Opting out of Instagram, and the pressure of living under the weight of expectation
As creatives sharing our work online, Instagram can certainly be one of the things that weighs heavy as one of the expectations we put on ourselves. With a lot of chatter online about taking an Instagram break, ‘digital detoxing’ or disabling Instagram to help us recover headspace in and away from the busy online world, I made a decision to take my own social media break and the reaction I got helped me learn some interesting lessons on ‘opting out’.
I remember quite clearly the moment one of my close community members Alex sent me a book recommendation, (my community members and I love to share books we have enjoyed, or new titles that have caught our eye, with each other) this particular book was called ‘Adventures in Opting Out’ by Cait Flanders. Although I have read one of her other books, ‘The Year of Less’, I have yet to read this one.
However, being curious and as someone who has chosen to live a soul led life, since that day, I’ve been instinctively tuned into the chatter online that has centered around describing intentionally living as ‘opting out’.
Opting out of the pressure of living a life under the weight of expectation.
As enticing as a life ‘without’ sounds, in choosing to opt out there is, unfortunately, always a connotation that we will in some way be missing out if we choose to go or do things our own way. I’m sure you will have heard of the expression FOMO by now.
A few weeks ago I decided to opt out of the expectation that as an online business owner, I ‘should be’ using social media as part of my marketing strategy.
After 11ish years of sharing, marketing and documenting my work and my life online, I made an intentional choice to opt out of using social media.
I felt like the role the app played in my day to day life was leading me away from my integrity, and quite honestly it had become more of a burden I carried, rather than a useful marketing tool.
What I knew for sure was that I needed to give myself a break and lay down the weight for a while. I needed to press Pause and reevaluate how I would be using the app, if at all going forward.
I logged out of Instagram and in the days that followed I of course felt the fear that in making this decision I would end up ‘missing out’, more specifically on :
Day to day contact with the community I had built and nurtured thus far, along with the friendships I had made within that community
Further growth by not posting and engaging
Valuable insights from the women I want to serve
Visibility and credibility, if I wasn’t ‘showing up’, perhaps my community may think I’m not ‘serious’ about my work anymore
Potential income due to the reduced direct contact with my community and potential future clients
But throughout those days when I could have so easily back tracked on the commitment to my truth, I kept reminding myself of why I was pulled to take a break in the first place, and as time went on I started to rewrite the inner narrative that was telling me I needed to be ‘on’ and changed the perspective around what I was actually doing:
I wasn’t opting out of a life with social media. I was opting into a life without social media.
A life without:
Feeling like I had to be ‘on’ all the time, documenting moments to share later, even during the times that I was intentional about being ‘off’
Being bombarded with so many ideas about who I could be and how I could live my life
Losing so much time being sucked down a rabbit hole, when my intention was just to ‘check in’
Comparison, no matter how intentional I am about standing in my truth, it is hard to not compare yourself to others online
A feeling of detachment and disconnection from my offline life
‘The distraction’
The disappointment in myself I carried that with the time I spent online, I could have been spending on or with something or someone that truly mattered to me
In opting into a life without social media I wrote myself a big fat permission slip to stop burying myself under the pressure that comes with using social media as part of my business and cleared a path to be more in my own life, and for me to root myself deeper in my truth.
When I shared the news that I was going to be opting out of social media for the foreseeable future I received a lot of feedback.
However, the overriding response was that although so many of my community loved ‘the idea’ of opting out of social media, the fear of ‘missing out’ and the unknown currently outweighed the certainty that came with continuing to tread the beaten path.
The general message was, ‘I would love to not have to use social media, but I’m worried about what I’ll be missing out on by not using it ,cheerleading you on and can’t wait to hear how you get on’.
This made me consider the way I had shared my decision.
I felt like I was heading off the beaten track into the great unknown, leaving a crowd of well wishers behind me.
However there was so much I knew about where I was heading to and I wondered what the response would have been if I had shared my decision differently.
If I had shared that: I was opting into a life in which I could be more at ease and present, one in which I was cultivating more time for myself, more headspace and capacity for what truly mattered to me.
Would my community still have wished me well in the same way, or would they have changed direction and embraced their own truth and opted out of social media with no hesitation and fear of what they would miss out on because what they would have been so pulled by what they were going to be creating space for.
A life without expectations leaves more room for a life of more truth.
The path Back To You and your truth is paved by curiosity, creativity, courage and compassion and for the pull of your truth to outweigh your fears it is crucial you get curious and clear about what your truth is.
