If you’ve been reading this blog since I started it (hi dad) then you should know how much I despise Instagram now that I am off it. In my latest YouTube video I share with you all of the ways my life has improved since I deleted it and all of the things I have more time for.
If you’re thinking about deleting it, do it. Life is better without it š
I woke up in a bad mood the other day because the weather had lost its mind. It was -4 and raining. These types of mornings can ruin any kind of momentum you have for a day. I hate that my mood is beholden to the weather so I tried my best to lean into the feelings of doom and gloom and came out with a little video.
Enjoy,
xx
Haters rejoice! If your appetite for jokes at my expense simply cannot be sated through this blog alone- today is your lucky day. I’ve started a YouTube account for all of my feats and foibles. On this channel you will be able to see me endeavour to become a healthy, happy, successful person.
Having a growth mindset is important so if you’re a reader of this blog hopefully you will grow with me and not cringe too much as I figure it all out.
xx
We are living through a truly challenging time and getting out of bed most days is a real feat. If youāre unemployed during this mess you know how long and hopeless the days can feel.
Here are my tips for staying tough and motivated and not giving into the ever present desire to eat sunchips in bed with a blanket over the curtains because it isnāt dark enough.
Shower
Showering in the morning is a reset and when you feel like shit and as though nothing matters anyway, itās easy to let this fall to the wayside. This is the simplest most important part of my routine because it makes me feel clean and ready even if all I am doing is wallowing in my own depression.
Hydrate
Drink water. Drink tea. Drink drink drink. Feeling like shit is almost always exacerbated by dehydration. Headaches, digestive issues and brain function are often side effects of dehydration. If you canāt find the energy to eat, forcing down water will help.
Be Gentle With Yourself
Itās hard. Allow yourself to feel and be whichever way you want to without judging yourself for it.
Exercise
Iām going to say it in every post forever. Exercising is the number one way to feel better about yourself and your life. Anything counts. Just move. I try to hike every day and though itās hard to do, I always feel better after.
Keep Consistency
Yes youāre out of a job but that doesnāt mean you donāt have a routine. Make a routine for the day and keep consistency with it. There are going to be days when you do not want to do it, but do it anyway at 20% instead of 100%. You donāt have to love what youāre doing, you just have to do it.
These are the main tips that have helped me. Of course they may or may not work for you. There are times when I find it difficult to take my own advice, but I try and it helps.
What are some of your tips for keeping your head above water when the blues get you?
Comment below.
I still have Twitter. I still use Twitter. I canāt stop using Twitter. Itās one of the cruelest places you can exist on the internet. Itās a place where everyone is trying to be funny and no one is above punching up down or sideways. If you have an opinion there is some there to tell you it is wrong.
I am luckily not funny enough to have a large following and not controversial enough to be trolled daily (have been trolled before, feels bad)
The trouble I run into on Twitter are the innocuous āI have some newsā tweets. The ones where people humblebrag about their good news. Although intentions arenāt nefarious and these people should be sharing their amazing news, one canāt help but feel alienated by a strangerās success. I read a tweet the other day that said āBabyās first magazine cover!ā and thought to myself āDamn, I havenāt reached that milestone yet.ā Like what? As if that is a totally normal milestone most people achieve?
I quit Instagram for many reasons- it made me shop, it made me stare at photoshopped images of perfect women, it made me feel like my life just wasnāt worthy enough. This is a trend.Ā
‘Empirical evidence has been found regarding the positive relationship between social media use and social comparison. For instance,Ā de Vries and KĆ¼hne (2015)Ā conducted a survey study among young adults in the Netherlands, and demonstrated that higher intensity of Facebook use was associated with more social comparison. A similar relationship was also found in a study of Instagram, demonstrating that social media can predict individual differences in social comparison orientation and behavior (Stapleton et al., 2017). A systematic review of social media use in health care showed that patients use social media to compare themselves with other patients to find out how ābadā their health conditions are and how well the treatments work (Smailhodzic et al., 2016).’ – The Effects of Instagram Use, Social Comparison, and Self-Esteem on Social Anxiety: A Survey Study in Singapore
āIf Facebook demonstrates that everyone is boring and Twitter proves that everyone is awful, Instagram makes you worry that everyone is perfect ā except you.ā – Alex Hern, The GuardianĀ
Self comparison is bad for a lot of reasons- it doesn’t actually help you achieve more, it ruins your sense of self and you’re usually using inaccurate information (edited selfies, celebratory tweets that don’t mention the 10 years of failure prior)
Itās hard to feel motivated in a Pandemic and itās even harder to feel satisfied. Other peopleās lives seem so together. Other people seem to be handling things properly.
I have found that self comparison stops tenfold when I’m away from social media. When I spend time with people I am not on my phone. I stay away from Twitter and the time away is a welcome reprieve. The smartest people I know do not use that site. When you arenāt inundated with what everyone else is doing, itās incredible how fast your own self esteem starts to heal. When you look at your life it doesnāt seem quite so inadequate.Ā
Is it weak to admit that youāre vulnerable to these little deaths by comparison? Maybe yes. But maybe there is some strength in knowing what you need to fix and setting to work to fix it. Social media isnāt going anywhere. People have whole careers on these platforms. You can either take part and feel bad or disassociate and step back. I am always for healthy social media breaks and for testing my own mettle to see what I am capable of. What little challenges I can overcome and I often surprise myself.
