ONE Thing We Do Everyday That Can Hurt Your Relationship (And How to Fix it)

[00:00:29] Hi, everyone welcome back to the Awaken into Love podcast. We are on Episode No. 28 and I'm laughing right now because I am sitting in a small little closet. It's dark in here and the microphone is propped on top of a bunch of toilet paper rolls, and my clothes are pushed to the side and my laptop is just kind of shoved to the side. But I went into it, did everything I could to make sure that the sound quality was good. I am currently in Puerto Rico right now, so if you hear some noises in the background, just flow along with it. Playing along with it will make it an interesting ride today. I hope you all are doing OK today. I also want to acknowledge that I know that many of you were celebrating Thanksgiving and we're approaching the holiday season. So I really wanted to start off this podcast by saying, if you're experiencing any challenging emotions today or surprising confusion, it's confusing emotions or sensations. Just know that you're so not alone. The holiday season can bring up a lot. I'll be talking a little bit more about different feelings that can come up around December, but I also want to acknowledge that many of you are seeing your family today or not seeing your family or feel just distant from your family or feel like you don't have a family. So I just wanted to let you know that whatever you're feeling today, you're so not alone and it's so valid and so OK. I feel like for me personally, my husband, his family tend to celebrate Thanksgiving and they like to bring everyone together. But it's always been challenging for me to see my parents, my mother in law and my father in law and their family. That can sometimes be challenging for me just in terms of boundaries, in terms of expression and communication. So if you're feeling that today, please know that you're not alone. All of your emotions are completely valid. [00:02:21][111.8]

[00:02:22] And on the flip side, if you're celebrating and you're like, Oh, I get to see my family, get to see my friends, I'm so excited. I haven't celebrated Thanksgiving in a while, and I'm just excited about that, that I'm celebrating and I'm rejoicing with you. So I want to start this podcast to say that whatever you're feeling always is so, so OK and so valid. [00:02:40][17.8]

[00:02:40] So today I'm going to be talking about something that I've personally been struggling with, and I thought that I could do a little bit of a personal share kind of an awakened share within myself because I have been noticing myself going through a small, little dark night of the soul, which we've talked about in other podcasts before, which is basically this experience where you are feeling really confused and stuck in life and you feel like you're going into the dark parts of your soul. [00:03:05][24.8]

[00:03:06] And Dark Night of the soul aren't anything bad, but they can feel really confusing because they can kind of come out in times when you didn't really expect it or you feel like you're going through it for a while. And for this specific dark night of the soul, I feel like I've been kind of experiencing this in an abrupt way. I started kind of really feeling down within the last week or so, and I was kind of introspective in talking to Joel about it and just kind of communicating with him on why I was feeling down. And I started to really notice the effect of comparison and social media on my fulfillment and happiness. And so I really felt called to talk about that today. I did some research on today's podcast episode, all on how social media could really be affecting you and your relationship. And just this one thing that we tend to do every day going on social media that can really actually hurt your relationship and kind of fuel ROCD without us realizing it. So I'm going to be diving into this podcast episode today and talk to you a little bit more about the research and different ways that it could be affecting your brain and also how you can start to work on it. So this is a really big piece giving you education and information, but also how you can use the struggles as a way to find deeper fulfillment and empowerment within yourself. [00:04:29][83.3]

[00:04:30] So I started to just kind of notice this uneasiness or sadness, or even just kind of this anxiety that started to arise. I would say last week around Thursday, and I started to just notice the sense of false expectation that I've been carrying within myself. And I think it's really important for me to address this because I know a lot of you really tend to look up to me and Alexis, and our mission with Awaken into Love is to be vulnerable and to be open with you because I know that it is helpful for you. So many of you have come up to us and said, you know, it's so helpful for me to hear that you're struggling. And I know there's a little bit of this emphasis that people say that where they go, Oh, but I don't want you to be struggling, but it's really helpful for me to know that you're struggling. And I get it because a lot of times when I look up to people and I see influencers and they are open about the struggles that they're experiencing in this human experience is almost this sense of freedom within me, this permission that says it's OK to be human, and so I really want to mirror that with you today, where I have been struggling the last week or so, things have been clearing up a little bit, but I've kind of been going through this journey where I've noticed that I've held this false expectation around finally arriving to a place and finally being happy. [00:05:49][78.8]

