75. 10 Days Off Social Media- Why You May Want To Take A Step Back Too

Oh, man. I've been doing some big, hard, slightly terrifying things this whole year, and especially over this past 10 days. I decided while at one of the final days of my Revive retreat in Destin, Florida, surrounded by 20 of the most remarkable women with so much vulnerability and love just pouring out of them, I decided to take some time off social media, which I've never done before. As soon as I made a social media account, which I will say I'm very grateful that I waited until I was 19, um, to have a Facebook or an Instagram. And since starting it at 19, which now I'm 29. Wow. Um, in those 10 years, I have never taken 10 days away from the apps. I might have gone 10 days without posting when I just wasn't really sure in what I wanted to be sharing, what my purpose was there. And yet I would still be on the apps in those time period, in those time frames, consuming content. So I. While I was at Revive, I just. Something kind of hit me and I had this moment that led me to make this decision very promptly and I followed through on it and I really didn't give any notice. So I want to walk you through what happened and hopefully use this episode as a way to encourage you to do the big, hard, scary things that sometimes feel terrifying and sometimes you're not sure how they're going to turn out or what it's going to look like. And all that uncertainty can kind of weigh against you in your decision. And I know exactly what that feels like. I want you to know that you can still do it, that you can still try. And honestly, the worst case scenario might be a whole lot better than what it is that you're going through right now anyway. So either way, if it feels big, hard and scary, it's likely the exact path that you need to be taking to get the type of growth that you want to see in yourself by having those difficult conversations, by following through on those slightly scary commitments that you're making, by really just pursuing the dream, even if you don't know exactly how that's going to work. I have another episode coming for you really soon about this whole how business when it comes to our mindset, and it's going to help you tremendously. So let me walk you through Revive. So Revive is my three day women's retreat that we focus on emotional regulation, nervous system regulation, and this release, having this opportunity of releasing the stored emotions that you've had pent up that are literally blocking you from being who it is that you want to Be and this work is just best done in person, in a controlled environment with a vulnerable community of like minded women that are creating a soft heart and an open mind. That's when this work just works best because we're doing it alongside you. And in this environment, it's structured in a form of you're gonna do the work. I mean, you're here at Revive. There's really not much better to do than the work that we're doing alongside one another. And the coaching that you receive there truly is remarkable. The energy is just profound. I mean, you can feel each other, you can hug each other, and things are just so much more real than everything that we're doing virtually, which I love. The virtual component of things. I mean, I love to create content, I love to do online coaching, I love to create courses for you and just imagine the way that it's impacting you and your family. I love all of that. And there's just nothing online that beats having you in person and truly hugging you and embracing you and looking in your eyes as we're coaching through whatever obstacle you feel is in your way and presenting these emotional release exercises that allow you to feel the expansiveness of every single emotion. And I, I have more that I'm gonna share when it comes to Revive. I just wanted to kind of fill you in if you're new here. What Revive is, It's my three day retreat that I bring in other coaches and a intimate group of attendees, our clients that we're working with for those three days. We provide your housing, your food, your experiences in this safe place for you to truly lay it all out there and put down what no longer serves you and become who it is that you've told me all along you want to be. And it's really cool because we work together for 12 weeks leading up to Revive. Sometimes revives at our halfway point. In those 12 weeks, which I really love because usually the first six weeks of our 12 weeks inside of Mind Body Alignment. And is a lot of that discovering ourselves and we discover a lot of hurt and hardship and trauma. And when you come to Revive at that halfway point, it's like, okay, let me just release all of this so I can get back home and pick up the great parts of of Mind Body Alignment that I want to put into practice in my daily life. So that's why Revive works alongside with Mind Body Alignment. So you're still getting your coaching. I mean, this entire experience is unlike anything that I've seen out there. And I love that it goes. It's not just a three day retreat and it's not just 12 weeks of coaching. Like we find this beautiful way to bring them together and bring in other professionals that are extremely gifted and, and serve a very meaningful role in the work that we do together at Revive. So that's what Revive is. It's our three day retreat. Our next one