Iāve never read an article or watched a video where a person takes a social media break and doesnāt feel better at the end of it. Have you?
We arenāt supposed to be privy to this many peopleās thoughts and opinions. We arenāt supposed to be this influenced by this many strangers.
So I invite you to take a break. I am going to be. I use Twitter every single day and itās the first thing I do when I wake up. This cannot be healthy. I am going to take a break from Twitter and from being influenced by other people.
Shifting the focus back to you and your life.
Here are the things Iāll be doing instead.
Working out
When Iām sad I workout about it. It takes time and energy and you only leave it feeling good.
Reading News Not on The App
I caved and got a subscription to the New York Times. I read once that the NYT has a higher reading level than most other print journalism so maybe this will make me smarter too?
Hikes in The Woods
In Toronto the weather is getting warmer and a podcast on my hike in the woods is one of the best feelings. Have you listened to Con Queen? Itās on spotify. Absolutely fascinating stuff.
Getting a Job
LOL the time has come to get some little email job to occupy my brain and hands with so I donāt just think and consume social media all day.
Movie WatchingĀ
I just watched Jackie Brown for the first time the other day and wow. It feels shameful to have lived 33 years without seeing it.Ā
Stretching
If I spent as much time stretching as I do reading tweets about Donald Trump I would be a bendy beautiful goddess. Stretching feels good.
Learning about MoneyĀ
I am a GIRLBOSS who is in Ketosis and DEBT. Time to get my act together. Time to understand what in godās name a mutual fund is.
Seeing FriendsĀ
This is the number one best way to feel good about life. To get off that damn phone and remember why youāre alive. Hangout with the friends who see you for you and love you for it. Listen to their jokes and their accomplishments and feel yourself feel happy for them. It helps.
Practicing Gratitude
Are you warm right now? Have you had any coffee? Try to remember how insanely lucky you are for the life you do have even if you donāt have a massive Kim Kardashian dump truck ass.
Life is hard enough, let us take a break from the things that make it even worse.
What are some of your tips for dealing with social comparison? Let me know below.
Yes.
I spent the past week and weekend mostly unplugged. If youāve been reading these posts you know that I am currently not working. I write this blog to help keep structure and discipline and creativity flowing and also because I canāt sit around in my house all day doing nothing. Last week I made it a goal to be as active as possible to see if it would help my mood. Sometimes I canāt tell if I am actually depressed or if it is just the gaining force of 12 long months of social isolation and pandemic anxiety.
I recently bought a bike and am finding my bike rides wholly enjoyable if only because no matter what endorphins are released through exercise. I am in the business of finding long term sustainable sources of dopamine and endorphins.
Everyday last week I took my bike or just my legs to the beach or to the forest for a hike or bike ride. The weather was mostly nice so I tried to spend as much as I could of it outside.
Thereās something very holistic about walking around in nature getting a little dirty and pretending you are Kate from Lost. Forest bathing or āshin-rin yokuā in Japenese (where the term originates) means to walk in the forest taking in the atmosphere with all of your senses. No music, no running, just trying to take in the sights, sounds, textures and smells.
I am on the somewhat skeptical side and irony-poisoned to a fault. I do Yoga and Meditation but I am super turned off by all of the woo-woo language around it. Iād love to believe in energies and auras and all that but I donāt. When I first heard of forest bathing I thought it was very dumb. I wondered what could possibly be gleaned from walking around in the forest alone, but am sometimes (often) a judgemental idiot who takes being proven wrong in stride (afterall, I am not fully formed, I am still learning and changing every minute)
Forest bathing feels good. I spent 5 of out the last 7 days waking up in the morning, putting on rain boots or running shoes and taking my judgemental ass into the woods to see what I could be taught from being presently engaged with nature.
I walked around feeling sun or rain on my face wholly disconnected from phone, acting world, professional anxiety and roommate, money, covid woes. I took my time and smelled the earth and vegetation and spring air.Ā
At first I thought āwhat is the point of thisā but on day 3 I realized the point of anything is just to experience. To experience people, places and things.
I am lucky enough to be in a covid bubble with like-minded people who enjoy getting into the woods so I was able to take part in a nice long hike with fire one of the days. We had a couple of drinks and built a fire and someone asked what actually makes us happy. It was a tough question to answer because a lot of really asinine things make me happy and I would not want to share them aloud. But the thing that makes me most happy is presence and connection. Being present with people and with the world around me. That was a revelation that I happened upon in the forest. The people I love the most are the ones who are present. Forest bathing forces you to be present.
After the afternoon in the forest with pals I felt nourished in a really good way. When got home around 10-11pm and though I was exhausted, I felt good. Really good.Ā
Itās a boneheaded concept to say āNature makes me feel good!ā and a lot of you are probably reading this going āobviously you stupid bitchā but sometimes you can know things are good for you and still not bother to do them. Sometimes you feel like the good feelings you get from a hike arenāt worth the energy it takes to go do one but after some (definitely scientific) research my conclusion it is. It works. Forest bathing works. It feels good and is mood boosting.