[00:05:50] Many of you know that Joel and I, but all of our stuff and our belongings into a storage unit in Denver, and we basically have this kind of fantasy, imagination that we were going to go travel and we were going to go find ourselves. And we were going to just discover more and more about ourselves and find this sense of happiness. And what we've come to realize is that a destination and a place and even a person or a career or this, this idea that we get into this grass is greener syndrome where it will finally get to this place where we'll finally be happy is a very illusion based fantasy. And I'm not talking about the dreams that we're chasing or healing or awakening or feeling better because all of that is possible and all of that is beautiful and amazing. [00:06:49][58.8]

[00:06:50] But when we start to have this idea that when we find that perfect partner, we finally get to that one location or we finally get X, Y and Z externally outside of ourselves, then we will be happy. This tends to set us up for disappointment. And I know I've talked about this a lot in ROCD and relationship work where we tend to have these unconscious false expectations about our our partner or about the perfect partner, or if my partner was just X, Y and Z, or if I just had a partner that did this, then I would finally be happy. And I think that this is a really big illusion from especially the Western society and Western civilization, where I feel like we've been really programed to believe that our happiness lies outside of ourself. And this was this humbling reminder that we really teach at Awaken into Love, which is that we have wholeness and fulfillment within and constantly chasing this external. The sense of, Oh, I'm going to be finally happy when I get this partner or I'm going to be finally happy when I move to the specific place can set us up for really missing the joys and the fulfillment and actually the present moment of what is here. [00:08:06][75.9]

[00:08:07] So I felt like this was kind of like this like push to me that I had been chasing and chasing and chasing this idea that OK, when I finally got to a tropical island, this was kind of in my mind when I get to a tropical island, when I can get away from society, because this has kind of been in my mind, especially with COVID, when I can get away from everything, when I can live more of a simple life, then I will be happy. That doesn't mean that those things aren't going to give you extra fulfillment or happiness. I do believe that it's important to do things that are important for us, and I talk about this all the time with clients. It is important to fulfill yourself. It is important to do things that make you feel happy and bring more fulfillment to yourself. And I know sometimes that can be sticky with ROCD because we can feel so disconnected from ourselves. But awakening is really about coming back within and finding those little gems and those moments of peace and fulfillment with different things that make us happy. But ultimately, we do have that peace and wholeness within no matter where we go, no matter who we are with. [00:09:11][64.5]

[00:09:12] So I've been asking myself kind of throughout this introspective time where I've noticed that a lot of my expectations have come from the comparison of social media. So I really want to emphasize that as much work, inner work, awakening, spiritual work I've done within myself, I do get caught. I too suffer, I too go through dark nights of the soul. But the difference between me going through it now versus a long time ago when I had really obsessive thinking is that I would go deeply into obsessive thoughts to run away and to cope and to go into a lot of wounding in order to escape what was here in the present moment. Now I have these tools and I have different types of ways to really work with what is here. To use it as a form of awakening and empowerment within myself doesn't mean it's not hard, but I have those tools. [00:10:12][59.8]

[00:10:13] So I took some time, I was talking to Joel. I was also journaling a little bit, and I realized that a lot of these expectations and a lot of the suffering was coming from comparison, especially on social media. You know, seeing different people. Having fun being in a certain beautiful place and feeling like, OK, well, once I get to that, I too will be happy. And I started to compare myself to other people, other influencers, other spiritual influencers because for me, spirituality tends to be a little bit of a trigger because it's something that I love so much. But it's also something that can be triggering for me. Like, I'm not doing enough. I need to be doing more. Right. This is something that I notice within myself. Sometimes coming up. I've been noticing myself comparing myself to a lot of spiritual influencers out there who might have this amazing community. [00:11:02][49.4]

