Goodbye Instagram, hello radical self-love
I’m going to be radically honest in this article.
Let’s start with the first thing. I don’t have a love-hate relationship with Instagram, I have a pure hate relationship and I’m going to tell you why.
Tonight I had a little epiphany that Instagram was a primary source for my lack of joy. So, a few hours ago, I made the decision, as a small business, to leave Instagram.
Well, being honest, two hours ago I said I was taking a holiday from Instagram. A little vacay I joked to all of my 756 followers, most of whom don’t care the slightest about who I am or what I do. But now? Now I’m deadly serious. It might be for good.
Where has this radical act of self-love come from, you ask?
Well, I’m not one to shy away from big gestures of self-love. Almost three years ago I became sober because I realised the negative effect it was having on my self-esteem. I used alcohol as a mask to hide the deep-seated belief that I wasn’t good enough.
Like most people, I used alcohol as a crutch to hide my insecurities and lack of confidence, until it got to the point where alcohol was using me and I was completely out of control.
In 2019 I became sober because I wanted to walk tall, confident in my authenticity without the need to hide who I was. Also, the hangovers were feral. I was done with that.
The second radical act of self-love? Leaving a relationship that had started to hurt me emotionally. I love myself, first and foremost, and anyone that brought that into question was no longer viable. I was starting to lose myself and I couldn’t do that, not when I’d worked so hard on my self-esteem. So, I left.
Leaving Instagram is my radical act of self-love
So, what makes leaving Instagram, as a small business, a radical act of self-love? I’ll tell you.
Someone wise once wrote that “Instagram is a beast that needs feeding and attention non-stop” and I didn’t have enough to feed it, it was starting to eat me up.
We think these social media apps are harmless, but their harm is insidious and subtle.
I used to think I was aware of the dangers of comparison but it was seeping into my subconscious with every moment I spent on the app. I was measuring myself up to impossible standards and finding myself lacking.
I also realised that my self-esteem right now isn’t in the most robust of places. There are things happening in my life right now that leave me slightly vulnerable and open to the comparison curse that I would otherwise be immune to.
Instagram not only shows you the highlights reel of someone’s life, it also shines a light on the ever-widening gap between your dreams and your reality. A good example is that I haven’t been on holiday for over three years and while it’s a very first-world problem and totally my responsibility, watching people live their best life in turquoise oceans through a screen infected me with lack of joy that sunk into my bones.
Spending time on Instagram is a choice though, right? Yes, it absolutely is. The thing is, Instagram is addictive in nature, deliberately designed by its creators to keep us hooked.
Those little dopamine hits whenever we have a new follower or like that trickle through to us throughout the day is all part of the play that keeps us checking, posting, engaging, hoping and wishing, but what for exactly?
Instagram doesn’t give anything back to me
The crazy thing is, I get nothing tangible back from the hours I spend designing, creating and sharing my content.
I have a few followers, who don’t engage with me unless they’re friends and I don’t engage with them because I don’t have time, and what’s most startling over all is that when I look at my website analytics, the lowest number of visitors comes from Instagram.
Direct, I get loads. Google, I also get a fair amount. I even get more visits from my email marketing than Instagram, yet guess what platform I’m spending the most amount of time on? You guessed it. So why am I on Instagram at all?
In 2020 I deleted my personal Instagram and personal Facebook account because I could no longer handle the amount of negativity, hatred and shaming that went on under the surface. I decided to keep a business Instagram account for my Kinesiology business but I also had another motive.
I love to write, and I had hoped it would be a platform to share my writing. I also like to design and it seemed like a good place to do it. But, I’m not a content creator. Those people who have big accounts creating content and telling you how you too can have big accounts like theirs if you also create content like them, literally make money off creating content all day long.
That is literally their business.
Do small businesses need to be on Instagram?
For a long time I’ve thought I should be on Instagram as a small business, needing to be visible to stay relevant and seen to be active. The thing is, for some businesses Instagram is perfect, but for me it’s totally irrelevant. It’s not a good fit with the service I offer. I’m not one to follow the crowd yet I’ve been following the Instagrammers for way too long.