will be in February and I will release details on that. I'm super, super, super excited for it. The we have this retreat twice a year. So while I was at Revive and I show up with this truly electric energy, there's something about this in person event that my floodgates of energy open and it just radiates off of me 24 7. And it's, it's the coolest experience and the best way for me to describe it is imagining that like my 5 year old self is leading the way and she's the ball of energy. I've always been very energetic and I used to think that was a really bad thing. I actually used to feel really ashamed of my energy because people would ask me, what's wrong with you? What drugs are you on? And sister, I went to Dare in fourth and fifth grade and I knew that drugs are not good for you. So in my energy and my personality started being compared to drug use, I tried to dim it down. I really tried to hide it. And that has proven to be very destructive in my life for my health, for my emotions, for my mental, my mental health, my physical health. Trying to hide that piece of me and dim it down or shame, it is detrimental to me. So in learning that I have found my way back to my energy and again, those in person events just kind of bring it all out and I get that glimpse and I get that taste and I'm like, yes, this is what I want. This is what I want to give on social media. This is how I want to show up no matter where I'm at. And I'm still working through that myself to figure out, okay, what does that look like? How do I do that? And we're going to do a whole thing on how. And I just want you to know that when you like find these pieces and parts of yourself, it's okay if it takes a little bit of time for you to bring that back to your full life rather than just in these, these spaces and places that it, that it shows up in different ways. So my energy is something at Revive that's just unmatched. I would argue it is extremely unmatched and I Love that. I love that. So, anyway, we were wrapping up our second day of Revive. It was midnight, and I was getting to my room to go to bed after, like, cleaning up the kitchen before I go to bed, because I was going to have us all come down to a clear space because it's just so great for energy and our mental clarity when a space is clear. So, you know, I'd wrap up the kitchen. I went to my room and I picked up my phone, which at Revive, I really don't get on my phone much at all anyway, and I wanted to share this experience on social media because that's part of. Part of my work is sharing these experiences, sharing and teaching tools and coaching. And what is coaching and how does this work and how are emotions showing up in our life and what can we be doing about it? Like, providing that value and letting you in on that experience is part of my work and it's a beautiful part of it. And I noticed that that night I picked up my phone and I had taken my shower and I was about to go to bed, and I was like, I'll just post a few things before I go to sleep, so whoever is interested can see this. And I picked up my phone and as soon as the app opened, and this is on Instagram, as soon as Instagram opened, I saw someone else's picture pop up who I adore. It was actually one of her reels. And I very much love her, consider her a dear friend. And her reel popped up, and then I glance up at the. At the Instagram stories that. That are above, you know, and if someone has a new story, it has that, like, reddish ring around it. And again, another woman that I adore, I look up to her in a lot of ways. She inspires me as a mother and in business. She inspires me a lot of ways. So I usually love consuming both of their content. I usually love interacting and engaging with them and their communities. And when I saw that highlighted ring of an Instagram story pop up, my first extremely reactive. Just quick thought. And I'm so grateful that I caught it. And I truly think the only reason why I did catch it was because I was at Revive, I really think that's why. And because I've been spending so much time off of my phone while at Revive, and truly, just in the heart of my work and connecting with these women and expressing an energy that I know I love, that I have. And it's unique to me and it's powerful and it changes other people. And I've had four women look me in the eyes crying that day, telling me that I saved their life. Not only that I changed their life, that I saved their life because they didn't think life was worth living anymore, and they didn't think that they were valuable anymore, and they didn't think they were worthy anymore until they came across my content and they got into my courses and that just it rightfully so, hit me really deep. Hit me really deep. And I cried just as much as anybody else at Revive, I'll tell you that right now. I followed my eyes out right alongside you. And it's healthy. It's healthy to do. It's healthy for us to express and experience all these emotions. And being able to experience the pits and the depths is how we're also able to fly and soar in the highs. So I know it's valuable on both sides. And I had that experience that day. I'm wrapping up the second day at Revive. I knew we still had a full day ahead of us the next day. And. And I was about to post on Instagram and I see that highlighted bubble and my first reactive