[00:11:03] I've been living in this amazing place, constantly having these amazing awakenings. And for you, you might be comparing yourself to other things that might feel more valuable to you. It's dependent on our values and it's dependent on what we find important. It's also dependent on the wounding and how we've been raised, that we place this importance on different values and for me and spirituality. And I just noticed myself really getting into this habit of saying, OK, they're having this life, they're having this amazing community. And I thought that once I would be at a certain place, I would have that too. And I start to really introspect and really throughout time recognize how much social media unconsciously or consciously affects us just so much more than we know. So this is something that I've just noticed myself struggling within, specifically, this comparison, this idea that if I get to one place, then I will finally be happy. [00:12:04][61.1]

[00:12:05] And also this sense of coming into contact with myself, I know I bring this up a lot to you guys around the fact that wherever we go, there we are, there we are. And this is the same with relationships when we believe that the next person or this different partner is going to finally be happy. We've come to fail to recognize that we take ourselves to different relationships. It's just different components, different parts that we're meeting within ourselves that another person may be mirroring or showing to you about yourself. So I'm really here to just kind of highlight that and to just show you that, yes, I do go through challenges and I too also go through dark nights of the soul. I feel like I'm going through one right now, but it's been just kind of this introspective process where I've been noticing how much social media has been affecting me and how much social media may be affecting you, too. So that's something I really wanted to talk about today. I have some different scientific evidence that I'll go through just in terms of breaking habits and how to create more fulfillment in your life and happiness as well. [00:13:11][66.4]

[00:13:12] Before I want to dive in, I also want to say that I feel like there's a lot of research still coming in about how social media is affecting our brains. And I feel like we're in the beginning stage of researching how our brains are adapting to technology. But I do feel like it takes a while for a nervous system to adapt, and technology these days is going a lot faster than our brains ability to adapt. So I'm curious over time how technology will work alongside the structure of our brains and how we will tend to kind of adapt and evolve through social media. So this podcast has awesome research in it, self-analysis, but it's also really what I've seen within myself and a lot of clients as well. [00:13:59][46.9]

[00:14:00] So I really feel like the challenge nowadays is that most of us really do need to be on our phones, right? It's our way to keep in contact with people. We have our GPS on our phones. We have our calculator now, like he's our calculator that much, but we have our social connections that we go into with our phone. Some of us even have a career in social media. That's for me, right? I'm always on social media media because that's my way to really connect with people. That's my way to really spread awareness on ROCD and relationship anxiety. So it's really inviting people to use their phones and technology more than ever. It's really our way to get that social connection, especially in times of COVID and restrictions. And for some, technology can feel so challenging and foreign. And for others, it can feel really easy and it's something that they feel that they can adapt with. And I don't think that either is right or wrong. I just think it's just different for different people. But I do feel like there's a really big difference between using something proactively and productively versus using something as a form of a compulsion or using something as a way of avoidance or using something habitually that's creating different habits that aren't really that good for us or our relationship. [00:15:20][79.8]

[00:15:21] So in a 2019 report, the typical individual goes through 3.5 hours of telephone use a day with the top 20 percent going through their phone for more than 4.5 hours. And different individuals in isolated situations where individuals are on their phone for 8 hours a day. I find that 3.5 hours is a lot already, but if I were to look at my phone, I would guarantee you that I would be shocked to see that I spend a lot more time on my phone. So the conclusion is that we are on our phones so much and we all know that what we do every day, the environment that we're in, what we've been to our body, what we see continually affects us in a subliminal and unconscious way. And our unconscious is 99% of our brain. So 99% of our brain operates in the unconscious, which means that the brain is pulling out information from the past through our trauma, from our wounding, from societal influences, from programming. And also what we see on a daily basis. [00:16:27][66.3]

So if we're constantly seeing different things on social media, you bet it's in your brain on an unconscious level. And we wonder why we're affected by things so much, why we're comparing our relationships so much to other people, why we're comparing ourselves to other people, why we're constantly buying things over and over again with an impulse and with this addictive quality. It's because we are on our phones and social media so much more than we realize.