Also, when you think you ‘should’ do anything, it’s a clear cut sign you should do anything but that thing. It’s scary to go the other way to the crowd but it’s a worthy way to walk.
With my head in Instagram I’ve forgotten that my business is all about helping people through Kinesiology treatments and the words I write. These are my two passions, not creating content and selling myself to a platform that is inundated and over saturated with people shouting to be heard.
Instagram has led me to believe that I can gain validation from its platform. That, if I continually feed the app, then I can receive my basic human needs of being seen and heard.
But it’s a lie. I don’t receive any validation, or if I do it’s dangerously fickle. I’m not being seen or heard and it feels like that if I want to I have to try harder, spending more of my precious time on it, being constantly visible, constantly online, constantly creating.
And, I don’t want to. Fuck no I don’t want to. I’m exhausted, I want to stop, I want to get off the merry go-round and go and live my life.
Like with alcohol, moderation doesn’t work for me. I had to cut it out completely, which is exactly the case with Instagram. For some people moderate use might be ok but for me I’m either all in or nothing.
I don’t fit the Instagram algorithm and that’s ok
Maybe I failed? Maybe I wasn’t good enough so stand out? Maybe I didn’t try hard enough?
The thing is, despite the fluffy appearance, Instagram is a cold, hard operating system that chews people up and spits them out. I am a gentle and sensitive person, which is a huge strength in the work I do, but this environment is just not where I thrive.
And, I suspect, very few thrive in this environment either.
I don’t fit the algorithm because I’m my own algorithm that is composed of trust, love and faith. In following my own autheticity, I can’t fit into another mold.
I don’t ordain to push and strain my way through life yet Instagram delights in these characteristics, wanting us all to clamber over each other to the top of the mountain so we can be seen. This pushing and striving mentality is one I seek to leave behind, instead, choosing my own dance with the Divine, choosing practices that nourish my self-esteem and light me up.
I’ve been pulled away from the feel-good things in my life and become a slave to a system that gives me no rewards and reinforces the message that I’m not good enough and I’ll never be good enough.
So, I choose myself and my happiness over a corporate machine that leaches confidence and joy from my life.
Instagram brings out the ugly in me
With Instagram they make it all seem so attainable.
That’s how the social media giant lures you in. It is specifically designed to make you feel not quite good enough. They sell you the lie that if you tried just a little bit harder you’d achieve that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Plot spoiler, there is no pot of gold. It’s all an illusion.
Like those desperate multi-level marketing schemes that promise you the ability to never work 9-5 again (#girlboss) and earn thousands of pounds a month. Lies.
The very, very few that make it to the top echelons of that line of work quite literally step on and over others as they clamber and grasp their way to the top. Slightly off-topic but Instagram also brings out ugly characteristics in me that I’m not ashamed to share.
Instagram brings out all the greed, jealousy, resentment, vanity, desperation and grabbiness from me. I don’t resonate with any of those things in any other part of my life so why would I want to stay in a place where it highlights them?
It has puffed me up with self-importance when I want to be grounded in humility. It has made me think that everyone needs to hear what I’m saying, when they really don’t.
Instagram is not a core ingredient for success
It has also led me to believe, and I willingly believed it, that I need to be on its platform to succeed as a small business.
I don’t believe this to be true, it’s all part of the marketing that comes on the shiny packaging of Instagram. Businesses were around before Instagram and they will be around after Instagram. Instagram is not a vital ingredient of success but trust and faith is.
As part of my core values, I chose to live my life through faith, not fear. Fear says that I need certain things to do well as a business and faith says I can relax and trust that the right people will always find me. I always want to follow faith.
Like when I gave up alcohol, I trusted that big things would happen, and they did. I thought I’d fail without it, like I’d never have fun again and I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself, dance and date without my usual social lubrication, but surprise, I did all of these things.
In my head I’m already wondering how I will feel with this Instagram-sized hole in my life now. But, like with alcohol, I slowly filled it in with new joys and experiences.
What I now realise is that there’s more to life than living through a screen and topping up my self-esteem through constant attention to something that quite literally gives me nothing back but empty validation. I choose joy. I choose life. I choose myself.
That’s radical self-love right there baby.
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