episode 154: my breakup with instagram
Today’s episode is one of the most personal and vulnerable I’ve ever shared.
And it’s not about my negative body image or disordered eating--it's about my relationship to social media.
I’ve been sitting on this for a very long time and a big moment last weekend that was a turning point for me made me realize that it was time to take action.
The truth is that there are MANY parallels between our relationship with food and our relationship with social media. And that’s a big reason why I wanted to talk about my experience. But there are also some major differences and I share one of them in this episode and how its impacting my mental health.
Is Instagram creating my body image issues?
I talk about what it’s like to work as a business owner who creates content for IG, why the nature of the work that I do heavily influences the type of content that I share and how consuming content on IG has impacted my well being. And I also get into why I enjoy being on social media and how that’s shaped my work.
I’ll let you know about changes I’ve made and am thinking about making and why it feels so scary to do that.
There’s a lot of nuance and a lot of messiness in this episode—I’m not sharing skills or coaching. I’m talking about a very personal struggle with the hope that it helps others feel less alone and reminds us of our common humanity.
You might also enjoy episode 147 and episode 131 of The Diet Diaries which dive into how social media impacts our negative body image and body confidence.
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Speakers
Speaker 1
00:01
Welcome to the Diet Diaries, a podcast where we have candid, heartfelt conversations that will help you figure out what, why and how to eat so you can feel amazing in your body. Because it's time to break the all or nothing mindset of yoyo dieting, food obsession and feeling ruled by the scale. I'm your host, body image and nutrition coach, jordana Edelstein. I'm so happy you're here. Hey, everyone, it's episode 154 of the Diet Diaries.
Speaker 2
00:35
Today is Monday, november 20th. If you're listening to this on a day it gets published. And a quick reminder before I dive into today's episode. Nourishing Notes starts today. If you missed the sign up. If you still want to join, this is totally free. You can still add your name. You'll just kind of hop in on whatever day that you sign up. This is three emails a week for six weeks, starting now all the way through January 1st. So you can move through the holidays feeling really good, not stressing about food, not freaking out when you put your pants on and they're too tight, not planning for a diet or a juice cleanse in January, really enjoying the holidays and feeling like yourself. So come join us. It's totally free. It's my holiday gift to you guys. Thank you for being here, so just wanted to remind you about that.
01:22
So today's episode is going to be a little bit of a departure from my usual content. I did one of these, I don't know, at least a month or so ago now, where I talked about things like being the best. Today I'm talking about social media. This is going to be a very personal episode. I'm going to share some stuff that is not easy for me to share things that I have been wanting to share and have written about and journaled about but have not. But I'm kind of at a breaking point and I'm recording this. On Monday, november 13th it is currently 109 pm and as of right now, I have not been on Instagram since 10 am on Sunday, right Like a little over 24 hours I deleted the app off of my phone. I did that very spontaneously, I had not planned to do it and something just hit me and I did it, and that is the longest break that I have taken from Instagram in over three and a half years.
02:24
I started posting regularly on Instagram during the very early COVID. I dove right in. Before that I very rarely used Instagram. I kind of went 0 to 100. And so I have taken breaks from posting many times. I'll do that pretty frequently, several times a month. I'll go at least 24 hours and I won't post anything like in stories. I'll go like a week without putting up a feed post.
02:45
But even if I'm not posting in stories, I will still be going on to check, because Instagram is addictive and if you use Instagram or TikTok, you know what I'm talking about and my belief. I have no science to back this up is that anyone who uses social media on a regular basis is addicted. It is designed to do that and it's a huge problem. It's a huge problem for me. I'm really aware of it. I've been aware of it. I've been acutely aware of it for several months and I've been kind of attempting different things, some things which have been helpful and successful. I've shared about those in email where I've really caught back or really actually eliminated going into the search tab, looking and like seeing what other people are doing that I don't follow. I've muted people.
03:44
So I just what kind of just in the immediate sense sparked this, and there's a lot I want to talk about. I just wanted to kind of like start this off with sort of like okay, I have deleted the Instagram app from my phone. Now I will tell you right now I'm not planning on keeping it deleted. I would like to take like a full month off. I'm not there yet, so at some point this afternoon I am going to put the app back on.
