Have you ever considered breaking up with social media, but you are left thinking, what if I am missing out by leaving?
You are not alone.
Today on the pod, I am joined by Amelia Hruby! Amelia is a writer, educator, and podcaster with a PhD in philosophy.
She is the founder of Softer Sounds, a feminist podcast studio for entrepreneurs and creatives.
And she’s the host of Off the Grid, a podcast about leaving social media without losing all your clients.
Amelia shares her journey to leaving social media and how she started fully on board with it.
She continued a “compare and despair cycle” until she recognized the behavior patterns and triggers the app was causing, resulting in her entire departure from the app.
We talk about what social media brings to people and how people can achieve those feelings off the app. We also discuss how her breakup with diet culture played an important role in her breakup with social media.
Amelia shares the practice she used to help herself and those around her understand how social media is making you feel, what you notice about its impacts on your mental health, and how to absorb that information and decide what you want to do with it.
I have a love-hate relationship with social media, so having Amelia on the podcast was a joy. I hope that you enjoy this episode as much as I did.
Trying to figure out if a program or activity will actually promote healthy behavior change? 🙋🏻♀️ Download Keys to Promoting Health Sustaining Behaviors here: https://overcomingu.com/white-paper/
Have you ever considered breaking up with social media, but you are left thinking, what if I am missing out by leaving?
You are not alone.
Today on the pod, I am joined by Amelia Hruby! Amelia is a writer, educator, and podcaster with a PhD in philosophy.
She is the founder of Softer Sounds, a feminist podcast studio for entrepreneurs and creatives.
And she’s the host of Off the Grid, a podcast about leaving social media without losing all your clients.
Amelia shares her journey to leaving social media and how she started fully on board with it.
She continued a “compare and despair cycle” until she recognized the behavior patterns and triggers the app was causing, resulting in her entire departure from the app.
We talk about what social media brings to people and how people can achieve those feelings off the app. We also discuss how her breakup with diet culture played an important role in her breakup with social media.
Amelia shares the practice she used to help herself and those around her understand how social media is making you feel, what you notice about its impacts on your mental health, and how to absorb that information and decide what you want to do with it.
I have a love-hate relationship with social media, so having Amelia on the podcast was a joy. I hope that you enjoy this episode as much as I did.
Trying to figure out if a program or activity will actually promote healthy behavior change? 🙋🏻♀️ Download Keys to Promoting Health Sustaining Behaviors here: https://overcomingu.com/white-paper/
When I left social media. There are definitely opportunities that I have quote unquote missed out on. Even people have reached out to me who would like have big followings and wanted to partner on something, and I'm like I don't use social media so I won't be reposting this and like, oh sorry, that's not going to work for us. Then you know, I have had these challenging experiences after breaking up with diet culture. I have missed out on things after leaving social media, but what was more important to me is feeling good about myself and being in integrity with my values, and I think it's part of why these breakups, as I phrase them, have been long lasting.
Speaker 2:
Hi and welcome to the Air we Breathe, finding well-being that works for you. I'm your host, heather Sayers-Layman. I'm a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and Certified Personal Trainer. I help you get organized and consistent with healthy habits, without rules, obsession or exhaustion. This podcast may contain talk about eating disorders and disordered eating. There could also be some adult language here. Choose wisely if those are problematic for you.
Speaker 2:
Today I'm joined by Amelia Ruby. She is a writer, a podcaster and the founder of Softer Sounds, which is a feminist podcast studio. I listened to her on Christy Harrison's Rethinking Wellness podcast. She was doing an episode about how to leave social media and still run your business and, of course, I tuned in because if you listen to me, you know I have a bit of a love-h hate with social media. I don't know how much love there is. Anyway, it is something that I just don't find brings me a lot of joy, and I like to focus on things that bring me joy.
