Adjusting Social Media Use

Periodically reflecting on and adjusting our social media use and platforms is part of keeping our lives skillfully aligned with our values. During this practice, we will reconnect to some of our guiding values, how we hold them in our bodies, and consider how we use particular media, before making commitments to follow through after our practice.

Transcript

Hello,

Thank you for joining me for this guided meditation for adjusting our social media use.

There are lots of reasons why we might want to adjust our social media use.

One of them is that I'm always interested in my habits.

And when I have a habit that I'm,

I've really cut the short cut out of having to think about it,

Right?

I'm just doing it over and over and over again.

And sometimes these habits are skillful.

And sometimes they might have started as skillful,

And now they're not.

And sometimes they were never skillful,

Skillful being aligned with values,

Being effective in living those values on a daily basis,

And in attending to things like my energy balance,

My interest and attention.

I can totally feed and curate feelings of isolation,

Resentment,

Or grief.

Most of us can.

And we can do that with social media.

We could also potentially curate and focus our awareness on connecting to our neighbors,

Knowing where we are in the world more fully in a kind and compassionate way,

Expressing that compassion,

Or appreciating life's goodness.

There are lots of things that we could do.

The focus and much of how social media functions is to hook us through our feelings that tend to raise urgency.

If you are feeling really grateful,

Chances are that you're not feeling very urgent in that moment about anything else.

If you're feeling really content,

By definition,

You're not feeling urgency.

In a commodified situation where clicks matter,

Where we're busy,

Like trying to get the greatest number of likes,

Or we're uploading or downloading things,

Really,

That's all focused around how safe we feel,

How likable we are,

Which is related to how safe we feel.

And it creates urgency.

It creates fear.

It creates grief.

It nurtures these feelings that we might have anyway,

For good reasons.

But maybe don't really need to nurture because we do it a lot.

It's a little bit like when people come to my seated yoga practices,

And they say,

Why don't we spend more time practicing flexion,

Forward folds and flexion of the knees and hips?

Well,

If you're seated,

You already are practicing flexion of the hip and knee a lot.

And mostly what we need are balancing the other side of things.

So if you sit a lot during the day,

Or all the time,

Like those of us who use seats for mobility,

Then you really want to be paying attention to how else we balance ourselves.

If you stand the whole day,

There's some benefits to coming out of that neutral shape or whatever shape you're using when you're standing,

Because most people who stand all day do not stay in a neutral shape.

And finding a balance,

Right,

Might need some more forward folds,

Some deep flexion of the hip or knees or ankles,

Than somebody who's spending most of their time focusing on that.

So the question for us around social media use becomes this issue of how are we using it?

Or are we being used by it?

Are our anxieties feeding our connection to staying on a particular platform,

And using it more?

Which is what those platforms want,

Because they're businesses,

And they want you to be on that space,

Because that's how they get advertising dollars.

Or are we choosing how we interact?

And making some skillful choices around that,

So that we're supporting a balanced approach to our lives.

So we know what's going on.

And that includes the good stuff,

Too.

So here's a guided meditation for adjusting your social media use.

Aside from whatever you're receiving this meditation over,

Turn off your devices connecting to social media feeds one by one.

Stretch,

Wiggle.

And take some deep sighs.

Sighs are our body mind's emotional reset.

The wiggle is another form of reset.

The stretch,

Not going to your maximal or past your maximal point,

The stretch can be a form of reorienting ourselves in our body minds,

Coming back to our central space.

So then settle yourself in a pleasant,

Comfortable place.

And allow your breath,

Gently flow in and out.

You may feel strong thoughts and sensations about picking up and turning on your other devices or going to particular feeds.

Accept and observe these feelings and thoughts.

Leave the devices off.

You may have other thoughts and feelings and sensations about not being tuned into or connected to your devices.

When these platforms and devices have become our primary point of connection with the world,

There is a real sense of fear and loss that rises.

We're just sitting observing that right now.

This is the same kind of fear and loss that arises when we lose our jobs,

When we relocate,

Or when we have other major sense of self and well being.

Things happen in our lives that threaten that sense of self and well being.

One of the realities about being a human is that once we're trained to notice what is difficult and painful,

We will feel a draw back to noticing more difficulty and pain in an attempt to try to avoid it in the future.

So we end up feeding those sensations.

Right now,

There is no need to value or prioritize the feelings and thoughts or sensations that are flowing through your body mind.

Let's continue to breathe gently for a while.

When you are restless,

Tense your muscles on an incoming breath and gently release them on an outgoing breath.

Inhaling,

Tense,

Exhaling,

Release,

Inhaling,

Tense,

Exhaling,

Release.

We cannot even notice sometimes how tense we become when we're using certain platforms or social media feeds.

In this practice of inhaling and tensing,

Exhaling,

And releasing,

We return to noticing the sensation of tension and relaxation.

Breathe gently for a while.

If your hands seem to want something to do,

Give yourself a gentle,

Slow,

And tender hand massage.

Continue to breathe.

