Momma Much

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” 
Mark Twain 

I remember so clearly Brenden’s last birthday. We went downtown to one of our favorite restaurants ready to enjoy and celebrate the night away.

I remember the  candle-light glow on his face as he leaned in to talk to me. I remember the freezing cold as we ran up the pedestrian mall in our long coats to our next destination. I remember the fire warming our legs as we sat and sipped an after dinner drink at our last stop before home.

It was late and I was full.

Full of laughter and love and food.

I was so happy… And so conflicted.

My thoughts were obsessive and constant: I need to share this. I need to express my contentment to the world. They need to know how I am feeling in this moment… I need to share this now and I need to share it effectively and beautifully. 

Because… Instagram.

I shared everything. Sharing was where I felt authentic and real and validated. And not sharing wasn’t an option.. I had already shared so much.. My joy, sadness, fears, faith. Of course I needed to share this beautiful night, too. 

It all seemed so innocent until I realized how much Instagram was stealing from me. I couldn’t turn off my obsessing for even one night when I so desperately wanted to be one-hundred-percent present. It was obvious I no longer had control of Instagram.. Instagram had control of me. 

I had taken “breaks” from Instagram in the past and I felt so accomplished for taking the time off… But still, in the back of my mind, there was always a feeling that I was neglecting my online image. I was most certainly losing some hard-earned followers by neglecting my account for so long. So even when I was technically “off” Instagram it was certainly still controlling my thoughts.

Brenden used to complain (rightly so) about how much time I spent on my phone.. and how I would always want the perfect picture. But the amount of time I spent on my phone was only an outward manifestation of how Instagram was really affecting me. My mind and thoughts that were constantly preoccupied. I always had a dialogue going on in my head, a conversation that was happening online or a post that I wanted to write and then re-write. Then of course I had to edit the post, and then check it to see how many followers I had gained or lost, and reply to comments, and then check it again. On and on and on. My emotions and mood would fluctuate based on what I was experiencing online. 

It was hard to maintain being present as a mother and wife and also being present online. I felt torn daily, and it wore on me. I felt depleted and powerless and I didn’t know why. The noise of Instagram had gotten so loud I didn’t even hear it anymore. Like a huge fan sucking out moisture in a water-logged house, it was mind-numbing and ever present, and had become completely undetectable. Until I turned it off.

It finally dawned on me that I would never really be free of Instagram unless I freed myself from it entirely. So I did. About a month after Brenden’s birthday night eleven months ago, I said  goodbye to Instagram forever. I wrote about it here. 

I listened to a podcast recently about teens and social media. One girl was quoted as saying: “Social media is ruining our (teens) lives. But we can’t give it up because then we would have no life.”

That’s exactly how I felt when I first quit Instagram. It was scary. Even into the first few weeks something felt “off.” Like part of my life had been torn away. I felt secluded; the community I had developed online had vanished, along with my online image. Suddenly, I needed to find new depth and meaning to my days other than the usual hit of dopamine from posting and scrolling. 

But time worked its magic and after a couple of weeks I no longer felt that out-of-my-skin feeling. I felt like I had re-introduced myself to myself: “Sarah, meet Sarah” And I started to feel the benefits of quitting Instagram roll in. 

I found myself looking up more. I noticed that the world around me had more color. My children’s faces came into focus for the first time, and trust me, I thought they were so in focus before! Slowly and through absolutely no will of my own, the people around me became more important to me. My kids stopped seeing me glued to my phone. Their life became so much richer simply because I plugged into our physical lives.. where they live! I didn’t even notice the deficit in this area before, until I started to notice the abundance.

I had time to sit and be. Time is uncomfortable for some, and it certainly was for me when I first started to re-experience it. I had taken so much comfort in Instagram distracting me and calling my name; just waiting for me to pick up my phone and check the status of the world… Or more realistically, the status of ME in the world. When that was was gone I had massive amounts of time suddenly come available. And I used to think I never had enough time to do it all… No wonder! 