Speaker 2:
So I really wanted her to come on and not just from a business perspective, but to talk to all of us about some questions that we can ask ourselves with our relationship with social media, and listen to her story about how, one, she broke up a diet culture and then two, she broke up with social media and she is a happy, thriving person. So at the end, we're going to really talk about some questions and contemplation that you can do for yourself, which is where I am all ears, because I think these exercises are going to be really helpful. So let's go ahead questions and contemplation that you can do for yourself, which is where I am all years, because I think these exercises are going to be really helpful. So let's go ahead and jump in, All right. Well, I'm excited to jump in here with Amelia Ruby, and why don't you go ahead and just tell everybody a little bit about yourself and your work?
Speaker 1:
Of course. Thank you so much for having me, heather. My name is Amelia Frumi, as you just said. I currently live in Lincoln, nebraska, after seven years in Chicago and gosh 20 years in North Carolina. Before that, I am a podcaster, I'm a writer, I'm a speaker, I have a PhD in philosophy, which is what I did with most of my 20s, and now I run a podcast studio called Softer Sounds and I'm the host of a podcast called Off the Grid, which is about leaving social media without losing all your clients. It's geared towards small business owners, but really for anyone who wants to live with joy and integrity and is realizing that social media is messing all of that up. So I like to share stories and strategies for ways that we can step back from social media platforms and into our real lives. So that's a quick overview of you know over 30 years of things that I have done and shared, but hopefully that gives you and listeners an insight into a little bit of what I'm up to these days.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely, and I really am curious about the origin story of how you got to this point, because I think we're probably similar and you kind of like leapfrog your way through your career, but on the social media piece, like what was one of the bigger drivers for you.
Speaker 1:
So I always like to share that I am not a Luddite and I am not one of those people who was like I was never on social media. I don't get why people care about it, like I was all in on Instagram for a decade and so you know, for me social media started in college just as well. Actually, it started in high school when I was on Facebook. I got an Instagram in college and I was sharing things with my friends and then eventually that kind of shifted and I became more of a content creator. I was a micro-influencer, so I worked with brands to share their things. And then I also eventually got a book deal from a series of social media posts I had created and self-published and then sold to a traditional publisher. That's the Cliff Notes version of everything I was doing and loving on social media.
Speaker 1:
And then, in the process of selling my book and promoting my book online, I started to really see the ways that, no matter how hard I worked or how good I thought my work was when I was sharing it on Instagram, I just wasn't getting the results that I hoped for. My platform wasn't growing that fast. I wasn't getting high levels of engagement that I was hoping for. I was watching other people go viral and really struggling with why that wasn't happening for me.
Speaker 1:
A lot of some moments, like the compare and despair cycle, and it became this combination of like I'm putting in all this work and I'm not seeing results, and I'm feeling like more and more stressed and anxious and upset every time I'm on this platform and I felt like I started to recognize that there are some really common behavioral patterns or triggers that I was experiencing there that I recognize as a lot of the codependency I'd experienced in personal relationships, and so eventually, that all led to this sort of light bulb moment where I was like, wow, I'm just in this anxiously attached relationship with Instagram and I have to leave. Like I spent 10 years in this relationship and I have to get out of here at this point, and so I left Instagram in April of 2021. I had deleted Facebook and Twitter and everything else well before that, but that kind of began my break with social media and I haven't really looked back for the past three years.
Speaker 2:
Wow, that's so interesting. I haven't ever heard anybody tie it into their attachment style, but it really makes so much sense into their attachment style, but it really makes so much sense.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think that it's just one lens that we can use to look at our relationships with social media, but it was definitely the most evocative one for me. I think partially because I had been in therapy to work on my anxious attachment with other humans and my therapist had really helped me with that and helped me to understand the ways that I would, you know, panic about something that I had said and then really, like you know, send 20 text messages trying to get the other person to reassure me that it was okay, or I would you know. If so many patterns here, I feel like Instagram is a very avoidant. It like gives you a little bit right of engagement, gives you a little boost of likes, and then it's like and then you just keep chasing that and that's the thing I had. That had happened to me in many romantic relationships I'd been in where I'd get like a little boost of attention and then the person would withdraw and then I would anxiously like chase after that and try to recreate that and try to hold on to it and try to mold myself into anything I thought would get me that result. And that's exactly what I was doing on social media.
