That one time I got rid of Instagram for a month

It all started when I told a guy that I had a dream about loosing my teeth.

Not really, but it was definitely part of the story and makes for a catchy beginning. Anyway, I did tell a guy I had a dream about losing my teeth and he informed me this could mean an unlearning of one thing and relearning of something else outside my control. This lack of control often prompts us to have this dream of losing our teeth (outside our control) with the intention of growing new teeth. Who knows if that’s actually why I had it and maybe its just that I have the worst sleep schedule and live on a narrow balance of coffee and melatonin but I did have a dream that my teeth fell out so do with that information what you want.

Over the last few weeks, I have been thinking about how much I value the opinions of others and how I want to create space to re-evaluate my intentions. In almost every decision I make, I always seek others’ opinions. Most often it’s the opinions of those closest to me but the more I’m unsure of something the more I tend to invite even more opinions into consideration. Sometimes I’ll tell literally everyone I encounter and ask their opinion about something; as a result, I only end up being an anxious mess afraid to think/feel/do anything.

I love Instagram. It’s a way to connect and create on a platform that’s fun and easy to use. I’ve made friends on Instagram and love connecting with friends who I don’t see on a regular basis. I had a realization that I was also using instagram as a platform for comparison and acting on insecurities by doing things for the purpose of posting and adding to the content I was creating. Plus, I was wasting a lot of time.

Something I learned from Tim Keller’s book, “Counterfeit Gods”, is that whenever we want to remove one thing from our life, we have to replace it with something else. A goal I made for 2020 was to be focused on things that matter: my family, my spirituality, reading more books, writing, and prioritizing community. These things take time, focus, and intentionality; all of these, enemies of what social media (Instagram) does in my life.

So, I decided this dream of “loosing my teeth” was a call to unlearn seeking other’s opinions to back up my thoughts about myself and replace or relearn with things that ACTUALLY matter to me. My decisions and actions may not have drastically changed but my attitude about them did.

I became more comfortable with being bored.
This is something I would generalize and say most American/western cultures strive to avoid. Boredom is the enemy right? If you’re bored then you’re uncomfortable because you can think and when you have time to think you have time to feel feelings and realize your laundry is done and should be folded and no one wants to do that. But I think there is something so good and so healthy about allowing yourself space to be bored. True rest, being okay with the quiet and the slow, and looking out the window for a while is good. There were times while waiting for someone to meet me somewhere where I sat and watched people come in the door, I watched the cooks make pizza, and I watched families eating together. I wouldn’t have seen any of that had I had my nose in my phone.

Uploaded by ChelleWall on 2020-02-10.

I sat on my couch and listened to music with the goal of listening to music, not with it in the background while I searched through vacation photos and coffee shop posts.

I read more books in one month than I probably read in the entire last year.
I read three full books and into my forth. I kept them with me everywhere I went because to be honest, you can only people watch for so long before it gets creepy. It was awesome to plan where I would go to read: coffee shops, state parks, in my parked car waiting for work to begin. I realized the in-between-times take up a lot of time. This is where I really saw a product of how much time I had been wasting scrolling through instagram. Plus, its healthy to read before bed right?

Books I read:

A Praying Life - Paul Miller
Nine Stories - J. D. Salinger
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi
Currently reading: 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess - Jen Hatmaker

Maybe it was because I was reading so much, or maybe it was because I had some life stressors, but this month I really found a creative spark in my writing. I wrote a lot.

I wrote poems about situations at work

I wrote my first song

I wrote about my life/feelings/circumstances/wishes/dreams

I filled half my journal with some or the others

I wrote for myself. I didn’t write with the idea I would include it with a photo of my hike and share for the gratification of friends and random people telling me good job. I didn’t write my feelings about something so that I could get confirmation that I was in fact going through something rough and people should feel bad for me. I wrote so that I would be able to get out my feelings and process things going on. I wrote so that when I was through all these things later in life I would be able to look back into this window I was creating of who I was at this point in my life. I think we too often forget who we are in different points in time.

Marriage Story

The Squid and the Wale

I had to appease my desire to scroll through something so I ended up looking through Pinterest quite a few times and with all the foodie photos I have saved it seemed a shame to keep scrolling through them without trying a few.

Things I made:

Stuffed veggie sweet potatoes
Spring Rolls with peanut sauce
Quinoa bowls
Steak Tacos
Ricotta and roasted pear toast

I didn’t know what would come from me taking a break from instagram. I think I was hoping I would learn all these new things and find peace and a calling to a higher life. I think I was hoping I wouldn’t compare myself to others anymore and I would be so content with who I was at the end of my month. I think that i’m realizing I am extreme and dramatic. I make huge goals and strive to fix everything in my life all in one sweep (hi, I think I found my problem and origin of my teeth falling out dreams because THATS NOT POSSIBLE).

What did come from this month was intentionality and re-centering on things that are important to me and that I really love doing. If I had something to share with someone I sent them a text and shared it with them. I found I had MORE intentionality with my actual friends when it took more than a quick share through instagram to all my followers via my story. I found that when I was somewhere, I was really there. At friend’s houses for dinner, at hockey games, at a game night, at church; I was fully there and fully present without the distraction of filling down time with mindless scrolling and catching up on people’s lives - I was living my own.

I now have my instagram back, I don’t think its the worst thing in the world, but I hope after this last month I use it for the good things I love about it and create boundaries to preserve the things I love doing without it. Maybe I’ll take a break from something else next month.