social media detox

MEDITATIVE PRACTICE

/ OrganizedWithJoy / Leave a comment

Hey friends, for today’s Thoughtful Thursday I wanted to talk about something I was thinking about the other day while putting up our outdoor Christmas lights. I have been lining the path leading up to our house with lights for the last several years. It is a tedious process and I’m always trying to remember exactly how I installed them previously. I have these little light pick type holders, they are little stakes you put into the ground and then put each individual light bulb into individual stakes so that the lights are neatly lining the sidewalk. On the day I was doing this project I was not feeling great. I was dealing with some seasonal allergies, which made me a little irritable. I didn’t realize I had two different lengths of light strands and I thought I had installed the wrong ones because they didn’t reach all the way down the path, which irritated me even more! I later realized that the lights usually didn’t extend the full length of the pathway. But I had this thought while installing the lights – a lot of homemaking tasks and projects can be tedious, but they can also be quite meditative if we view it that way.

When we have a task that requires little thought and is a repetitive task, we can view this as an opportunity to have a meditative moment. As I was installing each little individual light, this repetitive motion afforded me the space to think through things that were on my mind. It gave me time to process some things I had been thinking about. I know when we perform these repetitive tasks it may be easy to want to entertain ourselves during that task. We may want to listen to music or a podcast, or watch a YouTube video. And there is nothing wrong with that! I certainly do that too. I just had this moment of clarity where I realized how meditative some tasks can be. I have been trying to mono-task more often lately. Doing one thing at a time – whether it’s cooking, cleaning, or putting up Christmas lights. This can help you to live more in the moment, and also leave more space for quietness and reflection.

Something that I have actually been thinking about all year is how inundated we are now with entertainment. Having a mini computer right in our pockets and going everywhere with us has made it really easy to access content and constant entertainment. I have noticed recently how easy it is to mindlessly open apps on my phone or mindlessly scroll Instagram. I go on to respond to comments or DMs and before I know it I’m just scrolling. I feel like it has become something that is an autopilot response. Any dead space we have – whether it’s sitting at a traffic light or waiting in line, our auto response can be to pick up our phones. I have been wanting to do a social media detox for a while now, but it’s just so complicated given that I post on social media for business purposes. I’m thinking about trying a 12 day detox leading up to Christmas day. And honestly, Instagram is the only social media app I struggle with. I do watch YouTube videos, but I feel like I am more intentional with YouTube. I got rid of Tik Tok and FaceBook a couple years ago. Social media is such a double edge sword because on the one hand it is a great way to connect, but it can also be a time suck. I have also wondered if I would spend more time with people in real life if I didn’t have this app to connect with people.

But back to the main topic I have been thinking about – meditative practices. I think once I filter out this extra input in my life, it will be easier to truly enjoy the meditative quality of some of my homemaking tasks. I will be less apt to find some way to entertain myself while cooking, cleaning, decorating, organizing, or decluttering and instead enjoy the process more and focus my mind on prayer, self reflection, or processing my most recent emotions. I do feel like this is such a challenge because of how prevalent media is in our lives. I don’t want to be a zombie and mindlessly open apps, and mindlessly scroll. I want to be intentional with what I do with my time and my brain space!

CONSTANT STIMULATION + DIGITAL DETOX

/ OrganizedWithJoy / Leave a comment

Okay friends, for this week’s Thoughtful Thursday post I wanted to talk about something I have been thinking about recently. I have been thinking about how easy it is for us these days to be overstimulated. We are exposed to constant stimulation and therefore are prone to frequently multi-tasking. I know for me, when I have a day where I am doing multiple things at once all day my brain gets more easily tired. In addition to that, sometimes I feel like I’m not as efficient or producing quality work when I multitask.

For me, my anxiety causes me to easily get overstimulated. As a mom of three, I got used to constantly multitasking to make sure everyone’s needs were met in a timely way. Over time this took a toll on my mind. I can still multitask, but I feel like I have residual effects from that time period in my life when my kids were younger and I was trying to do so many things at once.

I recognize that we sometimes need to multitask, especially as moms. But I have been thinking about some intentional things I wanted to start implementing into my life in order to live at a slower pace and train my brain to focus on one thing at a time, and really enjoy what I’m working on and being present in the moment. If you have been around for a while, you may have heard me say don’t wait until the new year to make a resolution towards change. As we approach the new year, it could be easy for me to just wait until January to implement these new habits, but I am choosing to start today. I encourage others not to wait, but to start once you realize a new habit needs to be incorporated into your routines. So, that is what I am doing today.

I have talked before about how I use Sunday as a true Sabbath – a day off of work. I don’t do housework, or YouTube work. I mostly stay off social media on this day (with the exception of talking to people in Instagram chat). I really think this social media detox, or digital detox one day a week has been beneficial for me. I want to continue this practice of getting on social media apps very minimally on Sundays. I would like to incorporate more prolonged periods of staying off social media, which I do plan to do in the new year. I’m still in the process of figuring out how that could look as someone who shares creative content.

Something I implemented today is to sometimes eliminate background noise. I have this habit of constantly putting in my ear buds – watching Marco Polo videos, watching YouTube videos, listening to podcasts, or listening to music. I do these things as a passive activity while I’m doing some other somewhat passive activity – like cleaning, doing laundry, cooking, checking email, or even some parts of editing a YouTube video. This week I have started to take out my ear buds more and experience the thing I’m doing. Even if it is a “boring” thing, I want to learn to enjoy these boring mundane tasks that need to get done. Also, when I’m constantly ingesting input, it’s hard to process everything fully. I’m doing everything in a passive way, not fully experiencing it. I have found that when my mind is not overstimulated it has time for creativity, meditation, presence, and processing.

Something else I plan to implement is a night time routine that doesn’t include my phone. I have always had a night time routine, but I want to focus more on slowing down and unwinding. Putting my phone down, taking a hot shower or bath, drinking some herbal tea, reading or journaling, and applying all of my nighttime facial products! I think it helps to get better sleep if we slow down at night, don’t expose ourselves to blue light, and do activities that are calming and don’t overstimulate us.

Moving into the new year I definitely want to be intentional with my time and energy. I don’t want to just go through my days on autopilot, but I want to enjoy the everyday things that need to get done. Let me know if any of this resonates with you and what are your ideas to prevent constant overstimulation? There are certainly more things I could do to prevent constant stimulation, but I want to focus on just a couple things right now to make the habits lasting!

Here is the video I posted in conjunction with this blog post!