thought, like this was not an intentional thought by any means. I had just caught it was, please don't make me open that. Like to click on the Instagram story and watch someone else's life, their personality, their energy, their passion, their purpose, all can be great things. And my initial thought was, please don't make me open that. Now. If you have been consuming my content for any period of time, you know that I am a first firm believer and advocate that nobody makes us do anything. Nobody's making me open this app right now. Nobody makes me consume content, nobody makes me follow someone or engage and interact, and no one makes me do these things. So I thought the. I thought that catching that thought was very interesting because that is a firm foundation and moral for me is that I control me. I decide what I'm gonna do and no one's gonna make me do something that I'm not proud of. If I do something I'm not proud of, that is me to self reflect on and for me to get that ownership so that I can change my behaviors. So I have pure. I have previous podcast episodes available to you if you want to dive into that whole makes me mentality. It's truly life changing. Um, and for me in that moment, sitting on my bed, seeing these women that I do admire and appreciate and I have interacted with socially many times, and my first thought was, please don't make me open That I didn't have a. It was so weird. It wasn't, it wasn't a victim mentality of like, oh, they're making me do this and then I'm following through on an action that I don't want to have. It wasn't this victim mentality and it really wasn't negative. It did not feel negative and it did not feel like this victim mentality that I'm, I'm the victim in this position. Right? Other people are making me. It didn't feel like that at all. It felt like this inner child of me, this five year old me is here, shining and thriving and living out her dreams and having the type of impact that she, I mean, dreamt of. And this five year old me gets to lead the way at these events because her energy is unmatched. It's just, it's truly a gift to share with others. And then I like to imagine that it's 29 year old me that makes it happen and it's five year old me that leads the way. And I work, I work with my inner child in so many ways in life because she's compassionate and she's forgiving and she's goodness, she's graceful and she has the best, she has incredible ideas. Like my best ideas have for sure come from her because she, she loves who she is and she's not worried about comparing herself to other people or keeping up with the next door neighbor or anything like that. She's just thrilled to have a life to live and she knows that she has her own unique gifts and talents. And when I let her lead the way and I just support the path that we would need to take in order to make it happen, then things just work out so much better. So when I opened Instagram and I saw that, my thought was please, please don't make me open that. It wasn't this negativity or victim mentality or poor me. It was truly just this really innocent voice within me, this most authentic version of me that was saying, I love it here so much. Let's stay here a little bit longer. Like let's, let's savor this. Let's figure out truly and fully who we are before we go consuming other people's content. Let's figure out our purpose here and how we're serving and what we're giving and what our objective is and how we want to accomplish it before we go seeing what other people are doing and consuming their content. I really do identify as a creator, a creator of my goodness this, this content, this podcast. I love to create. I love to create meaningful moments. I love to create energy. I love to create health and sustainability and I, I love to create within my garden, like create structure in there and, and just see it all come to life and bloom. I love to create opportunity for myself to appreciate life in a new way. And that voice, it just, it hit me like it wasn't a goal, like, oh, I need to spend time off social media. And it wasn't a, oh man, like, I'm addicted to this app or this is gonna be so hard to step away and I can't do that. It wasn't anything like that. It was just, it truly just felt like meeting my 5 year old self and all of her beauty and all of her gifted abilities and saying, you're right. Let's figure out us first. Let's figure out how we take this energy, this purpose, this clarity, this focus at revive and give it to social media. Because clearly we're not ready to do that yet. And we're still figuring it out. So in that moment, I decided I am going to take a week off social media and that. So in that moment I knew I wanted to take space off of social media. Let me correct myself here. I knew I wanted to take space from it. I didn't post that night. I put my phone right back down after I had that thought and I looked at it as the perspective. Oh my gosh. Like, this is me trying to protect my energy and figure out my purpose. And that is definitely worth taking a step back so that I can get that figured out and best serve my community, who I love so freaking much. I love to create for you guys. I love to serve you guys. I love to, I love to know that I'm making a meaningful difference. Like, not just a, you can relate to me because we both hate doing the dishes or oh, look at