Speaker 1:
I realized like I would have a post that did well, and then I would try to recreate that and it would do sort of okay, and then it would do horribly, and then I would feel like I was completely worthless and that my work that I was sharing wasn't important and I would go into these like shame spirals and again, like all of this can be sort of explained and seen through attachment theory.
Speaker 1:
So it was really helpful for me to realize that. And then I had a hard, you know, chat with myself around like am I going to go to therapy just to break up with Instagram? Am I going to spend all that money again? And I was like no, I'm not. I already did this once. I could do it, I could do it again. And so, yeah, that that sort of lens of attachment style and codependency was really helpful for me in realizing what was happening in my experience of social media and making the decision to step away from it had gone to a burning bowl ceremony where you know we write down what we want to let go of from last year.
Speaker 2:
Burn that and then write down what we want. And then I was like this social media, instagram, is just not it for me, because exactly what you're saying it's like who do you want me to be? What can I do? Do you want me to tap dance fast? You want more of a tango? And, um, I think that it confuses for myself, like what am I trying to do anyway? What is my message? In what way do I want to help and serve people? Gets very tangled in that. So, um, I don't. You probably just saved me some dollars in therapy.
Speaker 1:
I mean, that's all I can hope for any and all of us. But I completely understand and I think that social media takes us pretty far out of our center and it takes that impulse that you're describing. That I think is so beautiful, like the impulse to be of service, the impulse to create the work that's important and meaningful to us and to share it in ways that will resonate with people. I mean, that's creative practice, that's art, that's business, that's all of these different things we may be doing. I mean, in a certain degree, like that's parenting, that's anything that we're involved in, that's a practice of care.
Speaker 1:
Those impulses are so important and I think that when we pour all of that into social media, we don't get back the reciprocal love and care and support that we might get when we pour it into healthy relationships with other humans. Right, we do that care work for our families, our friends, our clients, because it is a relationship. We build that and then we're able to see other people grow and succeed and we have the pride and the pleasure of knowing we were a part of that journey and then we're able to, you know, work with and hire other people who can grow and or help us grow and help us succeed, and so I think that it just really frustrates me or always did when I was on social media the way that those impulses really got twisted and I just was in service of a platform or an algorithm whose only motivation was to make more money for the people who own the app, and that's not what I showed up to do to me, and to stay in that space of creativity and of service without social media, I guess.
Speaker 2:
Well, that's what I like about your podcast, also because I've been working for myself for almost 25 years and it reminds me of how I used to do business before social media, because I think you had one and it was 20 some different things that you can do to grow your business, and I was like, oh right, okay, so so talk to people. Okay, okay, I've got okay, let me, let me jot that down Go is about relationships, whether you're a business, owner or not.
Speaker 1:
I think that social media is shifting our perception of what it takes to be in relationships and to build community and, if you are in business, to find clients. So much of it is just about learning to be a person who can relate to others and to can maintain healthy relationships over time. And so, yes, sometimes on my podcast, I feel like I'm just saying the same thing over and over again, which is like go talk to people, tell them what you do, and we do that in like fun and creative and interesting ways. Sometimes maybe it's through a podcast, maybe it's through an email newsletter, maybe you're literally like hopping on the phone or going to the coffee shop, but so much of it comes back to that one-to-one, face-to-face or phone-to-phone type of conversation. Like that's just what I'm always reminding us we can come back to or perhaps need to come back to in our work come back to or perhaps need to come back to in our work.
Speaker 2:
Do you feel like the do it yourself approach to improving your healthy habits does nothing except feel overwhelming, guilt inducing and defeating? You don't need more rules, influencers or structured programs. Let me help you discover what you want, what works for you and how to maintain healthy habits during the ever-changing circumstances of your life. If you're ready to create systems that stick head to heathersayerslaymancom, backslash health dash coaching and click, let's do it. There are people like myself that are getting out their pen. They're like okay, let me jot that down. Okay, so people will be the highlight of. Okay, I have that, I have that. And you have talked before about diet culture and social media and that your breakup was breaking up. A diet culture had to be part of your breakup with social media. I don't know if I have that backwards, but can you talk a little bit about your journey there?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so I celebrate two breakup anniversaries of my life. One is my breakup with diet culture, which happened in September of 2019. So we're coming up on five years for me, and the other is my breakup with social media, which happened on April 9th 2021, if I'm remembering correctly. So those are really monumental days in my life and I celebrate them like birthdays because they felt like I love you and to go back to how that happened, I think that the reason I celebrate them so much is that I think that diet culture was one of the like most foundational, oppressive, ingrained systems in my experience of myself.