04:07
I am going to make my post about this week's podcast. I will probably post a couple of stories and just talk a little bit about the fact that I took a break not in depth, because that's why I'm doing this on this podcast episode and this has given me some ideas. I'm kind of thinking about well, how can I use this? Because what's happened, what's been so interesting, is the app is gone, because I've tried many times before to cut back on my usage and it's so. I will pick up my phone and, without even realizing that, I will be tapping on Instagram, like I'll check email if I have a text, and then it's just the next automatic autopilot thing that happens. So, and then I'll tap it and then, oh my god, it's a lot of work to be like, okay, hold on, I don't actually want to be doing this.
04:52
And then you see something and you get sucked in and before you even know it, you're in, and there are a lot of parallels to this with food. That's a big reason why I'm talking about it. I'm also talking about it because all this impacts body image. It impacts our self worth, impacts how we feel about ourselves, it impacts what we eat and why we eat, because we're constantly comparing ourselves and seeing what other people are doing. So it is completely an all interrelated and intertwined. But we eat a lot on autopilot without pausing or thinking. We use social media on autopilot without pausing or thinking. So there are a lot of overlaps. There's also a lot of differences. They are not identical.
05:37
I kind of had said to myself well, by taking a full break from social media, that's an all or nothing mindset. That's no different than cutting out like desserts, and I've been sitting on that and spending more time with it and I actually I don't think that that's true. I think that that's me sort of like over simplifying things, because I can go off social media for a period of time and from my mental health standpoint it will only have positive impacts. I can tell from 24 hours a difference, not that it's like I won't say like it's drastic, but I can feel more space in my brain without it. That's the best way I can articulate it. My brain is not filled with seeing things through the lens of content. It's not seeing. It's not thinking about the next time I can check it. It's not thinking about like that, just knowing that it's there thinking about well, did I post something and did I check something, or did someone comment on this, or should I check? And when it was a lot like there's just all that is, it's kind of will pop up and then I realize that the app isn't there and I'm like, oh my God, this feels really good. So I'm kind of going.
06:47
I have a ton of notes for this episode written and I'm kind of I'm going a little bit all over the place because there's really so much I want to talk about. It's probably going to be a little bit longer of an episode. I hope you'll just bear with me. I was kind of talking about the over, like the similarities between eating on autopilot, emotional eating, craving, snacking, mindless eating and social media, and what I was saying was that I had kind of said to myself well, if you go off Instagram for a month, that's no different than saying you're cutting out desserts. And I don't think that that's true the more I've thought about it. One because in the past, when I am not saying that I'm considering cutting out food, I'm just making the analogy for everyone who's listening, who has experienced and thought about similar things, about like cutting out a food group to lose weight or make a change or whatever, or break a quote addiction. I just lost my train of thought.
07:39
Of course, I have taken, I have cut out food before and missed it and been sad and thought about it and felt like something was like a gaping hole, whereas with this it's not like that, because you can go through. You can't go through the world and avoid food, right, you can maybe choose not to bring something into your house, but inevitably you're going to go out to eat, someone's going to drop something off, you're going to go to a party where there is going to be food around that you are afraid of, you're going to try to cut out, is going to be there and you're going to have to deal with it. Social media that is just not the case. I can say I'm not going on Instagram and I can just, and that's it, like done, like not an issue. So it is not the same. And I already felt that in 24 hours.
08:30
I think that I really kind of wear this. I mean, I wrote a journal entry. My type dip is. I still think of it as journaling. In August I remember I was sitting outside on our patio and I was writing about like how unhappy I was feeling about social media. And here's the thing it's. It's a total both, and because I actually really enjoy doing stories. I don't love doing posts. I love doing stories. They're easy for me, they're fun and I enjoy connecting with people. I really truly do. So. I keep thinking about, well, how can I just create and not consume? It's the consumption part that becomes problematic. For me, the biggest upside, or the upside to social media is knowing that you're not alone, right? I've connected with a lot of people, people like myself, other coaches, creators, influencers. I follow people that I've never, like you know, had a personal conversation with maybe a couple of DMs but I follow them because their content makes me feel seen and that is incredibly valuable. So it's hard to say again, I can't. I don't want to speak in black and whites and say that all of Instagram is bad, because that's not true, but part of me thinks that the bad can really easily outweigh the good and that we I need a lot more boundaries around. I think we all do, but I'm just going to speak for myself.