Something that I, of course, want to bring up is that it's really not your fault., okay. We have been put into this society, we're chosen to be here, and we have been incorporated in a very technological era. The social media era. And one big reason as to why it's not your fault is because social media is a consumer based product. So this means that the more you're on social media, the more you see advertisements. The more you see advertisements, the more you're prone to buying something that was shown. There's a two row mark in marketing and advertising, which is that if you see something at least twice, you're more likely to buy it. Social media, you might not realize this is a product based. Technology, it's a program, right? And a lot of people are there to sell you stuff. Not good or bad. It is just because it's a consumer based product. [00:17:59][91.2]

[00:18:00] Another reason as to why it's not your fault as to why you're so engaged is that parents, the makers of social media, have extensively studied the art of casinos, how to get people hooked into a product for them to keep coming back. So they're brilliant with psychology. They know how the brain works. They understand what keeps people hooked and addicted. The left or right motion, the up and down, the scrolling actually brings the brain into a hypnotic state where we become focused and we go into our unconscious. So we get really hooked into the object in front of us, and they're constantly upgrading and improving this interface to keep us engaged and "connected". So there's definitely that psychology that is, you know, researched and that's that's put into social media, which is that we are designed to be hooked and designed to be in this hypnotic state when we're on social media. [00:18:55][55.4]

[00:18:56] We also have to understand the brain so social media is built on a single chemical called dopamine. So whenever we receive notifications, when we receive DMs, when we receive comments, there's a chemical that's released, which is called dopamine, which scientists are now calling the dopamine effect. So this is a chemical designed to make you feel good. This is the same chemical that we get when we feel get food, when we exercise, when we love, when we have sex, when we're gambling and when we're also doing drugs. There's been a study that says that social media is more addicting than a cigaret and some drugs. So when you feel down and you go on social media, the brain is wired to bring you to the dopamine hit, right? Like getting those dopamine hits, getting that instant feel good, that gratification and the more you're on your phone and the more you reach to your phone. When you're not feeling good and you get that dopamine hit, the brain then registers. OK, I'm going to feel better if I'm on my phone, even if it's not necessarily good for us. The other reason as to why this is not your fault is because we're wired for connection. We are social creatures. So then so then in time with more independence there society going more into independence, with boredom, with COVID restrictions were really craving more connection than ever. There have been studies showing that as a society, we're more lonely and we feel more disconnected than ever. So we're really craving that social interaction and everything that we really desire. So I say this in specific because I know that a lot of us can feel down on ourself like we know these things about social media, like we know that it's addictive. We know that it's not that good for us. We know that it hurts our relationship when we're on it too much. We know that we're not using it in the most productive way. And I say that it's not your fault because the makers of social media, the makers of Facebook, of Instagram, of Tik Tok, oh my god, I could get into Tik Tok. That's a whole nother conversation because of how addicting that is, especially that instant movement that I see Joel using. I don't use Tik Tok as much specifically for this reason, but man, I see him on Tik Tok up going, I'm like, Oh my God, you guys like, of course, it's so addicting. Of course we're so glued to our phone. Of course we're comparing unconsciously. There's a lot that's going on there, so my basis is that it's not your fault. So if you feel any guilt and shame. I just would invite you to take this information as awareness to empower yourself. And that's what we can do. That's what a beautiful about being human is that we can take information and we can empower ourself with information. [00:21:36][160.1]

[00:21:38] I now want to go into how social media is affecting your mental health in a relationship, because this is where we're getting to the juiciness of the meat of the matter, which is that we're always seeing the highlight reel on social media. So again, I'm going to talk about how it's affecting your relationship and also how it could be fueling ROCD. We are always seeing the highlight reel of an individual. We have to understand that people on social media are most likely showing their best states online. You don't see what's going on behind the scenes. You don't see them getting up in the morning. The arguments that they're having in between, the sadness in their heart and the emptiness that they feel when they go to bed at night or they wake up in the morning, the depression they might be feeling. So when you compare yourself to others or you compare your relationship to others, you are seeing their highlights and what they want you to see. Which is most likely not going to be some vulnerability and truth about sadness, they might feel about depression they might experience about the doubt they might be about their lives and why they do what they do. [00:22:44][65.2]

