Why I took 4 Months off Social Media
Hello!
The blog is….back? ~ typos and all ~. IDK. Trying this out because platforms like Instagram haven’t been serving me. I’ve been off social for almost 4 months now. I took a break initially because tbh I was dealing with some pretty serious mental health stuff for the first time in my life (I will get into more this later). I dove head first into getting it under control (therapy, meds, a 4 week leave off work & taking a break off social media). Once my brain was detoxed from the automated reaction to scroll is any spare time I had, I actually came to LOVE not having any social media apps on my phone. I have never felt so at peace. Y’all, I even had to delete LinkedIn off my phone!! Because when I deleted Instagram, TikTok, etc, I was craving the need to scroll…somewhere, anywhere! lmao. That is BAD.
If I feel so at peace, why am I back on social? Well, I’m a storyteller and I miss it having my outlet to share, hence why the blog is back. Now that my health is under control (along with a few other things that got out of hand the past 4 months) I’m craving the need to share bits of my personal life, my businesses and my latest DIY projects again. So i’m carving out my tiny corner of the internet on the blog, just like circa 2012.
I’m going test what social media can look for me while maintaining that peace I worked hard to achieve. I’m going to use an instagram scheduler to post my content + pop on once a week from an old phone to connect with my community for 30 minutes. This will allow me to:
Stay connected
Story tell & share with intention & purpose
Protect my time & peace by keeping social media apps off of my phone
I will acknowledge that I’m in a fortunate position to have a team that handles the social media side of my businesses which allows me to totally unplug from it. I know a lot of people are flooding off of instagram at the moment and I can see why. With all the changes + the constant feeling of "‘keeping up with Jones’” it left me feeling MEH after having a solid scroll sesh. Even platforms like TikTok, which I LOVE btw. It is so easy to get sucked into spending my whole evening watching videos after the boys go down. It feels beyond wasteful with the precious time I do have to myself to spend it binging TikToks. I always go to sleep with regret that I should have done x, y, z instead of wasting 4 hours of watching TikToks. I’m not suggesting that I need to productive 100% of the time (though this is a problem I face as an enneagram type 3 achiever, lol). As soon as those boys go down, I am DRAINED and there is zero productivity happening. I’ve found new ways to spend my downtime which I can’t wait to share more about!
To catch you up on the past 5 months:
👦🏼👦🏼 I have TWO TODDLERS now! They are growing up so fast and I’m LOVING this stage! They got their first haircut too.
🧠 My mental health spiralled out of control
😖 Our condo never sold so we had to scramble to find tenants because we already purchased our new place. We bought when the market was at an all time high and then it crashed right when we listed. The timing couldn’t have been worse. We were lucky to have an amazing mortgage broker who could make this work for us so we could still come up with the funds for the down payment on our new place (which we were originally relying on the sale of our condo for).
🤬 The engineer who designed the retaining wall at our place on the Sunshine Coast missed a 5 foot boulder on the slope behind our house. We had to leave the place immediately upon finding out because our place was no longer safe. The retaining wall that was designed wasn’t good enough to protect the house from the boulder
😥 I had to let go of our Android developer at Life Lapse & pause iOS development. We poured a lot of new features into the Android side of the app with the hopes we would see the same growth that our iOS app saw, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. I couldn’t justify continuing to invest on the Android app when there was little ROI. iOS development is paused so we can focus on marketing and less on product development. This is the not so fun side of running a business.
🥳 We moved out of our condo into our new home!! Yay to more space and goodbye to the most inaccessible building of all time
💆🏼♀️ I took a 4-work leave off work to deal with my mental health
💊 I went to therapy & started medication
🧡 Enjoying motherhood, entrepreneurship and life in general 1000x more after seeking help
📱 Apple did a feature on me as a creator. Read about it here.
🥰 My mom came out to help me watch the boys while Bobo was travelling for 2 weeks, we had a blast! It felt like the maternity leave I never really got.
🦠 The whole family got COVID
😷 Had to cancel a trip to Ontario for my best friends bachelorette party because I had COVID
🎨 Lots of DIY projects around the new place
🤒 Flew home for my best friends wedding 2 weeks later, then found out 12 hours after landing that the groom had COVID. Wedding got rescheduled to October because their venue wouldn’t let them do anything outdoors.
👶🏻 The plus side to the wedding in Ontario getting cancelled is I got to spend lots of time with my family and meet my new nephew
👩🏼💻 Rejigging how Famtography works for the second time!
🎤 Went to the Backstreet Boys concert
👀 Got a second opinion on my ADHD diagnosis I received last December
☀️ Came up to the Sunshine Coast when an engineer confirmed it was safe to use until mid September while it’s been dry
🐻 Saw a bear in our backyard
🏊🏻♀️ Been doing lots of swimming in lakes & the ocean
📝 Starting my blog again!?
🤯 Had a nanny hired and then discovered through her references that she was actually awful so had to scramble to find another one because Bobo goes back to work in a couple of weeks
🤣 Stopping two toddlers from eating rocks and sand at everyday beach & playground visit
🚴🏼♀️ I started exercising again
🏆 MY GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT ALL SUMMER: Charlie & Weston not getting a single sunburn! haha
You know I love to keep it real and I’m testing out this blog to see if this is the creative outlet that works for me while popping onto social once a week. Who know’s if it will stick, but for now, I’m excited to share about the following soon:
Identity after motherhood and my shifting priorities
How I’m being absolutely ruthless with boundaries
My journey with my ADHD diagnosis
Dealing with new mental health problems and what helped me
Spending 8 months building a business and not getting 1 sale when it launched
My #1 trick I’ve been using at work to stay focussed and actually get shit done
From living in a constant state of reaction to perfecting my morning & evening routine so I feel CALM each and everyday
Our plans for our property on the Sunshine Coast
New home tour
Backyard DIY projects
How 5 pieces of technology actually bring me peace
How I’m staying connected while being off social media