10:03
You know I mentioned earlier that I deleted the app and I've been trying. I'm kind of thinking about oh well, how could that be a tool? And I'm kind of playing around with something, something. Well, maybe I'll delete it at like, I don't know, a certain time every day, maybe five or six o'clock, and then I don't put it back on my phone until a certain time the next morning. It's really easy to delete it and reload it Like it doesn't, like it's, nothing goes away. So that's a super easy thing to do.
10:27
And then what happens is when I go to tap my phone to get it and I realize it's not there like that that happened so many times yesterday I'm like, oh, it's not there and I would just put my phone down and walk away and went to go do something else, whereas if Instagram had been there, I would have tapped on it, I would have scrolled, I would have gotten sucked into something, I would have compared myself, I would have second guessed like stuff that we don't even kind of really consciously realize is happening, but that I realized kind of after the fact and it's like cumulative. I realized there's a buildup of this. That time just came back to me. That's mental space came back to me. It was like given back to me so, so powerful.
11:02
The first time I went to go to Instagram and realized it wasn't there, I was like it was like a revelation. It made me even more aware of how automatically I go to like tap on that. And then what a relief it felt like to then have that time freed up to go do something that's actually productive. That felt really good. And then, as the day went on, I started to go to it less and less. I started to remember oh, it's not there, it's not there, okay. And then it was so easy for me At night when I watched TV with Ben and or Danny, I leave my phone in the kitchen.
11:38
I've been doing that for a while. I don't do it 100% of the time, but I would say a good 80 to 90% of the time. It's great. So a couple of hours sometimes we'll go by, depending on the night, where I don't look at my phone. And honestly, you guys, in some ways like the best fucking part of my day I'm just being brutally honest with you, right? Like do I think I have like a mental health illness? No, I think that I deal with what a lot of people deal with we.
12:02
Social media has usurped a part of our brains and the way we engage and interact and kind of center ourselves in the world. It's whether you know. It's for me a lot less about body image, right, cause I follow people who I think, are really inspirational and have done a lot of work and provide a lot of, you know, resources. Even their influencers, right, they're still like doing their thing and showing themselves. But even when, like, there's still ads, right, there's like the whole shopping piece of Instagram, like, how often do you like impulse buy or use I mean the algorithm that serves ads on Instagram, I will say is phenomenal. I get served with stuff that is so on point for what I am looking for. I mean, forget when you talk about something and then it picks it up on the phone but whether it's clothing or jewelry or I don't even know, I'm like oh my God, I love that. Oh my God, I love that.
13:01
I think I believe there are ways I have to look into this more to start to shut some of that down. I don't think you can get rid of the ads entirely, but you can choose what types of ads you want to see. You have to like, really kind of go a couple of like steps into the settings to figure that out, right, but so you can. I've muted people on Saturday night. So today's Monday, saturday night, I unfollowed a hundred people and muted more, thinking I've got a call. This time I've got a so that when I am on, when I am consuming, it is very focused and very specific. So that's helpful. But there's still ads, there's still suggested posts.
13:38
Now it's doing this thing where it's popping in this box for threads and it's putting in all these posts which happened to be about the war, from people who have a very different viewpoint than I do, and I'm like why is it feeding me this? Sometimes I'll end up clicking on things and it's like I don't. There's so much consent that it pushes at you that goes beyond what you actually are opting into seeing. That's like part of what keeps you hooked in, you know. So that's really frustrating and I do want to mention a sidebar right now because it just came up in the context of that of what I mentioned.
14:11
The content on social media right now because of the war in Israel and Gaza is extremely overwhelming and so problematic on so many levels. The misinformation that's being spread, the vitriol, the hate, the divisiveness it is. I've never seen anything like it and it is definitely impacting me. There are some great news sources and ways to get factual, verified, fact-checked information, but there's also probably more bad, detrimental, problematic stuff, and it's different than when, like, I'm 43, so if you're around my age or older, we grew up you had to turn on the news to find out what was going on. Now it's like every time you go on your phone you can get that information. So it's no longer one or two points a day. I will check in or even like.
15:06
Before social media and like apps and phones came out, you had to go on like cnncom and read it. Now it's like you open up Instagram or whatever social media app. I actually don't use TikTok I'm not on TikTok, thank God for that and it's just there all the time. You can't escape it and again, that's a problem. So part of this is also being driven by what's happening in terms of like news and the war, and I'm just realizing I can't be looking at this stuff. The number of hours a day that I'm spending, it's just not. No one can. It's just not good for you. So I wanted to kind of just mention that as an aside and I keep kind of like I'm looking at my notes here. I think, like you know, I've mentioned a couple of things. Again, I know I'm all over the place and I hope you're bearing with me.
