Namaste 🙏🏻

She used to like sharing posts on Instagram, just simple honest stories which either served her a lesson, made a positive change to her routines or inspired her to step out of the 'comfort box' which we all have a hard time leaving. Not often and nothing profound, but something that she knew would connect her with people. Year after year the likes on her posts have become more infrequent and the average watch time of her videos maxed out at 7 seconds. In all fairness she did not invest much time in learning how the algorithm worked, nor did she deny the possibility that maybe her content was not as appealing to others. However, a swift change in the way and speed the world consumed information had seriously shaken up her perception of posting.

Instinctively, she felt the pressure and thought she had to act on it. From extensive lyrical story - writing she switched to bite-sized posts and snappy videos so people wouldn't feel they were wasting their time watching. Her lovely hairstylist encouraged her to take part in a 30 day Instagram challenge. It only lasted 3 days for her and seemed like an utter failure. She didn't enjoy that. Instead she invested her time into baking gluten free banana chocolate muffins, experimenting with essential oils and reading the Stoics. It gave her true joy, knowledge she could share with her friends and students and a boost to her cooking skills.

At the same time she kept getting prompts to visit accounts with thousands of subscribers, which by most current standards were and still are deemed 'successful'. Some of those accounts she followed with immense pleasure, but did she want to be one of them? It seemed that deep down she did, but was it her choice? Was that her personal measure of success? Or someone else's? And what was the prime purpose of using the platform in the first place? Never before had she asked herself these questions, but when her anxiety levels started to spike violently as a result of the 'pressure' from all those fast growing accounts, she knew her body was trying to tell her something. So she deactivated her instagram. Escape is never a good permanent solution, but it can be a very soothing temporary remedy.

The trouble or perhaps the opportunity to deal with fibromyalgia symptoms have taught her a great deal of understanding when her body was out of tune. Every emotional or physical response to an event is when our body is telling us - yes or no. And these responses are much more powerful than we think. The signals that warn us that it is time to either stop or change more often than not, we silence and ignore. Feeling anxious, fearful or stressed is ok, but letting these responses linger isn't. And it's not so much about external factors which make us sick, but about us allowing them to 'steal' our health. The society and the media have always had something planned for us in the form of TV programmes, rules of 'prudence' and now social platforms. The information we consume there is an opinion, interpretation or a one sided story. If approached carefully, they are things that support our existence, aid our professional growth, inspire us to open our minds. If, however, followed without awareness, they are nothing more than the voice of someone else.

She has since reactivated her account and learnt to enjoy the 'new' instagram. She gets her occasional mood boosts from her friend's joyful drawings, follows new podcast announcements and shares her classes at the one of a kind kasyogacommunity.

She envies other subscribers for their ability to immerse healthily in the online world, but wishes them well and doesn't feel the pressure anymore. She accepts that she is a failed instagrammer, but a successful explorer of other ways to learn, create and make space for new healthy connections. Sometimes she slips and spends hours online. That's when she knows it's time to mute her phone. Most importantly, she feels at peace, because she listens to her own voice and doesn't try to fit in where she doesn't belong.

Have a healthy day

Do you have a healthy relationship with the social media?

People and content that have inspired me