I started feeling truly content. I remember the feeling of contentment after I posted something on Instagram, but after the comments and new followers appeared the feeling would wear off… Or after I experienced the deflation of my mood when I lost followers or got negative comments. Time to post again. Time for another dopamine hit. 

My friendships (and through them accountability) started to improve. Social media is a sad substitute for real relationships and interaction. When I was using it I didn’t know how bad, or how negatively just being on Instagram was effecting my relationships. I wasn’t reaching out to people around me. I was internal, obsessed, conditioning my brain to deal with interactions in sound-bites. It’s not healthy and it’s not beneficial and it’s not conducive to living a full life.

But what about community? Doesn’t social media help us stay connected? 

I think it’s highly personal. For me Instagram was never about community, like Facebook is for example. Facebook is a limited platform where I organically add friends as I meet them in real life. Facebook is an online community that reflects to some degree my physical community. I have no desire to amass followers or cultivate an image or achieve a certain number of “friends” on FaceBook, like I used to on Instagram. It is simply for me to stay connected with the people I love and who love me. And I love having a place to store my photos and videos.

Instagram was a different animal.. it was a platform where the sky was the limit in regard to the number of people I could reach and who could reach me, and everyone and everything was accessible. Which actually led me to very few real connections and meaningful relationships. It turned into an obsession of numbers and followers and my online image. 

With Instagram I wanted to share everything in real-time. Correction: I had to share everything in real-time. It was important that I not only shared, but I shared eloquently and proficiently and beautifully. And it was important that my sharing elicited a positive response from my followers, one that led to new likes and follows.

If a post didn’t gain followers it would lead me to a feeling of deflation (stealing from my experience at hand) and if it led to more followers I would feel an artificial rush and happiness, only to have to repeat the whole process the next time I was doing something worth sharing.

It was an addiction cycle that I couldn’t end. Some people might think: Addiction? Instagram? Really? Dramatic much Sarah? Well… Yes, addiction. And maybe not for everyone. But for me it was. And I’m glad that I finally realized it and broke the cycle. Because once you stop feeding an addiction, voilà, it disappears.

Let me use a fairly recent example: 

In December we went to Disney World. IF I was still using Instagram I would have posted (or at least thought about posting) twenty times a day. Instagram would have stolen legitimate mental energy from me and even from my family. Everything we did and experienced would have been seen through an instagram filter. At all times some portion of my brain would be elsewhere, stuck in a parallel universe that was always calling me for more attention and acknowledgment. 

Instead I was at Disney, fully and completely there, not only with my family but with myself. My memories of it are sharp and fond. I never once thought about sharing something with the world, while sitting on a ride or standing in front of a castle. Instagram never once stole a thought or an experience. I enjoyed our days and posted pictures to Facebook whenever it was convenient, sometimes days later and for no other reason than share it with my friends and for safekeeping of photos. There was no itch to be scratched, therefore I didn’t have to share anything. My need to share and receive instant gratification in the moment was long gone. The cycle was broken when I broke up with Instagram. 

The reacclimating from Instagram to one-hundred-percent real life wasn’t easy, like the girl on the podcast said “Social media is ruining our lives.. but we can’t give it up because then we’d have no lives.”

But now I am a restored, rehabilitated individual who has re-united with her life without instagram, and I want to tell that sweet girl from the podcast: If Instagram is ruining your life, you need to fight to get it back. No one else will fight for you. And life will go by fast, all while you are sitting in your self-made prison. It takes giving up the crutch, going through the hard rehabilitation and then being fully restored to free.

Brenden’s birthday is coming up again next month. These milestones so accurately showcase the passage of time. I can gauge growth or stagnation when I compare where I was when. When I look back and see who I was then I am so thankful for how much I have grown and changed. 

This birthday celebration is going to be very different than the last one. Not on the outside… The difference will be on the inside. I will feel peace instead of conflict, with my mind and heart fully present and free. 

Happy New Year friends!

XOXO