Speaker 1:
Entire life up until that breakup anniversary or day was really characterized by a desire to control and constrict my body. Everything I did was about being smaller in physical size. Everything I ate, all the movement practices I did it's very punishing. I was very hard on myself. This will sound very familiar to, I'm sure, everyone listening. So much of my life was characterized by diets or exercise regimens or shame or stress around my body and that really took over so much of my mental and emotional energy for decades of my mental and emotional energy for decades. And in 2019, there was just this moment where I was in a really challenging cycle of overexercising and I injured myself in that process and I was kind of at the bottom of another one of my shame cycles around really challenging feelings about my body, and it was a kind of revelatory moment. I woke up one morning and I was like I can keep going down this path, I'm going to hurt myself more physically and emotionally and psychologically or I could just just stop. And at that point, you know, I had more resources from the fat positivity movement, from the health at every size movement, like I had understood what diet culture was, cognitively, logically, and I just had this real moment where all of that finally integrated, similar to the story I shared about leaving social media, I think for me, you know, it's often really really slow and then all at once in these moments of transformation, so like really slowly, I was realizing the harm that diet culture and all of my ingrained beliefs about it was doing to my body and to my life. And then all at once that became really apparent in this moment of injury and shame and I decided that I was opting out. And you know, even at the time I wasn't sure that was going to work. I was like you can't just decide this once and it'll be over, but I kind of did I mean I had support with that.
Speaker 1:
Again, I've already mentioned being in therapy. I had a very strong journaling practice. I did a ritual that day where I wrote a manifesto about things I was breaking up with and then I did a little mini selfie photo shoot, which was a big part of my practice, taking selfies during that time, getting reacquainted with my body and what it looked like and being okay with that. I went and bought one of my favorite pastries and I kind of wrapped all of that into this breakup ritual that I went through. And I haven't dieted or been on a punitive, punishing exercise or movement regimen since then.
Speaker 1:
It's been almost five years now which feels like such a feat and honestly, it feels like the other things I've accomplished have only been possible by freeing up all of that brain space that used to be taken up, by finding new diets and whatever else I was doing all the other things I was doing that were diet culture induced and I think that going through that experience of recognizing an oppressive system, understanding how I was using it to control and punish myself, and then realizing that I didn't have to do things that way really empowered me to recognize and take make the same choices when I had that realization around social media, seeing that, oh, social media is also this like system that has now been ingrained in these harmful beliefs about myself. It's impacting my self, work and self image and I don't have to do this like I could actually not do it and I can opt out of it. And I think that what I'd like to highlight in this moment of sharing those two stories is like they are so liberatory and so empowering and both those experiences changed my life for the better. And it doesn't mean there haven't been consequences of those actions, right, I think a lot of times people think, well, that's great for you that you did that, but that's not possible for me. Or they think, like, well, if I did that, here's 20 things that would happen, that would be a problem. And I think that for me, I needed to feel free. I needed to love myself or at least like myself, or stop hating myself. Really is where it started. Started with stopping hating myself, or at least like myself, or stop hating myself really is where it started. It started with stopping hating myself. We slowly worked toward the others. That's what I needed and I was willing to take the consequences.
Speaker 1:
When I say consequences, what I mean is like, yeah, I've been to doctors that fat shame and bully me. I've had to change care providers many times since I have gained weight as a result of breaking up with diet culture. That's been a consequence when I left social media. There are definitely opportunities that I have quote unquote missed out on. Even people have reached out to me who would like have big followings and wanted to partner on something, and I'm like I don't use social media so I won't be reposting this and like, oh sorry, that's not going to work for us.
