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Have you ever begun or created a project, been really gung-ho about it - excited, proud, enlivened, bubbling with possibility, and then… …started to retreat, pull back, doubt yourself and the vision, and want to hide? This is a moment where I am experiencing these layers, and the ingredient that is both causing the desire to retreat, and is also the KEY to moving forward? It’s VULNERABILITY. So here we go. I am a very single, very self-employed, very living-alone, very homebody woman. Although I have a beautiful and rich social life, I still spend most of my time alone. and I often find myself with my attention vortexed into my iphone screen taking in *way too much of everything*. Social media is like candy, and honestly I’ve eaten a lot of it through the years. It serves so many “purposes” - it provides me entertainment, engagement, an overflowingly abundant fountain of easy-avoidance of my internal turmoil and discomfort…it provides inspiration, awareness of ideas, opportunities and experiences I never would’ve heard about (many of which have changed my life in positive ways!!)… … and don’t get me started on my deep passionate love for INTERNET HUMOR. Oh and then there’s the posting - and the cheap micro-hits of dopamine when people like my content. In the coming emails I’m going to share in more detail about my journey of facing my tech habits over the past 10 years since my first digital detox… But today is step 1 : VULNERABILITY. Yesterday I started to feel the downswing (of course, right before I was about to start talking publicly about this)…the voices and thoughts saying something like “this is pathetic that you deal with this. If only your life was more full and vibrant then you wouldn’t spend so much time on your phone/on social media.” I refuse to put those statements as “I” statements because I, Mari Mu, do not identify or align with those thoughts. Instead I am here standing tall and saying that YES, I TOO, like so many others, am susceptible to the strategies employed by highly intelligent R&D teams using literally many millions of dollars to discover and employ tactics to keep me hooked…AND, I have the power to make choices that support me. Those tech guys though - theeeyyyyy knowwww wwhat they’re dooooing!!! Have you seen THE SOCIAL DILEMMA??? If not, holy shit, EXCELLENT documentary about the behind the scenes of social media. Watch the trailer here. SO. For the past 10 years since my own “tech addiction awakening”, I’ve been experimenting and exploring my tech habits from many different angles. One of the most important and most valuable things that I do is take regular extended breaks from social media. Taking proper breaks helps to unhook the habits, rewire the brain patterns, and loosen the grip, the pull, the compulsion, AND the desire to be on there all the time. I truly think social media is amazing, AND I do not think it’s healthy to be on there all the time. Every time I take a break (for me they’ve ranged from 2 weeks to 10 months)…..good things happen inside of me. So if you are like me, and find yourself on there too much, and would like to JOIN ME in taking a one month sacred pause from the infinite scroll…. I warmly invite you to JOIN ME in….
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