The Impact of Social Media on Real-Life Connections

Colors and experiences come together over time, no truth is in the now, it shows up in the experience over time. (This is often realized through a social media detox reflection.)

~Kerri-Elizabeth~

Thoughts

I have some thoughts I’d love some input on. This won’t be my normal poem post. Instead, I’d like to share something that’s been on my heart and mind.

I recently took all of my apps for SM (I just had two) off my phone. I am seriously contemplating closing both and forever being done with it. This was a step towards my own social media detox reflection.

I’m not sure if our blogs are considered SM but they sure feel more personal. They are connected to our real life experiences and emotions. Sharing and conversing with you all has been enlightening. It’s more of the reality of life experiences rather than the fluff, it resonates. 

If you resonate this may also:

I just have a feeling. There so many beautiful connections I’ve created over the years, great friends all over the world. Its a mission to reach out to many and actually talk personally. Thus, I had a sense of who the person was I was following and being influenced by. Influence is now influencer. What’s real now is harder to see and feel. This reflection solidified my plans for a social media detox.

Connections

I didn’t want to have just digital connections. Instead, I wanted to take the time to see why they chose me or share why I chose them to follow. I made it a mission and made so many great connections. It was not just to do business with, with no agenda except to connect authentically. This thoughtful reflection encouraged my social media detox.

Over the years it seems less and less possible to make those connections authentically. (I have wonderful friends I’ve made, both in business and personally over the years.) Nothing wrong with the business or personal ideas model, except it doesn’t resonate with me right now anyways.

There is a manipulation to it all now that has taken away the fun of it. 

Maybe this is a fleeting feeling. So I am just taking some space away to see what that prompts for me. Part of my social media detox reflection involves understanding these feelings.

If this speaks to you, this may as well:

Whirlwind

I notice if I post then I’m in a trap, a whirlwind of seeing things I can’t un-see. The list of things I think I need, places I want to travel, and painting ideas I can dive into. An hour passes or more. My bum is numb from sitting too long and I lift my head. Reality conflicts with the entire scene in my dream world I didn’t even realize I was in.

 I then have a list of things I want to buy. Our home in my mind has been remodeled and completely redone with all the DIY ideas. I have gardens that look like a fairytale land and I have a new wardrobe. It fits snuggly and beautifully in our new walk-in closet, all organized. In my mind of course, NOT my reality. I guess it really does happen though; that’s what SM says anyways.

I have an awesome life, blessed with love and happiness and challenges. Challenges that would curl your hair. Who doesn’t? I just don’t want to see the fluff right now. It makes the real challenges seem like there is a quick fix if you just follow THEIR recipe to success. 

It’s exhausting!!

Some words to inspire:

Purpose or Confusion

I’ve heard so many coaches and counselors’ videos online. They give advice on how life would be better if I did it their way. Honestly, I have many times. I have a coach and I wouldn’t be where I am without her expertise. This is not to discount the importance of help and guidance.

I am authentically being led to a social media detox reflection. When you know, it doesn’t quit pushing you until you observe and listen, do you ever feel that?

After a few minutes scrolling, my mind is reeling on every emotion life has blessed me with. BUT, none seem correct. Sheesh 🙄 I started feeling pulled so far out of reality. I started missing what’s really happening and appreciating what IS my absolute AMAZING reality. 

Limits

I actually put limits on my phone. 1 hour collectively a day is all I’d allow to be on my screen. Some days I never came close. On others, an hour was like two seconds. 

That was an amazing experiment. Even down to how many times I went to grab my phone consciously instead of unconsciously. As part of reflecting on my need for a social media detox, I started observing these behaviors more.

Then I wondered why I was sharing anything about my life. Did it really matter or change anyone’s life for the better? Did it connect me to anything worth spending the time on it? Even business, of course it works for many, it’s not that I don’t agree with all that. I just asked myself, is this the way for me at this point? 

A Decision

So I decided at least for now it’s NOT. A social media detox reflection has allowed me to come to this realization.

What are your experiences and thoughts about your space in the SM world?

Here are a few ideas that have been helpful along my path:

https://insighttimer.com and as Judy says so beautifully, music saved her and in turn it helps save me.

Unbroken Wave

Gentleness and strength co-exist for good, where cruelty lives within its own anguish and storm of core weakness it must persevere to overcome.

~Kerri-Elizabeth~

Approaching the wind within a storm

In the dusk of night

An unbroken breeze blows by in a rush

Protection and honor stand near

Weakness lurks through the clouds

Roaring with counterfeit strength

Danger is uncovered

Revealed under the moon

Dusk is broken and starlights glimmer

Must a wave be broken to fall

Must brokenness be inevitable

Stars erupt within another cosmic space

Still seen with openness and grace

Gentleness is strength often mistaken for less

Where cruelty is another’s weakness at best

True kindness is organic unable to repress

Courage is fierce and needs not to impress

Must grief dive so deep it shatters open the skies

Yes, it must

It will be the shattering that inpsires your strength

It will be the grief that erupts your soul into its truest self

It will be the inevitable brokenness ravaging your heart

Before you start to see that grief is a gift you will need 

TO LIVE COURAGEOUSLY UNVEILED

Sunshine

To all my readers, it is with a grateful and full heart I thank you for supporting, reading, encouraging and becoming my dear friends over the years. Thank you to you all.

My writing is always evolving and changing as it has over the years as life changes and healing happens and challenges occur. I am always most inspired by the deepest challenges in life and write my best when life is cracking me wide open.

It is within the cracking open I have my biggest growth spurts and see deeper and deeper, showing me we are truly infinite energy with no end.

As we all know, energy can be used for good or for cruelty to ourselves and others, make no mistake their are both kinds and both cross paths and it is in that we will learn to be more alert, to find our deepest truths, tap into our believe system at a deeper level, It is not within churches or people but straight from the arms of our Creator.

Breathe in all your pain and all your grief and then breathe it out in fiercely placed courage and let it empower and strengthen your entire life and others, it is not for borrow or buy , it is not to be taken or left, it is yours always. USE IT or someone else will abuse it!

Inevitable Change

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Change is inevitable, perception is choice, arrangement is a gift wrapped in action and a voice.

~Kerri-Elizabeth~

Where there is love there is no destruction

Where creation exists, strength is continually being designed

Flowers burst into bloom 

Sunshine heals wounds

Rain clears pessimism from the earth

Storms rearrange foundations

Beauty is continually rebirthed

Laughter merges into cracks with a steady pace

Where kindness changes a frown on a face

Change starts within an evolving grace

Improvement or destruction both thrive in change 

Change is inspired by how it’s arranged

How will you alter change to inspire

How will your communication be admired

Will you become the best you can be

Or will change get the best of how you see

Change is inevitable

Perspective is a choice

 

SUNSHINE

 

Change will happen whether you like it or not, you change, you’re older, or feel younger, you get stronger or weaker. One area may improve while another is let go. Change is occurring no matter how you choose to friend it or not friend it, change is YOU, good or bad, you are changing.

Our choices to change are not ours, our actions and our perspective on change is ours, our plans, our decisions , they are ours. We don’t get to decide if we change, its inevitable, it is how you will see change, if you will ignore it and let it makes its choices without your input. Either way change is happening.

How will you decide to be aware of the changes in you before the changes make the decisions for you?

You can’t stop the earth from turning, you can only turn with it.  Is your life creating you, or are you aware enough to create your life?

SUNSHINE