Speaker 1:
Then I have had these challenging experiences after breaking up with diet culture. I have missed out on things after leaving social media, but what was more important to me is feeling good about myself and being in integrity with my values, and that's what I'm always coming back to, and I think it's part of why these breakups, as I phrase them, have been long lasting. I haven't come back. It hasn't been a toxic cycle of breakup and go back, and that's not to judge anyone who goes through that. I certainly had smaller breakups before these bigger ones that actually stuck, but I think part of what's made them so long lasting has been that they are just deeply connected to my values and it feels so good to be free of those systems at this point in my life.
Speaker 2:
Wow, that's really interesting because it makes me think of, like you know, the frog and the boiling water. If you were like the water was just getting really hot and then finally you're like, okay, like this is too, too hot, too much, I just can't.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I got out before I was boiled alive, which in the metaphor the frog doesn't.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I think what's interesting about that too, is the pull to go back can be so strong because, also, when you are humiliated at the doctor's office or you know, when whatever it is is consequential of buying different clothes or having people treat you differently, like whatever that, I feel like that pull for people to be like well, um, and I was having a conversation recently about that because that pull is also it's not real that diet that you think that you should do, or maybe, if I just is so romantic to think about doing, but then it doesn't change anything, you're right back where you started.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think that within diet culture, we're so trained to believe there's like a magic fix or like if we just cut out this one food or all of these foods, or you know, if we can make this one change, then our whole lives will be different. Or if we can make this one change, then our whole lives will be different. And what I've been able to discover on the other side of that is that you absolutely can change your life, but a diet is not what's going to do it, and it is likely going to be like if it's not guided by your deepest desires and by your pleasure, then that's not a change. Emotions that I value, or they are so deeply connected and tied to my personal values that it's important to me to live them out. Those are the changes I can stick with, but I can definitely reflect back on through all of my 20s.
Speaker 1:
Anytime I had a problem or went through a or was struggling with my career, I would go on a diet because I felt like I could control the situation by controlling what I was eating, and it really became a go to coping mechanism for me. And you know, if I felt bad about something happening in the external world. Well, I could just feel bad about my body instead, and then that was also something I could control. I mean not really, but it was this way of like trying to pull in, this control of like, oh, I don't have to feel bad about that if I feel worse about me, and it was. I mean all of that. So, looking back now, I can see it so clearly and I have so much compassion for myself and amazement that I was able to pull out of those cycles and I still you know, control is still a coping mechanism that I have to work with and like understand that I have to surrender and can't control everything. But I think that you know, I really what I was able to see that so clearly in my relationship to God diet and exercise and I think that that's partially. It's through the power of those coping mechanisms that we return, because those behaviors and patterns and habits are giving us something, even if they're also harming us even more, like we're getting something from them and we have to find ways to get that from other things or to understand what we actually need underneath that. And I hope that in describing all of this, it's clear that I don't take any of it lightly and that I think that we are all on different timelines with our relationship to these cycles and to how we support ourselves and the changes that we make in our lives.
Speaker 1:
And for me, my whole life has just been an orientation toward trying to get free from these oppressive systems, and the ones I've started with are the ones that feel most like personally ingrained in my self image, which has been diet, culture and then social media. But there are plenty of other systems I'm also rooting out. Part of my PhD was in feminist theory, so understandings of white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy are right up in there. Harder perhaps, maybe, to quote unquote break up with some of those. I haven't really broken up with capitalism or white supremacy, but I'm better able to critique them and understand where they play out in my life and make different choices as well as to like join community initiatives and efforts to create different ways forwards. But I think that a lot of this starts in a really personal way, that's like for me it started with diet, culture and social media, because those are the systems I felt like I was doing to myself and that's where I could start to root out some of that behavior.
Speaker 2:
Well, I think it really reminds me because every course I do, every client I work with, we always start with because they're obviously displeased with a state or a condition, their overall life, any of it and we do cost causes and values. And what are the causes of the way I'm feeling? What are the costs? But what do I want and I'll link in the show notes what episode I talk about that process in the podcast, because I think there's not enough time spent on values, because we talk about what we don't want and what we don't like, but we don't spend enough time because you could list it off.
