Sit on a chair or the floor for one full hour. Do nothing. Breathe. Sit.
I decided that I would do this today after sitting at the local cofee shop and reading through my copy of “Awakened Empath.” I read a couple lines. Got distracted by a butterfly fluttering by. Sip of cinnamony chai. Ok, back to reading. Then there was the reminder that I had just reactived my Instagram pages. I have 2. One is my influencer page. What a funny irony. The other is just, me.
I had a rush of excitement as dopamine was released at the thought of opening the sherbert colored block camera application. I could peak into the lives of my peers. I could secretly scroll through and judge how many likes they had, what story they had posted about their day and who they had just recently become friends with.
The thought dissipated as quickly as it had arisen. Like the butterfly, it fluttered away into thin air. In the rare moment of awareness – I stopped. Placed my book down. And thought. Not just daydreamed. I thought about the feeling I had. I thought about the dopamine release. I thought about the thought that I had deleted my instagrams last week. How it had been less than one week and I had not only reactivated my accounts but I had checked it mercilessly in the past week. Just to have a hand in the ‘news’ I would tell myself. The mind is an insidious beast if not tamed.
I took a sip of the chai. Cinnamon burning down my gulp of chai. I was having withdrawals. I laughed uneasily to myself – like an addict! What a comical concept. Or was it?
What are symptoms of being addicted? If one week after you stop doing the thing and you are thinking about and considering doing it – then you are addicted. I am a grade a social media addict. I have been a consumer of social media since I was 12 years old. It has been more years of my life with this addiction than without it. Beginning with AIM, then the infamous MYSPACE, then onward to Facebook, and now Instagram. I even got a TikTok for a split second there.
So, once I realized I was deafly addicted to social media, I looked up ways to break the addiction. It was recommended to sit for an hour and see how I did. I was remarkably calm but tears did start pouring. I felt so grateful to sit and feel all that I did. I noticed that my memory is not a tool to recollect, I have memories full of charged emotion and pain that I relive. I cried and let them wash away. I gave my sister a call. That felt like a gem to speak with her. Then I wrote. Then I messaged friends. Then I wrote some more.
I do believe if you can sit with yourself for an hour and just be, perhaps you may find just being with yourself can be more enjoyable than distractions of the mundane. All of a sudden, the mystics make more sense. Rumi saying – the universe is within you.
I believe that. I believe it’s not out there but within.
Take a seat. Breathe and let go for one hour - if you dare.
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