15:54
This is, in some ways, like a journal entry, again, like this is super personal. So this is not like me educating you. This is not me sharing skills. This is not me coaching. This is me really sharing with you guys who are listening, something that I've been going through.
16:09
That, I know, is a problem that I think a lot of us experience but are afraid to talk about and afraid to do something about. And the reason I'm afraid to do something about it is because the whole reason that I'm on social media mostly is because of my business right Is to connect with people, is to share content, share skills, show people how I can help them and, obviously, hopefully like grow my business. Let's call a spade a spade. I'm a coach as a living right. I am trying to like connect with more potential clients and make money. Yes, I love sharing content. Of course, that's wonderful, but I'm also trying to run a business and in this quote, cliched day and age.
16:51
Does social media have to be a part of that? A big part of me thinks that it does, so I'm not gonna sit here and say, oh, I'm just gonna go off Instagram forever. I wish that I could Honestly like. A really big part of me wishes that I could. I wish that, like I could rely on word of mouth and that really that would really be it.
17:12
And my emails on the podcast, right. Those are the other two non-social ways and they're social but differently that I connect. I've been sending more emails recently, connecting with people. I really enjoy writing emails. I love connecting in that way. It's a much smaller audience, and so if you are interested in learning and hearing more for me and connecting in a more intimate, personal way, my email list is the way to do that. I share stuff there that I don't share anywhere else. And then, obviously, this podcast. If you're willing to give your time to listen to a 20 plus minute podcast every week, like I really value that and appreciate it. And so, again, I share things here that I don't share.
17:48
On social media Social media is just like it's just a glut of stuff and there's just it's so much at once and you're just clicking through and tapping through. I think it's really hard to get things to sink in and really connect in the way that the work that I do needs to connect. I'm not doing sexy things, I'm not doing quick fixes and not doing before and afters. I'm offering like deep, thoughtful, insightful skills around food and body image and behavior, and that's stuff that is not easy to push through in the noise of Instagram and that has become really frustrating. And if you just use Instagram like for pleasure, as like a quote layperson, not for business, you probably don't really realize, like, how manipulative it can be.
18:40
Like I am there, I know when I post certain posts, when I post certain kinds of stories, I know how many views it's going to get Like. Here's a, for instance. This is like a little insider scoop and I am certainly no expert on Instagram, but I'll share with you what I've learned. When I post like a feed post, that's just like copy, like a headline, barely gets any views. It gets barely shown to anyone. If I post a real showing my body, whether I'm getting dressed or showing my stomach or that, that will do really well, that will get shown to a lot of people. When I do, when I post multiple stories at once of me talking to you guys and I write the captions, those do not get a lot of views. If I only post one or two stories out of time, those will get a lot of views. If I don't post for 24 hours and then I post again. I'm talking about stories now these last like minutes time of stories. It will get a lot of views, right? So sometimes I have to learn to manipulate that.
19:37
If I know that I'm sharing something I want people to see, I have to be very strategic about when I post it, how many stories, what format I'm doing it in. And it's frustrating. I don't get to control who sees my stuff on social media, whereas with the podcast and email I do. If you're on my email list, I know you're getting my email. If you subscribe to the podcast, I know that you're getting it. Maybe you don't listen every week, maybe you listen sometimes, but I know it's showing up in your Apple podcast or your Spotify feed.
20:04
With Instagram, I have no idea. So you may or may not even realize that, like Instagram controls what shows up in your feed. You don't control that. You can pick favorites of certain things, but, like you know, it still has a lot of control and that's really frustrating. Like I put a lot of time and effort into creating that content and then to not know, like if anyone's even going to see it, or like only a few people and if those people see it like, yes, I'm great that those two people have seen it, that's helped them. But obviously, like it's frustrating and I don't have a huge following. I have, like you know, like 1100 something followers tiny, tiny, tiny, you know, but it's only a teeny, teeny, tiny percentage of that is seeing it. It's frustrating, it's hard, it's very mentally taxing, right. So that's just like a little bit of like the business kind of creation side that I just like wanted to share because I think it's interesting and I think it's I don't know, I think it's helpful to know, you know.