[00:22:45] I'm going to add a little bit here. Many of you know that. I, of course, am on social media, Joel's also on social media, and he's had many times where he's also, you know, doubted himself, doubted why he does what he does. He has a great mission to help people as an amazing business to really help a lot of people in their own businesses. But he puts himself out there and you might see him, you know, in these reels and these Instagram posts. But he's admitted to me behind the scenes in different conversations at night, asking himself, Why is he doing what he's doing? Why is he constantly putting himself out there? You know it can be. It can be challenging, and we don't see that. We just constantly compare ourself to other people and what we see in their highlight reels. So we in turn, feel just worse about ourselves, right? We compare their highlight reels to our challenging parts in our life. We see these people having these relationships or traveling. And what we do is we compare their highlight reel to the challenges that we're having in our own life, which makes us feel worse. I mean, go into everyone has it better than me. I must be missing something. Something must be wrong with me. Something must be wrong with my relationship. So we go into this with ROCD and we kind of start to spiral into something is wrong with my partner, they have to be perfect. What's wrong with me? Why don't I have that? Why doesn't my partner having that without realizing that much of what you're experiencing is exactly what the person that you're comparing yourself to, maybe experiencing too? [00:24:21][96.2]

[00:24:23] Here's a little side note, everyone. And I'm going to really invite you to take this in. I want you to know that at Awaken into Love, we worked with a lot of influencers and some celebrities in secret. So we've had some celebrities actually secretly reach out to us and work with us. These are people that you see on the red carpet, even magazines, they look like they have it all together. But in reality, they're secretly reaching out to us, telling us that they're struggling. You'd go on their Instagram page and feel as though you're missing out that they have it all together. But I'm telling you celebrities struggle too, influencers struggle too, people on Instagram struggle, too. So when we're comparing ourselves to other people, we're automatically in a fantasy. We're automatically in an illusion. And this is also a reason as to why when we see couples that break up or we find out that they were in an abusive relationship, it's shocking for a lot of us because we see their highlight reels, we see what they want us to see. [00:25:24][60.6]

[00:25:25] The other thing that comes up, especially in relationships, is FOMO, the Fear Of Missing Out. So this is especially evident if you're in high school and college. I feel like FOMO was really big for me when I was younger. Seeing couples who are single posting pictures of them partying, even if it doesn't necessarily align with your values. So FOMO in specific is defined as a type of nervousness that you get when you're terrified of passing up a positive encounter that another individual's having. FOMO actually triggers anxiety in the amygdala, and it detects that something is missing or there's a threat to our survival. Because if we miss something, if we miss out on something, then we would most likely not belong in society. FOMO is so evident. The more we see something more, the more we feel like we're missing out, the more we feel like, Oh my god, something's wrong with my life. Why aren't I doing what they're doing? Why don't I like them? And there's this constant reinforcement of FOMO. [00:26:23][57.7]

[00:26:24] Another thing that's really big is image and appearance. So not only can social media impact the way we view our body and our appearance, especially with different influencers and models that we see, not saying it's bad at all. Again, this isn't so black or white, just more observation, but more so how this can affect us. So this can be the same way for seeing attractive people constantly who are really not really the reality of what they may be, which is why I'm trying to start to slowly take out filters. I'm going to use them sometimes, and I'm going to be honest with you. It's hard for me to sometimes not have a filter on my face because I feel like I look better. I think we all do that. I think we all put filters on because we're like, Oh, I kind of look better. You know, my flaws on my face are gone. The pimples aren't showing, you know, the wrinkle lines are gone. I think we all do this because we want to put our best self out there, but we're hiding or hiding in a lot of ways, again it's not so black or white where one is worse or better than the other. It just is. But we do see attractive people online, and we might compare ourselves to other people who may seem more attractive, intelligent, more spiritual than ourselves and our partner. But again, we don't see what's going on behind the scenes, the dark points, their vulnerability that we see so closely every day with our partner. So we were literally comparing other people's highlight reels to just the vulnerability in the beauty and challenges of being in a relationship. We may also feel as though we need to keep up with other people who post pictures of our relationship. Wonder why if we don't post the pictures at, something must be wrong with our relationship. Look our best with their partner and try to keep up with that image. [00:28:06][102.1]