How to give yourself a break from social media, or other areas of your life that weigh heavy with expectation
Maybe in reading my words you have been calling yourself out for the pressure you have been putting yourself under, however, sometimes we don’t even realise just how much extra weight we have been carrying until we get to the point when we no longer want to carry it.
Often we don’t realise we even had a choice to let go or lay something down for a while or indefinitely, we are so used to doing what is expected of us, what we think we should be doing, pleasing others for the sake of keeping ‘the peace’ or worse we are stuck in a belief that we don’t know what is best for us.
We have been made to believe that if we stop living up to the expectation, we have failed in some way, have lost ‘it’, are not capable or will disappoint. It can feel a bit like if we lay the weight down, we are giving up ‘the fight’ (without knowing what we are really battling against in the first place).
I want you to know that pausing to reevaluate and realign with your truth is NOT the same as giving up and in the journey Back To You doing so is part of paving the way for ‘success’ and cultivating a soul driven life.
Be Curious
What has started to feel like pressure? Our truth needs us to be curious about what is getting in the way of who we are and who we have always been and then it requires us to be honest about our findings.
If you feel like life has started to feel heavy, start nurturing the practice of self enquiry, get curious and start to become aware of what is truly weighing you down.
Be really honest with yourself about whether this is a weight you are willing to continue being buried under or are you ready to start taking responsibility for how you can ‘unbury’ yourself from the pressure of expectation.
Suggested journaling prompt : I have not been acknowledging…
How can you write your own permission slip to do what feels easeful
Be Creative
When you choose to lay down an expectation you have been carrying for so long, it is important to understand what you are writing yourself a permission slip for, so that you do not backtrack and repeat the cycle of burying yourself again.
Ask yourself what would feel more like ease.
In your pause take the time to create a clear vision of what living in your own truth feels like, and let that pull you forward through the inevitable doubt and fear of rejection as you start to step your way along your own unique path.
In identifying what you no longer want you can start to understand what you need to close the gap between you and the woman you are becoming.
Start where you are and with whatever it is that you want to change. You are now very aware of how you do not want to feel, now start to understand how you do want to feel, what you need to help you feel that way and how feeling that way would transform your life.
NB. When you create your vision don’t ask yourself what you should do, instead ask yourself who you want to be.
My favourite ways to remember who I am, as I cycle around my journey of self recovery, is to journal, explore Pinterest and then create pages with images that represent how I want to feel in my day to day life and what will help me to feel that way.
Be Courageous
It takes courage to head off the ‘beaten track’ and away from life as you have always known it. Not everyone will understand nor accept the changes that you make for yourself. It is not easy to follow your ease and head in a direction away from what is familiar to you.
Through my own journey I have learnt that strength is not about tolerating and battling on, true strength is no longer tolerating whatever has been getting in the way of you and your truth.
To nurture courage you must reevaluate what you are willing to no longer tolerate.
Be Compassionate
It will be inevitable, no matter how much groundwork we do, that we will doubt ourselves, that we will question ourselves and our ability to create change and our ability to become the woman we know deep down we are.
It is hard to quiet our inner critic, but I’ve learnt that one of the ways to relieve the pressure we put on ourselves is by assuring yourself that you have time and that you can take your time. Change takes time, and it is OK to nurture yourself and what already is.
You don’t have to be and do anything new, you can tend to who you already are, what you already do in a deeper way and leave space in your life to be.
Let’s recap on What to do when you feel those signs and symptoms of mental, physical and/or emotional exhaustion creeping in
Acknowledge the way you feel, to make real change you need to start where you are and what you have
Be curious, what has been contributing to you feeling this way, is it one particular thing or many things that have been piling up?
Be creative, you know how you don’t want to feel and what is causing you to feel that way, and weeded it out, but how do you want to feel and what do you need nourish to make you feel that way?
Be courageous, commit to your truth, make a promise to yourself to no longer tolerate and carry whatever it is that has been weighing you down.
Be compassionate, when you lay something down, you don’t have to pick something else up. You are enough without all that weight.
How are you going to give yourself a break and what will you be nurturing?
It’s your turn to take a step towards your truth and ease.
Don’t dilute your truth nor shrink yourself because you fear missing out or being misunderstood.
Pause where you are, lay down the weight of expectation, journal and then move on when you feel you are sure about the direction you need to head in.
Take achievable, aligned and truthful steps forward.
This is YOUR journey of self recovery. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you have to carry any extra weight along the way.
I’d love to know how you need to give yourself a break and what you have decided to nurture, if you feel comfortable send me an email and share your intentions with me.
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