me. I, I get what you're going through because I hate bedtime too, and my kids lose their mind and I scream at them. And we can, we can bond over the fact that we're both not showing up as the moms we want to be. Like, no, no, that's not who I want to be. That's not my purpose, that's not my intention. And I understand that other people are doing that. And you, I mean, anyone could go get that type of validation if you really want it. Acceptance, approval from those accounts. And I don't have to provide that too. I don't, I don't want to. I don't I don't want to be out of alignment with who I want to be as a mother. I feel that this is a very beautiful and privileged opportunity that we have, that not everyone has the opportunity to experience, to be a mother, to have these children and to see their innocence and purity and learn from it, rather than trying to taint it and change it. Like, I. I want that so badly for myself and for others. So I believe that in what I share on social media, it is about being who you want to be, having total ownership, having clarity and purpose in your mind, and changing your behaviors that don't align, rather than trying to make excuses for them and find acceptance for them when you know that it's out of alignment with who you want to be. And I know that that's not going to sit right for some people. And it might feel difficult to hear. That's okay, because it feels difficult to say. And I know it's the truth. Lies are easy. The truth can feel hard. So I'm gonna lead with truth. So that night, I experienced that at Revive. We go through the whole next day. It was just remarkable. Just remarkable. The coaching, the experience, the breakthroughs, the transformations. Listening to the women and seeing their whole demeanor, their whole body language changed. The. Their posture was different. All of it like their body was showing up in alignment with them. Their voices that, you know, that sound like when people talk, and you can tell there's a lot of stress and anxiety and fear in their life. They carry a lot of that. They can carry a lot of that in their throat, and it just feels like their throat is restricted, and there's, like, this weight on their chest, and you can hear it. You can. You can see it like it's there. And I literally, for the second time now at Revive, I watched it melt off of women as we gave them exercises to do as a group to release these emotions, to release this. These stored traumas, truly, that the mind has been living in replay off of and just having on repeat what, Rather than actually healing and giving yourselves freedom. I mean, I could go on and on and on about what our attendees experienced and how truly remarkable it is and the texts that I've gotten in the past two weeks now of being home. It's beautiful. It's beautiful to see their lasting change following through and how they're handling hard moments now, how they're communicating with their kids now because of the new tools that they have. That is the work that I want to do, truly. That's the work I want to do. So we had the whole third day, we wrapped that up and then it was a later night for us Revive and we were just enjoying each other's company, wrapping up the retreat. And I was about to go to bed and it was, it was 12:30. It was, it was a late night. I, I know, I understand. It was 12:30 and I went to the attendees rooms and I just talked to him and I said, you know, I realized something here at Revive that I really need a break from social media just so I can figure out how to best give this, this energy, this purpose, this clarity, these types of tools and skills and, and releases and outlets on social media too, because they feel, they feel misaligned. Like who I show up as here for you and who I'm showing up as on social media just through the content that I post there. They're not congruent and I want to work on that. So I told them I'm going to take one week off of social media. And I'm letting you know this because I know we're here together right now and I want you to know that I'm okay. And this is a very intentional choice that I'm making because I had this experience, this moment to myself upstairs where I realized I, I do not feel my best when I'm consuming other people's content and I'm not in a headspace to be doing so right now. And I let them know that this is what I'm going to be doing. And I invited them to join me and they were thrilled. They're like, yes, I want to take a week off social media too. Just let this sink in and soak in and realize like this is who I truly am before I allow these influences back into my life. And that's really what it is. If you don't give yourself the opportunity to figure out who the frick you are without an overbearing amount of influences constantly being thrown at you. I mean, come on, even if you try to control who you're following on social media, you're still being thrown ads and suggestions all the dang time. All the dang time. And it's like, are you ready for that? Are you conditioned to understand and use your best discernment for what is meant for you and what's helpful for you and what's harmful for you? Because so often our mind is just looking for what we think is right and our mind can be wrong. Your mind loves to do two things. It loves to make predictions and it loves to be right. So if you're making