[00:28:08] So two other things that I want to go over before I can kind of dive into how we can make this work for us is the idea of instant gratification. So I really feel like our brains are constantly getting such an instant reward from social media and we constantly get that hit rate. That constant dopamine hit. So we start to believe that things in life need to come easily. Things need to be quicker, faster, better. And this does a disservice to us because deep, empowering amazing things in life don't come so quickly. Relationships, they take time. Building a relationship takes time. Working through conflict takes time. Working through our own inner traumas and our wounding in our pain, these take time. [00:28:59][51.5]

[00:29:00] I feel like back in the day, they probably understood this in a deeper way, and they they had rituals around this. They had this understanding this deep spiritual understanding that things that were incredible and worthwhile take time. But because we're in this technology area, were we expecting so quickly? And we start to feel more disappointed and feel as though there's something wrong with us when we're not? Getting such quick results because social media is mirroring the internet is mirroring this idea that we need things fast and quick. So we tend to look at our partner in our relationship and even ourself and unconsciously, we compare our relationship to things that we see on social media, but not only that, we expect things to be quick and fast. So the fundamental importance to this idea is the importance of patience, and I'll get into that soon. But in our relationships, we can start to expect or things that think that things should take faster according to what our brains are designed to do daily, that instant reward and having it quickly, we start to expect that when we use so much social media. [00:30:06][66.2]

[00:30:08] Another component that I just kind of want to go into a little bit is perfectionism. Seeing things so perfect takes away the flaws, the challenges, you start believing that things need to be perfect, right? We see perfection on social media. Things should be perfect. In reality, we start to expect this. Over time as well, you know, we can kind of go into poor intellectual executions that can do worse on cognitive tests, inability for attention. It also shrinks parts of the brain. An inability to think independently can hurt our self-esteem, the need for instant gratification and inability to stay with boredom and discomfort, which is huge because some parts of relationship and intimacy can be boring. It can be dull. And so what's important, again, is to not necessarily kind of shrink into this idea of, oh my God, you know, social media, so bad for me, I'm using it every day and this is horrible and we can go into that, but I'm really going to invite you to just more so see this education as important and also as this validation and clarification as to why it's OK to feel the way that you may be feeling after you are using social media and have this awareness and this Aha moment as to why you might be comparing so much, believing that your relationship needs to be a certain way, asking yourself why your brain is constantly comparing and wiring over and over in these different grooves to go into FOMO, that sounds funny going to FOMO or go into feeling this need of being perfect and your relationships. [00:31:48][51.4]

[00:31:50] So let's start to talk about how you can make it work for you so things that you can start to change or habits that you can start to implement that can be really helpful for you. A big part is creating boundaries. What's really interesting about social media is that it's a relationship. Social media is a relationship, we are in contact with it. We're having a relationship with it. So just like everything in life, it's important equally to create boundaries with social media. There are studies that say that 30 minutes a day on our phone is actually the most efficient time for us being on social media, so anything more can be a little bit too much. Of course, anything less can be perfect as well, but we don't need much more than 30 minutes a day to spend time on social media again unless it's our career. I understand that can be challenging, but there's definitely those moments where we don't need to be scrolling so much. So everything else is most likely mindless scrolling. So it's important to create boundaries with yourself. We know that boundaries are essential for having a fulfilling relationship. I'll talk more about this later in a different podcast, but we can fail to recognize that social media is a relationship itself. So which means that if we don't have boundaries with it, it can hurt us and it can hurt our mental health. So how can we start with this? How can we start creating boundaries? [00:33:06][75.8]

