Pause

Posted: August 4, 2022

I keep finding myself taking breaks from social media, to pause. As someone running an online business, this is frowned upon and discouraged in most business circles. They preach relevance, engagement, and posting above all else. That’s just not me. While it might have been in the early days when I joined Insta in 2011, as the platform grew and changed, I have gotten less engaged, for one very specific reason, I’ve gotten more engaged with myself.

In the States, we don’t prioritize rest or pausing or really even joy and enjoyment. We tread on our mice wheels hoping if we do just a little bit more, that perfect piece of cheese we’ve always been dreaming of will finally satiate us. But that cheese remains ever illusive. We aren’t even able to digest what we already have in our mouse mouths. And therein lies the problem, we need to rest to digest (and integrate), but our culture and society is not setup for that. It’s why after life changing experiences, we’re expected to show up the next day or week and “get back to it.” It’s why our parental leave is abysmal. It’s why our grief remains unprocessed. It’s why when we change, we often slip backwards quickly. Big changes require integration. It’s why we need a pause. It’s why we need to take time to see who we are now. It’s why quiet time is integral. It’s why I unplug regularly.

Social media (SM) beckons us to keep our minds in a loop and busy so we have no such room for integration or even knowing how we really feel. Every time I leave SM and come back, I am struck by my experience the same way I am when I am running a food experiment / elimination diet. When I remove sugar from my diet and then put it back in, everything tastes too sweet and my tolerance for sugar decreases. SM is the same for me. I notice the empty calories more. I notice how fast I am affected and what happens in my system, since I haven’t had it in a while. My tolerance for it goes down.

SM is great for a few things, but mostly it’s an unsatisfying meal of empty calories when I want a nutritious meal. No one’s dietary needs are homogeneous, which is why I think it’s important to investigate this for yourself. I always ask myself, what is the purpose of this? Why I am I spending time and energy here? Then I check in and see if my use matches up with my purpose, intention, values, and energy use.

Every time I talk about SM I get a little push back like I am scolding people. I’m not. I am inviting people into inquiry for themselves. What works for me won’t necessarily work for you and vice versa. Everyone has different lives and different needs. The problem I see is when we don’t inquire and passively let new technologies and methods into our lives without seeing if they are actually right for us and the life we are living and want to live.

Speaking of passively, I think this has become one of my deepest inquiries around SM. It is billed as a place to connect, and while that does occasionally happen (it’s how I have kept friendships across international borders), it’s not the norm. Often, it becomes a vehicle for passive relationships in the mask of a connection. We all want connection, true connection, and belonging. It’s human. It’s how we are built. We are social creatures. And yet, in this age, more than ever we are able to have these quasi connections which never existed in the past and definitely not on this scale. Never before have we been able to meet someone once and then go into their lives as a voyeur without ever having to talk to them again. We have all unwittingly become life voyeurs. And I am consistently asking myself, is this healthy for me? Does it help me engage and connect more, or does it activate me in a negative way?

Passive relationships, which mostly feel like disconnection to me, have become increasingly challenging to me. I find myself stepping out of them. Some peripheral connections are good and healthy, the stranger you say hi to on the street, the person ringing up your groceries, your favorite take out place, your delivery driver, your mail carrier. It’s healthy to have these “hi and bye” connections, as I call them. It’s healthy for the brain to see different people and have these mini human connections. But having hundreds or thousands of these types of connections to people you haven’t ever met? To me that feels like a distraction and an energy leak that I want to redirect to people I want a true connection with.

When I pause, I can see all of this. When I am in the moment, I can’t always see it. But as soon as I take that time to engage with myself, it’s there in blinking lights. The pause doesn’t have to be months or copious amounts of quiet time. Sometimes a pause is a minute, or even a few breaths. Just enough to let us reset within ourselves and our body.

As we enter the next phase of technology expansion and integration into our lives, it becomes increasingly more important to ask questions. Is this right for me? Is this right for my family? Is this right for society? Is this how I want to engage with the world and the people around me? Does my refrigerator really need to be connected to the web? Getting lost in the Jetsons “cool” factor of the new technology has put us to sleep in so many ways to the long term effects of being in the Wild West era of tech. It is incredible and going to do incredible things, AND, we need to be asking questions about the parts that are having adverse effects on us as a species. There’s a middle way, there is always a middle way. But we can’t find it if we don’t ask questions, if we don’t pause, take a breath, and have a look.

What kind of calories does your SM have? And are you able to truly pause, rest, and digest what you need to in your life? What would have to happen to allow you to do that?

(This is always a long way to say, it’s ok to rest. It’s ok to take a pause and take breaks. :) )