Ooooof… if that isn’t reason enough to re-address the relationship a little then I don’t know what is.
Disrupting the ‘normal’
I feel like a lot of my work stems from bringing to light some of what is often kept in the shadows, and without the curiosity of what is beneath the surface we can easily just continue as things are without questioning them. BUT… WHY? Why do we have to accept this as normal? WHY do we ‘have’ to allow these platforms to consume us? How do we take our power back?
How can we disrupt this pattern for ourselves and for the generations beyond?
I don’t have answers… I have thoughts and ideas… I have questions… I want to find out… but it does feel a little unsettling.
What lies beneath?
The exciting part of coming away from the platform is that I wonder… and am curious… what is beneath the hours of scrolling and distraction and how that will unveil more of myself and my own authentic expression. Creativity requires spaciousness… an opportunity for inspiration to strike, or an idea to surface. We cannot hear that whisper through the noise of social media.
What is lying dormant within me that is ready to be opened up? When I stepped back from it for a month a few years ago it totally shifted my business, which shifted my health, my wellbeing and had a hugely impact on my entire life.
Can I be brave enough to try? I feel like I owe it to my soul!
I am not saying I will leave forever - but I am ready to experiment and reclaim myself from this platform. Are you?
I would love to open up this conversation and see how you feel about it too… I don’t have answers but I do know that I want to pour my magic into a space that feels nourishing and does NOT cause so much dis regulation in people’s nervous systems. A space that is peaceful and that celebrates art and expression over numbers.
Leave your comments below if you feel called.
Sending love and gentleness,
Lauren
xxx
Lauren you know my experience already - regular breaks from social media and then last year, I’d just had enough. So I came off in November 2022 and in all honesty, I haven’t missed it. Not once. Like, not at all. I even surprised myself...I was ready for the ‘withdrawal’ the fear of missing out....the apparent missed opportunity for connection...nope, nothing.
I have found my community here.
It’s nearly 6 months without Instagram and the thing it’s given me the most is space. Space to think, space to dream, space to journal, space to parent, space to navigate my pain, space to read, space to just be. Is it coincidence that I’ve started painting again? Almost daily? Probably not.
The connections/the relationships.....you’ll keep, if you both savour and value them. Your business....your clients, your people, they will find you. I know it’s so much easier said than done, but give it a try and see what happens. I doubt you’ll regret it xxx
I found this in someone’s notes today, so reading it much later. But the way you described using IG as a balm or source of pseudo connection in early motherhood is exactly why I used it. I say used because I took the app off of my phone months ago, so I rarely log on now. I still can’t bring myself to quit entirely. I miss some of the artists and people I followed there. Perhaps there’s a way to engage with them differently? I have found that taking IG off my phone has not stopped my numbing. I still desire the brain turning off scrolling when the kids are loud and overwhelming. Instead I scroll the news, or now, substack. So I’m not sure I’ve really regained those hours for more active creative thought or presence. The urge to disappear for a while is still too great.