[00:33:06] For one we can start to monitor how much time we are on social media with a social media tracker. Your phone might have this where it shows you how much time you're on social media. This is just to gain perspective on where we are. If you know you're already on social media too much, ask you what keeps you scrolling. What do you usually spend your time looking at? Are you all of a sudden on your friends, cousins, brothers, partners, sisters, Instagram or Facebook page and you have no idea how you got there? Really ask yourself what you're looking at throughout the day, kind of be that overlooking parent that looks through, you know, the things that you look at, and if it's causing you to become empowered or not and really be honest with yourself, I'm usually just kind of scrolling through what's that? That newsfeed in the middle and looking through all of these random things, I'll be all of a sudden looking at houses and I'll be standing looking at fashion then I'll be set and looking at spiritual stuff. Then I'll be looking at, you know, people's Tik Toks, I can be all over the place. So that's something that is helpful for me to kind of gain perspective on what I am looking at? You know, what am I spending my time on? [00:34:10][64.1]

00:34:12] So the second part of creating boundaries that you can start using is schedule time to not use your phone. So even just write down on your phone, especially if you use social media so much throughout the day and I said, write down on your phone. I would write this down on a piece of paper, but schedule time or block out time throughout your day where you're not using your phone. So this might be an hour a day. If it's really challenging for you to start with an hour a day, you can even start if it's easy for you three hours a day from like six pm to eight p.m. not using your phone. And you can also schedule time where you do use your phone. So this is something that I used to do that is so helpful for me where I would wake up and be like, OK, I'm going to just use my phone from 7:00-8:00 today. That's it. We're 7:00-7:30 and I get to do everything that I want to do on social media. I can scroll mindlessly. I can look at other things. I can look at my friends, brothers, cousins, sister, all of a sudden like I can be deep into social media if I want to, but I can only do that for this amount of the day. Only an hour a day. I would suggest 30, but an hour a day can be really helpful, too. Now the question I usually hear from people, especially with ROCD, is: what if I'm avoiding and I don't want to see people because they can be triggering for me? There's definitely a difference between a loving social media detox and cleaning up different things versus just eliminating things that are triggering for you. So I'll talk more about this in another point. [00:35:39][87.2]

[00:35:40] So the second part that can be really empowering is strengthening self-love and your inner parent, so you can really use social media as a way to empower you. You can really start to strengthen that self-love for yourself. Eliminate distractions. Remove people, unfollow them, especially ones that keep you comparing. I know this one can be a challenge, especially if you're really close with certain people. And so it can be helpful to click the Restrict button on the three dots on their page. But if they're a celebrity or influencer, do this. For me, even if I like certain people, I'll still remove them because I'll notice myself comparing. I start to compare myself to people who tend to have a very spiritual life or in community. And even if they're posting good things, and even if they're posting things that I know can help, I'm still noticing myself comparing so I will most likely remove them. So think of yourself like a little child, right? If you had a child, what would you want them to be seeing? If you know that it's not, the feed doesn't feel good for you or feel good for them, then what would you remove? What would you not want them to be seeing? So again, you can see yourself as that child looking at different things. What would you block from them? [00:36:55][75.2]

[00:36:57] The third part that you can go into in terms of using this as an empowerment is to start to strengthen your inner resilience through exposure work. So ask yourself what you're avoiding when you notice yourself, when to grab your phone and stay with this discomfort longer than usual. So was there a feeling that you're avoiding and how can you use these moments as exposure work for yourself? So, for example, if you notice yourself feeling really obsessive? Do you grab your phone to distract yourself? Do you go to your phone to look at something as a compulsion? Those are a little mindful bells for you to turn back to yourself and do that exposure work. And I'm sorry, guys. There's like a smoothie going on in the background, so I'm sorry if the noise is a little bit off right now. [00:37:42][45.1]

[00:37:43] The fourth point is to work on your compulsion. So you can use the 30 minute rule. If you're wanting to work with compulsions, do it mindfully. You can create another account specifically for exposure work, follow accounts that are triggering for you and purposely look at them for a couple of minutes a day so you can have one account where you remove everything, right? It's like that loving account for yourself, and then you can create another account specifically for exposure work. So you go on to that account, you purposely look at the things that are triggering for you, allow yourself to just be with the discomfort and to not go into obsessive thinking or a compulsion and allow yourself to just to sit in discomfort and lean in the anxiety. [00:38:22][39.2]