Speaker 2:
I know you said ease and all of these pieces that you decided. This is worth much more than the other things and I think it's so important to get familiar with that so that you have something to kind of fall back to like. No, I said I really wanted to be peaceful and content, and peaceful and content does not go with, you know, trying something new, or maybe you know walking a little faster this time, trying something new, or maybe you know walking a little faster this time or whatever compensatory method that you're thinking about, but really being solid in your values can be really helpful to even like nip it in the bud, really, so you can hear that conversation be like hmm, no.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think that this even takes us back to social media, because I think for so many of us, when we want to make a change, like it actually starts, the initial feeling we have is like not this. It's like, it's like a no. We can feel that friction, and I think that's where a lot of people are at with social media, like it feels bad and we're just like not this, not Instagram social media. It feels bad and we're just like not this, not Instagram, not TikTok, not this and what you're speaking to that values piece. If we don't get that, then we have no way out of the not this. It's like we need a not this, but that or that, and that we need the alternative and that's what the values can help us identify. It's like what else do I want and how do I accomplish that? Or feel that way or find those things, and I think one of the challenges right now with social media is that it's become this all encompassing place to find personal connection, professional gain, well being, like every aspect of our lives, and so there isn't an alternative where it's like not social media, but this other thing that gives you everything that's been wrapped into social media, like that doesn't exist yet. And this is something I come up with when I talk to people through off the grid, or you know, my marketing work is that it's like, yeah, not social media. And I'm like, yeah, or, but this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and that you know, like there there's a buffet of options.
Speaker 1:
One of the most popular things I've ever created is a list called 100 ways to share your work off social media, and so I can tell you 100 other things you can do, but I don't have one shiny solution. That is everything like the conglomeration of everything that we've all been using social media for, and I think that you know that comes up when we look back at diet culture. Right, it's like, well, not this, but like that one perfect diet that promises everything, that one perfect exercise regimen that promises whatever it may be. You know, like we have to let go of that desire for the one thing that's actually, I think, sometimes considered a symptom of like white supremacy culture to have like one ruling answer to everything, and we have to step into the multiplicity of it. It could be so many things and this expansive idea that we can have so many answers.
Speaker 1:
So not social media but all the other things calling your friends on the phone, starting a group text, starting an email newsletter, putting up billboards, talking to people at the coffee shop, you know all these things like we get to invite in all of that instead of this one app. That's like stressing us out and creating these shame spirals and giving us that bad feeling. But I understand that we're also like stressed and tired and exhausted and have a lot going on. And so when I'm like, yeah, you could do these 100 things, you're like, yeah, but I just want to do the one thing that's going to work, and that's what I can't promise. I can't give you one thing that's going to work, and I'm grateful that I learned that through diet culture first. So when I came into marketing, I wasn't so obsessed with finding, like, the one right answer. I already knew there isn't one.
Speaker 2:
Mm, hmm, Can you go through some questions? Because I think that that's one piece that I mean I always find really helpful. I mean I always find really helpful to it's like the application, because I think people are like oh, I see this concept about being able to really peel the onion and ask themselves some deeper questions, especially when you are afraid of the answer, Because if the answer is, I should really get off of social media, which we also already know we're like ooh, I don't know. But having some questions I think is really helpful, Because, especially I always talk about the trans-theoretical model and how we change our behavior, and if you're at pre-contemplation, you're like, no, I don't think it's a problem, but you are contemplating, this is a problem and maybe someday I might do something about it. Then those questions can help move you through to actually action and change.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so I want to start with a practice that I invite people into, and I learned this originally from my friend and fellow business owner, taylor Elise Morrison of Inner Workout, but she taught me this practice I think is really helpful. If you're just beginning to contemplate like is my relationship with social media a problem? Do I maybe want to step away from these apps? So what I recommend is setting a timer while I guess first getting your phone and a journal and then setting a timer for five minutes and then opening up Instagram or TikTok or your app of choice and scrolling for that full five minutes and, while you're scrolling, just taking notes about what you're seeing and how it's making you feel. So you're like just taking notes about what you're seeing and how it's making you feel. So you're like dog cute dog video feeling great Fitness influencer who I followed for too long, feeling really insecure, whatever it may be, just like kind of notice how, what's happening and, in your experience of that, start there with the noticing and then, when your five minutes is up, go to that list that you just created and use it to ask yourself these two questions like what good things am I getting from using this app and then, what negative things am I experiencing while I'm on this app? And so some of that hopefully likely came up in your scrolling. Some of that for the good things.