predictions that will, everyone feels this way in motherhood. And you're, and you want, and your mind wants to be right, it's going to look for the evidence that proves that to be right. And if this isn't who you want to be in motherhood, in your marriage, in your life, and you're going around finding the approval of like, well, this is just the way everybody is, your mind will accept that as truth too. So we need to be very intentional. We need to be disciplined, truly. And let me tell you, I was lacking some discipline. I really was. So anyway, I talked with the Revive girls and we all decide, like, we're taking a week off social media. And I hit my one week mark and then I decided, you know, Saturday, what's the point in getting on on a Saturday when I know I'm going to be off on a Sunday, I'll just wait till Monday. And that would have been today. And then I thought, well, if I'm already gonna make it nine days, I might as well make it 10 days. And I, and I'm taking this, this last day, this tenth day of my, we'll call it a fast detox from social media. And I feel so good, I feel so good taking this space from it. And I've realized a lot. My patience is tenfold what it was before. And I'd say I was pretty patient before anyway. And right now I just feel slow and like in the moment and like I've got plenty of time to do all the things that I want to do. Whereas when I get on social media it feels like, oh my gosh, I got to make this real, I got to make this Instagram, I got to respond to these people, I got to do these things, I got to send this there. And time just gets away so fast. And I know it's moving at the same pace. I know that logically it's just in those moments it feels like there's not enough time and, and then my mind starts operating that way and then I, and then I'll start to feel rushed with my kids and rushed at bedtime and rushed on the fan, like on the walk that we wanna go on. And just being off social media, I noticed everything slowed down, like, and I, I'm doing more without rushing. Like I'm slow through my moments and intentional and I'm getting way more done than I was before, which is really, really cool. Another thing that I've noticed is I really feel like I'm in a good place in my life. And I've accomplished a lot, and I'm really freaking proud of myself. Whereas when I get on social media, sometimes I'll see what other people are doing. You know, the house they're building, the life they're living, the thing they're doing another. They're having another baby, they're going on a trip with their spouse, they're doing a family thing, like, they did a business thing. Like, it just. It just feels like I love that people share their wins. Like, I really do love that they. They share these wonderful parts of their life. And I know that it's necessary for us to do so because if we only shared the hard stuff, then it would feel like there's no good. So we need that balance. Absolutely. I. I think, oh, my goodness. I know there is so much value in sharing the good in your life, and I want you to continue doing so. I want myself to continue doing so, and I want us to simultaneously be able to know we're at the right place in our life. We're doing the right things in the right order at the right time, and we've made tons of progress and we're working really hard, and we're all walking different journeys and we have different strides that we take. And when I was off social Media, through these 10 days, I haven't once felt like I'm behind. Like, I'm behind in my work, I'm behind in motherhood, I'm behind in my marriage, I'm behind in my relationships, I'm behind in my progress. I haven't once felt that way. I've actually sat to reflect and feel like, wow, I'm in a good place and I'm doing good work in good time, and it feels good. And I can enjoy this and trust and know that I'm gonna continue growing and I can trust the time that that unfolds in and not tell myself I'm behind because I'm not. I only ever felt behind when I was comparing myself to someone else. So maybe that's something that you've noticed you're doing. You're either feeling really rushed in your daily life. Maybe removing social media could help you with that like it did for me. Or you're comparing yourself to others and feeling behind in your life like you're not doing enough, and that is wildly inaccurate. And your mind needs a new opportunity to detox from all those sources of comparison and just truly focus on your life rather than other people's lives. Yeah, I. I've just really thoroughly enjoyed this 10 day break. And I've decided that after each revive, I'm going to take 10 days off of social media. So twice a year. This is my plan moving forward and I'd love for you to join me. Twice a year I'm going to take 10 days off of social media just to be able to reel in and get dialed in on my focus, what I want to be sharing, what I want to be creating, who I really am and what would align with me and what I'm sharing rather than, you know, I mean, as a content creator, you think about what content's getting the most engagement and what's getting the most likes and who. What com, what gets the most comments and shares and, and whatnot. And sometimes the stuff that gets the most of that is furthest away from who you want to be. And I really believe that when you focus on truly who you're meant to be and leading