21:02
So I had gotten an email from a writer that I follow. Her name is Jamie Varen. I think she's wonderful and she I've she's written two books. She's written a kind of a self help book and a fiction book which I'm making my way through. And I found her through my friend, ashley. I've been following her for a while, you know, and I subscribed to her she's a sub stack and she sent an email.
21:24
I noticed last week that I had seen her on social media in a while and then I saw a story pop up and she said, like I took a break, kind of like a spontaneous break, sort of like what I did, but she stayed off for way more than 24 hours I think it's been like over a month. She sends an email about it last week and so much of what she said resonated with me so deeply I wrote back to her. I didn't hear back. That's okay, but it just it again like that made me feel, seen, I'm like here's someone she has like hundreds of thousands of followers, right, and she's an author. It just it felt so nice to hear someone else share that and it really inspired me to want to talk more about this, because I think it's something that many, many people are struggling with and not talking about it.
22:08
We talk about it, like in terms of our kids and how we allow or don't allow our kids to use social media. But what about ourselves? You know she talked about this idea of enough, like it's never enough to get X number of likes or comments or DMs. Like it's never enough. You think the next one is going to be it and there's so much connection to that around weight loss and clothing sizes and you know, injections and I don't mean like weight loss injections, I mean like Botox injections and things we do. It's like the next thing is going to be the one that's going to make me happy, right, like, if someone likes this post, if someone comments, if I lose five pounds, if I fit into the next smaller size, if I get rid of these, get rid of these lines on my forehead, then it'll be good. But it never is. We are always seeking the next thing. That's dopamine, right? Dopamine is not about pleasure. Dopamine is about seeking out more and it's about reward, and that's what Instagram is based off of. It is based off of the science of dopamine, and they have fucking mastered it. Let me tell you, we were in Boston this weekend and Danny and I walked around Harvard never been to Harvard and I really just couldn't stop thinking about like Facebook and the movie, the Social Network, and like God, like Facebook, like Mark Zuckerberg literally changed the course of humanity forever when he invented Facebook. Anyway, that's just like a little bit of sidebar. It's just, you know, part of like.
23:39
I've shared kind of a lot of things about what pulls me into Instagram. You know, I like to create, I like to be on there, I like to connect, but then I get stuck consuming, right, looking at things that I don't need to be looking at. There's like a FOMO piece to it, right, there's like a feel well, what if someone posted something and I missed it? What if it's in stories? And there's like a link to something really cute. What if there's like this amazing recipe or this workout or this sweater and like, and what if I don't see it? Like saying it out loud, it's like it's so ludicrous, but that's really how we feel. It has created that feeling Like the 24 hour disappearing stories has definitely created Like, don't think that there's not like a method to the madness behind that. So there's that which pulls me in. I'm like oh, what a cheatpost, what a cheatpost.
24:26
Then there's the comparison. Right, I don't follow a lot of other coaches, but I follow a couple and I find myself comparing. I even find myself comparing to other people, like around how many books someone reads, or what did they cook, or where did they go. We're like and it's not. It's not not real, but it's such a small snapshot that in the it only represents one tiny percentage of what's real. And then we're taking our whole lived experience and comparing it to this tiny, tiny percentage of someone's day to day life. It's so fucked up, but in the moment when you're doing that. You don't have that perspective. It just accumulates and it builds up and you're comparing and you're like, oh my God, why not? Why aren't I cooking that? Why aren't I doing that workout? Why haven't I lost that weight? Why don't I have that sweater, this, that, the other thing why don't I have more clients? Why don't I have this program? And then all of a sudden you realize that you have been like broken down because you're taking your whole existence and comparing it to one percent of someone else's existence and it's like that's a problem and it's really hard to realize that in the moment.
25:36
Right, so there's the. That's part of the consumption. But on the creation side, for me there's also like did someone like it? Did someone comment? How many views did it get? Right, there's that like. There's that like checking and wanting to get that feedback. And then, of course, inevitably this is really part of what it comes down to was like how does our self worth then get wrapped up in that? Right, in the feedback we get from a post or in the comparisons? Right, on both the creation and the consumption side. It's there, right.