Speaker 1:
It may be more about looking at your own profile, reflecting on some larger trends, but I like to start with kind of grounding us in our experience of the scroll first, and then going to those questions. And this gets back to what you shared, like what are the costs and the causes and the values here? Like what are the good things that I'm getting from this? What are the negative impacts that I'm noticing it's having? And then, I think, really sitting with and digesting that information.
Speaker 1:
I don't think you need to make a decision in that moment about anything, but if you're in this stage of contemplation, I recommend doing that maybe once a week for a few weeks and seeing what's shifting when you're becoming a more active user of the social media platform that you're on, because so much of these platforms is intended to lull us into passivity, so that we're just really reacting without thought or intention. And if you can kind of bring this intentional practice to it, if you can be scrolling intentionally while noticing what's coming up for you, if you can be taking these kind of ongoing notes on what are the positive things that it's bringing me, what are the negative impacts that it's having. Then you'll start to see over time, you know, are there more positive or more negative? Is there only one negative? But it's like really bad, like you're like, well, it's bringing me all this great stuff, but the negative thing is, well, it's really just like making me feel like crap 100% of the time.
Speaker 2:
Pretty bad one.
Speaker 1:
And then being able to kind of go through that. And for me, this is where, like once, I have all that information. I like to bring in like a trusted friend or coach or advisor or mentor or colleague you know, or typically just my partner, and be like can we talk about this? Because I've been in this period of self discovery. I think maybe it's telling me I should take a break from social media or delete my profile or use it way more. I don't know if you found that for yourself, but I like to. Then I'm an external processor or verbal processor, so then I like to bring in someone else I can kind of look at that with and be like what do you see in this? Am I missing anything? Again, this should be a very trusted person.
Speaker 1:
But from there I think you can move toward a decision about what you might do. But I'm hope, but I think again, it's about starting with, just like, being an active user, being intentional, noticing what's happening for us, being honest about the positives and the negatives. I'm not here to say that social media is ruining your life 100% of the time, Like if it didn't bring us good things, we wouldn't be there If we weren't getting something out of it. Like I said before, we wouldn't spend time on it, but we have to surface what's really coming up when we're on the apps and then be honest with ourselves about what we're finding in that assessment and then take action from that point we're finding in that assessment and then take action from that point.
Speaker 2:
And do you ever recommend in all of my courses they're like toe in or deep end, because if you just want to, you know, try a little something, read a little something, you can definitely toe in, or you can completely submerge yourself in the practice, yourself in the practice. Do you find that people that maybe then take a break do well with that and then go on. Does that make that easier than just completely getting rid of everything?
Speaker 1:
I think it really depends on the person. I know people that use social media very seasonally, so they're only on the app in the spring or they're on the app when they're promoting a course, and that's the only time. But I also hear them talk about how they feel like the algorithm doesn't favor that so they don't see. Typically, when you return, you'll see a big spike in engagement and then a complete drop off if you're not posting regularly again, or something like that. I think that this is where we each have to return to kind of our own values and our own energetic patterns and our own. You know, what are the compromises that we're making and are they worthwhile? So I think that, just like there's no ethical consumption under capitalism, as they say you know, it's not that I think there's a perfectly pure marketing system that you can do. That's not going to be complicated or, you know, challenging or have ethical qualms in some way. At least, that's how I think about social media. So it's just what I encourage people to do is figure out what works best for you. I think that one thing I do see that feels challenging for people who take a lot of breaks is they kind of do it through this mode of bargaining where it's like, okay, well, I'm just gonna like really stick it out here for a while longer. It's like, okay, well, I'm just going to like really stick it out here for a while longer, even though I feel horrible, and I'm going to give myself a month long break and I'll come back, because I have to come back to promote this thing or to share this thing, or my cousin had a baby, whatever it is. I'm trying to give personal and professional examples but it ends up creating this cycle of again. It can become a kind of punitive cycle, it can become a binge and restrict cycle and it can also harm, I think, your self-trust.