with service, it may not get the most engagement, most likes, most shares, comments, whatever. It may not get that the most the fastest. As if you're just posting something relatable, something using dark humor is what it's called. Something that, like, I don't know, the complaining, right? The blaming, the justifying, all this stuff that just feels good in the moment to hear, and then we're left feeling like, oh man, well, why does all of motherhood have to feel like this? Why does all of being a wife and in my marriage have to feel like this? Like we're left feeling that afterwards. So I know that that type of content may go viral faster or just in general, right. And I just wanted to give you some encouragement that if you're a content creator, it is worth it to do the good work, to teach people something that could help them through those problems that they're sharing about, rather than just emphasizing the problem like there's no solution to it and we should just make it funny because then at least we're laughing. There are a lot of tools out there, friends, and there's a lot of goodness. And I believe that we can be true lights for others so that we can prove it can be done and live a life that we feel like leaders of. We're leaders for ourselves and our families in our homes. That's the most important place to be a leader is within your home and then in any other place that you can be a leader. I think that is always just worthwhile. Worthwhile. And it helps you understand who you really are and it serves you just as much as it serves others. So that's my 10 days off of social media recap, why I did it, how I came up with that decision to do it, a couple things that I really noticed being off of the app. And yeah, I, I just hope that if it's on your heart at all, even just to take a day off of social media, you know, I always take Sundays off of social media just to give myself that day and maybe you'd like to join me that twice a year you take a week or 10 days, or maybe for you, you want to take a month off. It's. It's worth it. It's worth it. And even though it might feel hard and a little bit scary and difficult to do, it will be well worthwhile. Because just about everything that feels hard and scary and challenges us and stretches us, pulls us in different directions, that's our. That's our source of growth. Doing the same things over and over and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity. So if you're feeling this way, like you're feeling rushed in your daily life, you're feeling really impatient, you feel like your kids are interrupting you when you're scrolling and you're not even doing things that matter a whole lot, just reevaluate, do a little check in with yourself and see, you know, would my, I guess this is a question that I can leave you with is it's likely that your children know themselves very well. They know their personality. Maybe they're a little bit more strong willed. There are intense ones, there are spitfires and goodness. Are they full of life and compassion and forgiveness and love? And I want you to ask yourself, would my child still show up this way if they were on social media and consuming content at the same rate that I am? Yes or no? If the answer is yes, my child would for sure still show up the same way if they were consuming as much of other people's content and lives as I am right now. Maybe you have really good boundaries with social media and I think that's a beautiful thing and you have really good purpose on there and you're creating more than you're consuming. I think that's a good rule of thumb is am I creating or consuming? If it's. If the answer is a yes, I think that's beautiful. If the answer is no, I would just challenge yourself to ask why. Why wouldn't they show up as their full, authentic selves if they were consuming as much of other people's lives and content as I am? And I think you'll find a lot of answers and clarity in that, to just understand that it gets really loud. It gets really confusing. It gets really overwhelming to have so much thrown at us all at once from friends and family and influencers and the influences in our life and the news outlets and the media and goodness, the clothing brands and people trying to sell you something like it's just so loud. It gets really loud. And I like to, like I told you, I like to imagine it was my 5 year old self that just said, please don't make me open that. Because she wants to be here, she wants to lead the way, she wants to express herself and I want her to as well. I want to know what she has to say. So I just want to leave you with that. My sweet friend. I'm excited for the episodes I have coming up for you. I did take a little small break from the podcast as well when I was taking time off social media and and I got back to the podcast first. And you can expect our weekly or a little bit closer than that episodes coming at you now just to help keep you focused on being the mommy that you want to be in a journey of motherhood where people are constantly telling us what it is and what it isn't. I want you to decide for yourself because you are a mommy and you're beautiful and you're meant to be with your kids and family and goodness. I'm going to do whatever I can to help you see that in yourself too. I love you dearly, my sweet friend, and I'll talk to you soon.