[00:38:24] The fifth point that you can go into is really to use social media to lean into your wholeness. So what are you needing instead? When we go to social media, we're usually neglecting our needs. So for me, I know that it might be helpful to work out or play or do something that's more loving for myself. So when you're about to reach for your phone, what's something that you can do instead? You can even write these things down and you can grab that piece of paper and be like, OK, these are the things that I would like to do. So you can do a journaling technique and ask yourself, if social media wasn't there, what would you do instead? What are some things that you've been avoiding doing? This will also help to strengthen your independence as well. So this is going to help the ROCD and anxiety, for sure. [00:39:02][38.0]

[00:39:04] Work with your mind, so have something planned when you're about to reach for your phone, you can do something else instead. This is very similar to point number five. [00:39:11][7.0]

[00:39:12] Another way that social media can also help you is that you can build confidence. So notice how it feels to not use your phone, monitor your progress and how you feel with yourself and your relationship. And I say build confidence because the more you do things that you're proud of within yourself, the more you're going to build confidence and self trust. So if you don't reach to your phone or you notice yourself reaching and you do something else and said you're actually building that confidence, which is huge for independence as well, which again is important for ROCD. [00:39:40][27.9]

[00:39:42] The eighth point is to practice and wire for patience. So when you find yourself wanting instant gratification or expecting quick results, take a moment to pause and slow down and rewire your brain that things take time, right? Things that are worthwhile, take time. [00:39:57][15.2]

[00:39:59] And the last one that I want to go into is perfectionism, working with perfectionism. So this can be especially triggering if we've been complimented when we were younger and loved firm image when we were younger so we can work with our inner child, which can be super helpful for this in a way where we recognize our inner child. Maybe when it's not feeling enough, picturing them and soothing them in a way where we're inner parenting them for what they may need. So I'll go a little bit more into that. So the perfectionism when we're starting to compare ourself, when we're really starting to see other couples or when we're feeling not enough. That's a really, really great cue that our inner child is needing support and asking for love and attention. This is for everything, everyone. So whenever you're feeling triggered for anything or if you're feeling wounding, come up. That's literally your inner child, which if you don't know about the inner child. Check out an episode I did a couple of months ago with someone so wonderful who talked about how working with her inner child was really healing for her. So again, these moments and these triggers and these feelings of needing to feel perfect are literally our inner child asking love from us to feel worthy and to feel supported. So these are cues that we can really go into that can be really, really helpful for inner kiddo. [00:41:12][73.5]

[00:41:14] All right. I'm sitting in the closet right now, and because it's so small, you might be hearing little different noises here and there, but these are just different ways that you can really start to work with using social media as a tool for empowerment. So in life, what's so beautiful is that yes, we can have challenges. Yes, we can have things that can make us really struggle, but we can also use it as a way to empower ourselves to strengthen ourselves. And we can honestly use social media as a way to help our ROCD, like the nine points that I talked about toward the end. So again, the key is becoming aware, educating ourselves, understanding how social media can really hurt us and then doing something about it, right? That's a really big part of Awaken into Love, which is recognizing what's challenging and using it as a way to empower ourself. [00:42:02][47.9]

[00:42:03] So I hope this podcast episode was helpful for you. I'm curious if you're going to start to implement these specific points and which one you're going to start to practice with. And just as always, be kind to yourself, start to become aware of these certain things and just know that social media is designed in different ways to really keep us in. So it's really about pushing against ourselves in a lot of ways where we go against what we want to do, which is maybe grabbing our phone and scrolling mindlessly. And we go against that and we build confidence and we build resilience and we build a sense of empowerment and we do things that are hard and we recognize that we can do hard things. So again, I hope this podcast episode has been helpful for you. I hope you're all doing so well. Loving all of you. Sending really, really big hugs. I'm going to be doing this alongside all of you. So just know that I've been struggling with social media too. So just know that you're not alone with this. And I am loving all of you and just remember that you're so not alone. #YANA and this is being human. I'll talk to you all soon, everyone. Take care. Bye bye. [00:42:03][0.0]