Noticing the difference between this kind of tactile reinforcement of sensation and when we're tapping on our phones,

Tapping on other devices.

Make sure to give each finger its own space for massage.

A lot of times,

Particularly for phone users,

Most of the fingers are tense and curled,

And only the thumb gets a chance to move,

Or the index finger,

If you hold in one hand and use another.

I'm now massaging the thumb.

Of the first hand I started massaging,

I have not moved yet to the second hand,

And we just notice how time can slow down when we're not being fed things to look at or tend to in milliseconds.

I'm now going to move to the other hand for a gentle massage,

Tender with this hand.

They are part of how we connect with the world.

And then remembering the fingers on this other thumb.

These fingertips connect to an important group of nerves called the brachial plexus.

The arms over the top of the shoulders,

And directly in the sides of the neck,

Connecting to the chemoreceptors in the back of our heads,

Just below the brainstem,

That are part of our emergency response.

So remember,

It's below the brainstem.

You don't have any conscious control over that emergency response,

And you don't need to think consciously about it,

And yet we're just feeding more and more information to that area.

Taking time to soften and comfort our hands,

We're now telling that emergency response center to relax,

And that it's okay.

When you are ready to consider how you might want to adjust your digital device use that can connect to social media feeds,

Go ahead and begin to consider them.

You may wish to make paper notes,

It's a radical idea,

But returning to paper can sometimes slow us down,

And also because it's a different medium than we've been using,

Give us a different awareness of how we feel,

And whether these devices,

And our use of them,

Are aligned with our values,

Or the most skillful use of our time,

Energy,

And gifts in the world.

You might consider which aspects of your social media feeds feel helpful,

Hopeful,

And happy.

Which aspects of your social media feeds feel happy,

Hopeful,

Or helpful?

Which aspects of these feeds feel pleasurable,

And why?

Is this the pleasure of a heart to heart connection,

Of constructive effort in developing communities of meaning,

Of engaging with and getting to know others and be known and belonging to a group that might otherwise not be possible for you?

Or is this the pleasure of making fun of people,

Looking down upon them,

Agreeing with corrosive and acidic comments or beliefs,

Are these really aligned with your values?

And if so,

What does that say about you,

And the world in which you actually wish to live?

If you would like to live in a kinder,

More compassionate,

And more connected and a happy way world,

What would need to change in terms of your pleasures with these particular platforms or media?

Most of us sometimes manage difficult sensations with distraction.

Sometimes we even manage difficult relationships with distraction.

How much of your platform and social media use is related to getting you immediately out of something uncomfortable,

Distracting you from what is difficult,

Or an excuse not to interact with somebody who is near you.

I'm not passing judgment about those feelings or practices.

Sometimes those can be very helpful.

They can de-escalate certain kinds of situations.

I've known people in arguments who then,

All the people in their arguments go off to their phones,

And then they can come back a little bit later.

Their phones and their social media use are part of their sorting through how they are.

On the other hand,

I rarely notice folks coming back in a calmer state.

And so we want to really figure out how skillful we are being with those practices of distraction.

They help moderate our sensations and our feelings and our judgments,

And also to open us to other kinds of choices.

You might consider how you feel after 5,

10,

15,

Or 20 minutes of use on a particular platform or social media feed,

And whether that's really what you came there for.

Are there other ways to meet those needs?

Should there be other ways to meet those needs?

If you were going to create thoughts about choices for other ways to meet those needs,

What would some of those be?

These are a few of the assessments I make when I'm considering social media use and particular platforms.

You might have others that you want to consider.

As an immunocompromised disabled person,

I live a fairly socially isolated life.

And yet,

I don't spend most of it online these days.

In part,

Because I found that I wasn't being skillful enough with the time that I was.

Where I do spend it online are the places that tend to emphasize for me greater connection with real people,

Developing relationships and friendships with real people,

And creative practices.

So,

For example,

I can spend quite a bit of time on Ravelry,

And yet most days that's not going to exceed more than half an hour.

This is where I make a lot of friends through craft,

And find out what's going on in my community,

Nurturing relationships with others.

Some I've connected with like pen pals,

And others I haven't.

I also maintain a fairly extensive written letter network of people that I've never met online.

And maybe I met them once or twice,

Maybe I have never met them,

And I've always just been a pen pal.

These relationships have a chance to unfold in a very different timeframe than those that happen on social media.

And I have found both to be enriching and helpful to my life,

And they require different skill sets.

So that's really what we're talking about here,

Rather than judging yay social media,

Nay social media.

It's how can we use these tools skillfully,

And that really comes back to developing those and reassessing them on a regular basis with ourselves.

If there are any commitments you would like to put into practice going forward,

Please make note of them and do so with compassion for yourself.

It might take a little while,

We've got some habits,

To develop some new ones.

And then take a little stretch or wiggle,

And return to your day.

Remember,

You're loved and lovable,

Needed in this world,

And you already belong.

And you,

Your life,

Your choices,

And your practices have,

Do,

And will make a difference.

Thanks for joining me today,

And until we connect next time.