26:02
And if you're not a business owner and you're only using social really to consumer like share pictures of your family. It's going to definitely going to be different from you. I'm sharing this as a business owner, someone who also shares personal stuff, because my brand, my personal existence, is my business too, like I. That's also what's challenging, because I share so much personal stuff about my body, about food, about my history with disordered eating that that is my business, right, it's not like I'm marketing I don't know some like you know, like I used to work in advertising it's like I'm selling, like my marketing services. I'm selling like my coaching services, which are very personal and intimate and all of that. So you know, it gets very messy. But even if you don't have that right and you're just posting pictures of your family and then consuming, right, you're dealing with all the consumption stuff and the comparison. So in that it's just it accumulates and it's taking a toll.
27:00
It's very hard not to as a creator or someone who's creating content. I call myself a creator, like someone who makes money off of creating. I don't. I'm just someone who creates content for these to be called influencers and now they're called creators, to not be seeing everything through the lens of, like postable content, and let me tell you, that gets to be a really fucked up way to live. But it's like you can't. It's just like your brain just starts to shift the way it sees things. It's like it's like no, I just want to like, look at this cool thing and just enjoy it and not be like, oh, I should post this and share it. This was so fun. Like it's a very. It starts to really distort the way you experience things, the way you move through the world. You know something that I really wanted to talk about that I have a note here and I kind of should have talked about it a little bit earlier because it linked back into something I mentioned a couple of minutes ago.
27:54
But you know, we and this kind of goes back to like the connection to food when we emotionally eat, when we have cravings, when we're stressed, when we're bored, whatever it is we feel uncomfortable. There's something that causes discomfort and we eat to try to relieve that discomfort. Social media becomes the same thing. We're bored, we're, you know, looking to change something about ourselves, looking to see what someone else is doing or posting, because we're dissatisfied with our own life or stressed out or angry. There's some emotion, things. So it's like, oh, let me go on, let me scroll and I keep saying Instagram, but this applies to TikTok too, you know let me scroll social as a way to like, ignore my own shit and not deal with it.
28:38
So there's discomfort that prompts the initial behavior of going on there and of eating the food and make this parallel. And then we eat the food, we overeat it. We're not really hungry, we're having a craving, but there's leftover Halloween candy, there's holiday leftovers, whatever. We're eating it and all of a sudden it's like I was stressed out. So I was like, oh fine, I'm going to have some cookies and I've had the cookies. And now I'm still stressed out and I feel even shittier because I ate cookies I didn't really want to eat.
29:04
So discomfort prompts the behavior, we do the behavior and then we're even more uncomfortable afterwards. Same thing for social media, right? We're bored, we're anxious, we're stressed. You know, I want to make sure I don't miss out on so and so's post. What did she do today? What does her perfect life look like? Look at her kids. They're always stressful. She always has dinner on the table. She fit in this workout, whatever it is.
29:26
So we go on to look at this stuff and then it prompts more discomfort. We feel even shittier about ourselves and I ask you, when was the last time you got off of social media and felt more relaxed, more content, more grounded, more peace? It probably never, like. That's just the truth. So it's like we're doing these things using food, using social media to find a relief from whatever discomfort we're feeling, and those behaviors actually create more discomfort, and then it just we're stuck in this vicious cycle, right? That's like the crux of this whole thing. What we need to do is learn how to tolerate that discomfort, to sit in it without looking for immediate relief, and find other ways of moving through it, get the evidence that we're capable of, and then that's how we start to move away from it, right?
30:21
So much as I, in a big way, would love to get off social media, I would miss the creation, connecting part, but I still have my podcast and I have my emails and I also share stuff on YouTube, which is a much, I think, more enjoyable way to possibly connect. You're not following me over there? Do it. I'm sharing duplicate stuff to IG, but I may start more over there. I'll put the link in the show notes. I also know that it's probably not totally realistic. At least right now, I'm not willing to. It's scary, right. As someone running an online business, it's really scary to think about the missed opportunities or the missed people that won't find me right. It's like really hard to connect with people without that. How else are people going to find me right?
31:15
Word of mouth is great, like, and if you have ever referred me to someone, whether we've worked together or not, like, thank you with a capital, all capital letters. I cannot tell you there was nothing more valuable than that Before you are able to do that. It's incredible. It's really the most valuable support that you can give me, whether we've worked together or you've just heard me and you're like, I don't really need, maybe, her services, or I'm not ready right now, but, oh my God, my best friend, my mom, my sister, my friend of a friend, or like someone on Facebook, was asking for something, so I'm going to share her name. Like you guys, that stuff really matters, right, and I'm just, I'm sharing, just again. I'm just being honest with you.