Speaker 1:
If you know for a long time that you need to get off social media and you just give yourself breaks as a way of like sort of saying yes to that inner knowing but not actually giving it what it needs, I think that that will harm your relationship with yourself and with your intuition over time.
Speaker 1:
And then it's that's challenging. I don't judge people who go off and back on. I've had people on the podcast who left and then a year later were like no, I think I'm going to go back for six weeks, and they do that and I think if that works for them, that's great. I'm not in the business of deciding if or when anyone should be on social media, but I do think from my own experience that trusting our inner, knowing and really being in integrity with our needs, desires and values is how we create lives that nourish and fulfill us, and so I see social media just really harm that for a lot of people, really harm that connection with themselves, and sometimes I think that this off and on, take breaks, come back cycle is a part of that problem off and on, take breaks, come back cycle is a part of that problem.
Speaker 2:
That's so interesting and so good to think about because it's all designed for harm and to pull you away from yourself anyway. So I mean that just feels like a bad relationship where you're just going back for a little more of like oh, that's why I hated, Okay, yeah, that's that's why I don't like this person.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and and that definitely is something I hear a lot and I think again, like, if you're in that position, I think getting really honest with yourself, asking yourself like, why am I going back? Like what is happening there that I want more of? Like why am I returning? Is it because you feel like you're missing out on something? Is it because you need to market something in your business and you don't know how else to do it? Because we can find other ways to do those things.
Speaker 1:
There are very few things that you literally can't get anywhere except social media, maybe a little more challenging or different. You may have to text your friend and be like, please send me photos of your dog instead of just seeing them in stories. But like, can we open ourselves up to those new and different ways of being, to the vulnerability of asking instead of lurking? Can we be honest about what we're desiring and if social media is a good place to get that, can we honor our feeling that it feels bad to be there and can we make different choices that feel better for us, maybe not in that immediate short-term moment, but in the longer run, as we realign with our values.
Speaker 2:
So much to think about, and these are all such great journaling topics as well. I definitely will be doing some, as I keep pondering my imminent breakup.
Speaker 1:
Well, tell everyone where they can find you not on Instagram not on Instagram, yeah, so if you're interested in hearing more about my perspectives on social media, you can listen to my podcast off the grid leaving social media without losing all your clients. I also offer a free toolkit called the leaving social media toolkit that provides a five step plan for leaving any social media platform, that list of 100 ways to share your work off social media that I mentioned, and a creative marketing ideas database. If you're a business owner and want to plan marketing experiments that are not on social media, that will help you do that. You can also find me personally online at ameliefrubycom. And if you'd like to make a podcast together, that is, my primary work right now is running a podcast studio and that's called Softer Sounds and you can find it at softersoundsstudio.
Speaker 2:
Which you do have a lovely podcast voice also Thank you. So I listen to myself when I you know edit like social media clips and you know the ums, the likes and everything. And then when I hear somebody with a really smooth delivery, I'm like that is so nice.
Speaker 1:
Well, you know it's been a lot of practice. I will say Like I've been podcasting for eight years now, I think, and I'm on like my third or fourth show of my own, so it comes over time. We all find our own voice at our own time.
Speaker 2:
Good to know. Well, thank you so much for spending time here. I really appreciate everything that you talked about.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me and thank you, listeners, for tuning in, and I just hope everyone knows that I really am cheering you on in your journey of breaking up with diet, culture or social media, if that is the journey that you're on.
Speaker 2:
All right, take care as always. Please follow show or you can leave a five star review on Apple or Spotify. That would be fun to see in the next episode.