If youāre looking to just feel in your body and to lose a touch of the stress from living through a literal fucking plague. I canāt suggest it enough. If youāre overwhelmed or anxious or just generally having a low mood, go walk around in the forest.
This method is Welltried and works.
x
Welcome back Little Birdies,
Instagram recently announced that they would be making what is basically a child friendly version of the app (because they havenāt yet cornered the 13 and under market). In light of their Facebook headed demon-ry I thought Iād compile a little list of great things that happened since Iāve left the app. If youāre thinking of quitting (or for some god forsaken reason letting your child have an account) let these lessons be your guide. Great things happen when you log off.Ā
1. Iām Not As Lonely As I Thought
Spending time on the app scrolling through peopleās lives often made me unsatisfied with my own. It made me feel lonely because though youāre engaging with peopleās content, youāre not actually connecting with it.
āStudies suggest that using Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and similar social media apps to keep in touch with friends and forge off-line connections can add vitality and communion to your life. But if you are spending hours every day using social media mainly as a substitute for real connection, your feelings of loneliness and inadequacy will likely worsen.ā (psych.com/net)
Now that I donāt use the app,, I am more comfortable with my little life. I see people from time to time and make the most of it when Iām with them to tide me over until Iām social again. I am lonely but not the same way.
2. My Self Esteem is Better
Iām not constantly inundated with images of influencers, models, products telling me that I am a small and horrific ogre. Iām not constantly seeing clothes that I absolutely do not need or photoshopped imagery that signals I am not enough. Iām fine.
3. The Feeling Like I Donāt Exist Unless Iām Perceived is Gone
Do you ever feel like you donāt exist unless someone sees you? Like whatās the point of doing certain things unless you can share them and other people can see you doing them? Iām ashamed to admit that I felt this way. I used to do things and be excited to share them as if it made me a person worth knowing. But the truth is, I am still that person, I still do cool things, I just donāt exploit them for likes.
4. Validation Seeking Has Lessened
Iām ok, I donāt need a random guy I used to work with simping all over my selfie to feel that way. I donāt need others to tell me Iām good. I donāt need others unsolicited opinions (positive or negative) to feel like I am worthy or succeeding. My self esteem isnāt predicated on likes or men in my DMs saying I have pretty eyes.
5. I Am Out Of Contact
The sweet delicious joy of being out of reach. Itās harder to contact me now and the people who want to do so in a meaningful way. Everyone has an expectation that people are readily available to answer texts or DMs and Itās become a boundary for me. My phone is not in my hand when Iām with people. I am not available 24 hours a day. I am an antiquated fossil human reading books and making charcuterie boards and I will respond to you via phone-call or text when my fossil things are done.
6. I Donāt Practice Escapism With The App Anymore
I donāt look at other peopleās lives and wish that I were doing what they were doing. Traveling where they were traveling and living where they are living. I confront my own life now and mindfully live in it, when itās good and when itās bad.
7. I Don’t Take Selfies Anymore
Iām still wildly self indulgent (clearly, I write a blog about myself) but in a different way. I used to take selfies as if they were proof of my beauty and not just contrived images taken deliberately on a day where Iām actually wearing makeup. Whatās the point of having 10k photos of yourself? Itās nice to feel nice but itās not nice to live in a world where the only focus is you.
8. My Apartment Is Much Cleaner
There were times when my usage on Instagram would show 2.5-3 hours. 3 Hours! What the hell was I doing on that app for 3 hours. I have more time to do other things, like clean.
I wish I could say that I am one of those people who keeps her place spotless but I have to be honest here. I am not. Im tidy, Im minimal, I donāt have clutter but I do have dust. Or I did. With the free mental time and space i have from Instagram, my place is cleaner than ever.
9. I Can Find Inspiration Elsewhere
Like People, Youtube, Pintrest, VSCO, Nero, Spotify, Tumblr, Books, Online Art Galleries, Biographies, Films, Tv, the list goes on.
10. I am Content
I am content with not being content. Get it? My life doesnāt have to look beautiful. It is beautiful and Iām grateful and happy to be living it even if it isnāt aesthetically displayed on Instagram.
Instagram is essentially people watching. Itās people watching and window shopping and you can do both of those things for real outside in the ~world~
I know there are good aspects to the app, like staying in touch with people and keeping up with their lives and if you use the app this way, I bow down to you. You are a healthy person, but this post is not for you. If youāre like me and prone to do all of the other toxic shit then I recommend you hightail it out of there. If youāre struggling with self esteem, productivity, imposter syndrome, pure unadulterated envy, romantic jealousy, overspending and discontent in your personal relationships, QUIT NOW. Quit yesterday.
I still have urges to look at clothes and feel little twinges of fomo but the pros at this point so far outweigh the cons that I truthfully do not see myself going back.
I hope these lessons help you if you are struggling with deleting it or using it less.
If youāre struggling, reach out. Iām more than happy to talk you through it.
Godspeed little lambs.
Welltrying 