Breaking the social media spell

Awakening from the digital trance, what are we doing?

I thought on this new moon eclipse energy bonanza week, working with the powerful and healing energy of Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess of disease and healing, that I would share some more of the things I notice, as I practice and play with the time and energy spent on social media and digital communications during my day.

Firstly the more space I take, the more I want.

It’s a feeling of reclamation and reincarnation, rolled into one, giving me a feeling of freedom and sovereignty over my time and energy.

It’s incredible how much mental chatter, decision making, multi-tasking and mental space social media and the digital communications I have with others, takes up in my unconscious, subconscious and conscious mind. HUGE amounts. So much more than I realised. It’s been important and interesting to sit with the many sides of this.

As someone, and perhaps this is the same for you too, who works online and needs to be seen in the social media space, maybe for a couple of decades now, it’s pretty normal to be on a, next to, or by a screen for most of our waking, if not sleeping, hours too. This means being connected to the energy and accessibility of our phones, social media, the internet and all which that contains, all of that time.

We are interrupted with messaging, from friends, family and clients, to hopping through socials where you see someone you went to school with, or met 10 years ago on holiday, to all the sponsored videos, news, adverts, marketing NLP, propaganda and so much more.. EVERYDAY! The multi-tasking on our brain, the hopping from post, to person, to promotion…

For our bodies; emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, it is massively disruptive.

I went on TikTok last week, which I don’t normally do, but wanted to for research. This is what I saw in just the first five minutes. I was shown a video of a grieving couple carrying their dying child through a hospital corridor with sad music, sandwiched between someone doing their makeup while they try and get my attention through the ‘intimacy’ of that moment, next to videos from grieving parents sharing videos of their babies the day before they died, alongside someone trying to sell me a ‘deal of the day’ discounted skirt or hair straighteners or something, to a teenage girl in a hospital room saying goodbye to her dying dad. It was DEEP and WEIRD and I was NOT prepared. I had not chosen to watch those things.

We have fallen asleep at this wheel. This is not normal and everything we see and do on social media should be not be normalised. I recently read comments from people sharing how they needed to watch content coming from Gaza everyday to feel connected to the atrocity, and what people are going through. But when does support and empathy become unhealthy on social media, when such raw and unfiltered scenes are accessible?

Being connected to these online spaces and places, spending time and energy, sharing or working in these environments on the daily, which can be a full time gig for many-  but this environment… It’s not healthy.

Anxiety and mental health disorders are on the rise and social media has a big part to play. Yet we sit there and scroll, zoning out into a trance, not aware of the full spectrum of humanness we are being presented with and interrupted by every time we tap in and tap out.

It’s a bit nuts isn’t it -  when you really think about it.

What are we doing?

What are we doing?

What are we doing?

Social media is amazing and it can be used for so much good. It can create communication and connection that help businesses to thrive and change peoples lives. It can give people a voice who don’t have one - it also can be fun, silly, entertaining, informative, connective and creative with our worldwide community.

But what it has become mostly?

How are we actually using it day to day?

Where are we in a trance with our social media use?

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But even with this feeling, even with taking time off, socials started getting super sticky for me again this week… I noticed I was picking my phone up a LOT and tapping into apps. So instead of trying to change my behaviour and switch off straight away, I let it run wild for a while. I became an observer of it, getting really curious as to what I was looking for or desiring every time I went to pick up my phone up, opening up the apps, because it was all the apps, tap, tap, tap, hop hop hop, off I pop!

The dopamine hit is definitely a big part of it for me. I feel a tightening in the tummy, a flush of energy in the solar plexus… that feeling of, there a reward incoming!! I can really see how the variable reward mechanisms they use drives a lot of my unconscious, trance like behaviours.

But I know this trance we are in, that this trance is destructive, and I have to snap out of the spell.

Social media, particularly places like TikTok and Meta, they fragment, disrupt and distract us.

On this powerful new moon eclipse, to clear and heal this relationship more deeply, I switched off the wifi in my house and turned off all devices. I also unplugged the telly for good measure.

“Disconnect to connect,” that’s what Isis told me.

I lit a fire, some candles and sat by myself for the evening. My fingers definitely got a bit itchy and twitchy for my phone at times. I journaled, scribbled and day dreamed, as I sat looking at the trees dancing outside my window, listening to bird song drifting in from the isle of Avalon.

Phone off is bliss,

Unhooking from the matrix,

Going within,

Speaking to Isis.

Finding our rhythm,

Just tuning in,

Taking a breathe

And listening.

Choosing love

Over fear.

Switching off

Getting clear.

So much noise

And distraction

It stops me from

Taking action.

‘Look over here’

‘Do what I say’

Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping!

Dopamine all day.

Switch it off.

Let it be an act of rebellion.

It’s time to get off

this wheel of degeneration.

I will leave you with this poem I wrote on eclipse day, to muse on until next time. Xx