31:55
I'm just sharing because feeling like relying on social media as the only way to connect with new people is really, really tough, and that's the nature of the business, right, I'm choosing to do to run my own business and be an entrepreneur, and there's stuff that comes along with that. That's hard right. This isn't like a woe is me? Feel sorry for me. I just think the social media piece makes it really, really challenging. So I had a point that I definitely just diverted from. Oh my gosh, this is like 32 minutes now. This is getting to be long.
32:23
I think I've talked about most of what I wanted to, but you know, I really I want to find a way to be on there, to create and connect and to change the way that I'm consuming and to change the way that I so automatically use it. And so I do think that, I don't know, maybe like the 10 to five thing I think could be a really good option, and maybe I'd take it off for an entire 24 hours or, you know, 36 hours over the weekend. I don't know, I need to and I'll continue to share. It's an experiment. It's, you know, I'm experimenting and finding out what works, but I think that I really, when we feel uncomfortable, we want to escape that, we want to get out of it, and we'll do often whatever we need to to get escape that as quickly as possible to get that instant gratification.
33:17
Food does that, social media does that. There's other things that do that, which I won't even get me. No drugs, alcohol, I won't even get into that because that's kind of out way outside the scope. So really this becomes about like learning skills to tolerate that discomfort that are actually productive. Right, because eating and using social media to escape discomfort is not productive, it's only making it worse. And then we get stuck in that cycle, right? So like pausing, using body scans, breathing, getting yourself a state change, meaning like going outside, turning on loud music. I'm working through it. I don't have an answer right now. I'm just sharing with you something that's I've been dealing with.
34:03
Like I spent the whole ride home from Massachusetts on Saturday thinking about this, like a five hour car ride, just running it through in my head and wanting to do something and not knowing what to do. And knowing that, like you know, when you feel something bubbling up and you just know you're like this is the breaking point, this is it. It's like where the pain of doing the thing starts to outweigh the pain of the unknown, of changing the behavior. Right, that's when we make a change, is when what we're doing we know becomes so problematic and so uncomfortable that it is worse than the unknown of doing something that's unfamiliar. That's a change, because sometimes we'll keep doing things just because they're familiar and they're easy right, even if they're detrimental to us. I talk about this all the time, right? That's like why change is actually really hard, because we are always seeking you familiarity and safety, right.
34:51
So using Instagram is familiar and safe and easy. It's what I know, it's what I, it's how I like, it's what I, how I do things. But the discomfort that it's bringing me right now is now outweighing the fear of making a change. So let me just scroll my list here. I think I actually talked about everything I wanted to, which you think would happen in 35 minutes. Yeah, thank you for listening.
35:25
If this resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. Send me an email. Send me on Instagram my phone numbers on my website. You can text me. You can call me Like. I know that's kind of like crazy, but you can totally text me Like. That's my cell phone number on my website. So send me a text.
35:42
I just I think that you know one of the things that I want, one of the reasons why I do love posting on social is to help other people feel seen. Because I think there's so little representation of the struggles around food and body image that I talk about right, disordered eating, not clinical eating disorders right that in between place we're dining is just a way of life. Like there's so little representation of people who are going through that and what you need and how that's not normal and how like we need support for that and it's okay to finally have these realizations that like, oh my God, like I don't want to do this anymore, like I just I want to just like stop feeling so stressed out and obsessed by food. Like I just totally lost my train of thought. You guys, I'm not going to lie. Oh, I know what it was. Is that connecting with people and helping them feel seen? Right, just like part of the reason that I follow the people I do is because they make me feel seen. I know that I also have done that for a lot of people and it is an incredible privilege and an honor to do that. So I had a point with this, you guys, and I lost it. I'm not going to lie.
36:59
I hope this podcast does that for you. I hope my emails do that for you. If you in any way are feeling like you need a break from social, let's connect there, for not already and again reach out. I'd love to hear from you. If this is something you've struggled with, I think that's it. I've talked enough and I keep forgetting things at this point. So thank you for listening, thank you for being here. I will be back next week. If you are celebrating Thanksgiving this week, have a happy, healthy, peaceful Thanksgiving and I'll see you all very soon.
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