I haven't had Facebook or Messenger on my phone for probably over a year. I use a desktop to check on Facebook reminder things like birthdays or events like birthday parties or moms nights out and such, but stopped allowing myself into the inevitable time suck that is Facebook.
Instagram is much more palatable for me, but in the messenger feature, you can see if someone has seen a message, and if they don't respond, it can feel pretty defeating. For me, I'd rather have someone scream, berate and cuss at me, than leave me feeling ignored, inferior or all around unworthy of a response.
With my daily blog updates, I was using Instagram and my writing Facebook page to alert followers that the post had been finished. I thought, okay, my readership numbers may decline but I seriously have to do this for my mental health. I gotta say, I'm only a day in, and I've been consistently reminded throughout the day of why it's essential for me to take the step back every so often.
Today I was checking my phone for texts but not looking on social media every 10 minutes to see who was doing what. Why? Because that has been my mental undoing lately, and I'm undoing that undoing if that makes any sense.
When I am feeling, unsure, or extremely stressed, I default to social media avenues, which actually just amplifies all of those feelings for me unfortunately. I know this, but I still do it. Call me pathetic, I don't even mind, because sometimes all this technology takes too much out of me, and gives me little triumph and when the losses outweigh the gains, time to break away.
I'm interested to see how it all plays out. Much like the podcasting, and the new kickboxing gym I will, of course, keep up with my daily blogging no matter what. This is a social media outlet that I have only felt gains with. Speaking of gains, I thought I was doing good with kickboxing but some of my pants are tighter lately so, with no social media stuff I plan on using as much extra time as possible doubling up on workouts.
I think I put too much emphasis on social media measuring your...like-ability if you will, and yes, pun intended. It's like when someone won't return your text but likes your Facebook post you can rationalize, oh well at least they aren't rejecting me on all fronts.
I have so many great coping mechanisms right now and I plan to employ them fully. I want to color again, craft with my daughter, read way more, and keep finding new series or binge the ones that make me relate more to life and less to escaping it.
I have trips to plan, people to see and things to do. I spent time with a total of 3 amazing mom friends essentially for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and all of them gave me props for growing into myself and embracing being uncomfortable in these transitional times. It felt like the definition of some kind of goddess circle, just ladies in womanhood supporting one another and it just made me kind of say, "The forget all the other stuff."
I then proceeded to cleanse my phone of anything negative and did a social media purge if you will, in terms of just taking apps off of my phone and refocusing. Today we had a birthday party with moms I don't know well. It was the first one in over a year my husband and I attended together. I checked my phone for time more than anything and just hung tight with him and mingled. It was really, really nice. Things are just nice, and simple, and now it's time to live there for a little.
Texting, calling and emailing is the way to go. I'm still obsessing over the interaction or should I clearly state, lack thereof, that kind of kicked me into high gear, but I'm praying on it becoming less and less prevalent. For now I'm just owning my siesta time and plan on enjoying all of it. I'll be posting daily so please subscribe and thank you all again so much! Happy weekend!
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