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You’re listening to Episode 162 of The Art of Living big. Today on the show, I talk about a little social media detox that I took this past weekend. I tell you why I did it, how much of my life has been changed? It’s sort of shocking. And it’s sort of incredible. And I’m sort of embarrassed and I’m really excited to share it with you.
So I wanted to let you know before we move on that I do have a free training on my website. If you’re interested in learning how to master your subconscious and take your crisis into one of your greatest transformations. I think we always have opportunity for transformation. You can go right to my website, just a Betsy Pake calm and you will see it right there on the main page right next to my face. So All right, you guys. All right, this is a good one.
I hope that this impacts you. And if you guys like this, if you decide to do what I’m going to suggest you do, I want you to jump in my facebook group. And let me know what you think. So you can find the Facebook group by simply going to www The Art of Living big.com. That’ll pump you right into the Facebook group. So
Alright, you guys, enough of all this. Let’s go to the show.
Welcome to the art of living big. I’m your host, Betsy Pake. I’m an international expert in manifesting from your subconscious. And this podcast is designed to help you think differently about what could be possible for your life. Now, let’s go live big. Hello fellow adventurers who Welcome to today’s show.
Today, I want to talk to you about a little experiment that I did this weekend on with social media. So off social media actually taking a break for a long weekend from social media. And so I want to talk to you a little bit about what happened. So, you know, I have felt like a lot of us have been things have been shifting and changing, like pretty rapidly, right? pretty quickly. 2019 has been really, really fun for me. And a lot of things have been up leveling and changing and how I see things are changing. And I like to be in a state of growth. So I like to be constantly noticing new things and listening to my thoughts.
And one of the things that I was realizing was, well, there were two things. One is that I was just starting to notice my thoughts that I was sort of rehashing the same kind of thoughts over and over again. And they weren’t negative thoughts, but they weren’t necessarily supporting me. And then the second thing was, I noticed that when I was looking at my time, I have a list, right? So I’m a list keeper. And I have a list of all of the things that I need to do.
And I was doing like the major things like the big rocks, sort of like getting this podcast out every week and doing the things I needed for my coaching clients, and those kinds of things. But then there were these little tasks that really would help me up level that I was avoiding or ignoring. And I realized that some of the tasks on my list had been there, like for months. And so I started to think like I’m busy all day, right? Like I am, I’m busy all day, but what’s happening.
And so I really started to take a look at my day. And I realized some pretty fundamental things that needed to shift. Now, I am a fan of social media. So I am not saying like social media is bad, although I’m going to give you some, some background on all of that. But I use social media for my business, right? It has helped me, I love Facebook, I run some Facebook ads, so that people can find me, you know, I have done Instagram advertising just so people find the show, right?
So like, I see the value in it. And honestly, I have found some of my very closest friends on social media, like, oddly, it is so many of you may have found your spouse on social media, right? I have found support places on social media, I have found coaches that I’ve used on social media. So I see the value and there’s a lot of really good in it. But here’s what was happening was that I noticed some like little different subtle things that were happening in my life.
One was, I noticed in the morning and I had started a practice A while ago of not looking at my phone until my morning was over. But I noticed when I would go downstairs to like get like you know, like 10 o’clock or whatever to get caught and another cup of coffee or whatever. And I’d be looking at my phone. I noticed that my dog, my little dog, my favorite, my favorite dog. She would get really like almost a like anxiety like she would be kind of whipping at me a little bit and looking up and like trying to get my attention And I realized the other day that as I was walking down the stairs, I was looking at my phone as I walked through the kitchen, I was looking at my phone, you know, I walked right by her.
Her, I’m gonna spell it because she’s right here tr, EA, T, her tr, T, tr, EA t container and didn’t pause, right? So she was feeling ignored. Now it’s a dog. But I thought, if she feels like that, and she’s actively telling me, right, because she’s got no buffer. She doesn’t have her own phone, then what does my husband think? or What does my daughter think? Right? So I’ve noticed that the animal that’s near me is feeling anxious when I’m on my phone.
And it was like she knew when I was on my phone. And I found that curious. Because I don’t think of myself. I’m open to being wrong. But I don’t think of myself as being like a phone addict,
right?
And then I noticed, like my husband, and I would run out and get Mexican food, and we would both be on our phone. And if I wasn’t on my phone, then I noticed how much he was on his phone. Right? So he was just doing what I was doing. But if I wasn’t doing that doing it, then I really noticed that I was like, wait a minute, this is weird. I’m sitting here all by myself staring at him on his phone, which I’m sure he has done with me a number of times, right.
And, you know, when I would spend time with my daughter there, I’d be like, Hey, I just got to check something, I just got to check. I want to take a picture of this, when it wasn’t really necessary. And when I look at the goals that I have, and up leveling, like one of the goals that I have is to have better relationships, to be closer to my kid to feel really connected, and to be connected to my husband in a different way. But if I’m on the phone, I was starting to wonder when I saw my dog, like how is that actually impacting things. So that was one piece of it, like the personal side.
But then I realized this To Do List I’ve had I was running and running and running and like moving things had been a couple months. And some of them were small tasks.
Not a big deal. But things
that really needed to be done. And that could improve my business if I did them. So Why wasn’t I doing them. So here’s the thing is I use my phone, like when I look at when I use my smartphone, I don’t use it. Like to be smart. I use it mostly for social media. So I’m not. I mean, I’m on the phone sometimes.
But most of my client calls are on the computer like so the point is, I was only really when I carried around my phone, it was in case there was an emergency phone call, it had to happen. And the other reason was just to have my social media. And if I left the house with my husband to go to dinner, and I didn’t have my phone, I did not make him turn around and get it because I was worried there’d be an emergency because he had his phone, I’d make him turn around in the neighborhood.
So I could go get it. Because I would feel this absence, right, because I’m totally connected all the time. And I use it for social media. So I want to talk a little bit about about social media. And you know, you’ve probably heard a lot of things about how it’s bad and really bad for our brains and all of this stuff. And we hear a lot about like the dopamine, right, it gives you this dopamine hit, which really isn’t totally true, because dopamine really has more to do with like, anticipating events and motivating you to do things.
So dopamine is the thing that actually makes you feel like you want to do something, it’s it’s the thing that wants to do the things so you get the reward. And then once you get the reward, which is the Facebook, and then it releases endorphins. And that’s the thing that’s like, makes you happy and is the rewarding thing. So here’s what happens with social media.
I have the dopamine that that’s happening in my brain, it’s making me want to seek out that little hit, right, that little hit and that release of the endorphins. And so it’s training me, you know, we’ve talked a lot about whatever fires together wires together. So I am wiring this instant gratification, right? So that when my brain enters reward seeking, I want reward, then all I have to do is open up my Facebook and then I get the the endorphin hit. So what is that doing?
I have goals, I have big goals. But now I’m used to I’m training my brain instant instant instant instant. And so when I have a big goal that doesn’t happen instantly, right? Doesn’t real life doesn’t happen instantly most of the time. And so then I’m training myself that that’s not right, that that’s wrong. It makes waiting for something and having patience for something and working through something seem a little bit harder. And so the thing with social media is because It’s not super gratifying, right?
You get a notification and you’re like, ooh, and then you have this endorphin release. But then you see, it’s like just somebody liked something that you had commented on, like, it’s it is less, so rewarding, right? So then you’re more compelled to want to go back and keep checking. The other thing, our brain really likes his novelty, right? I’ve talked about this before, our brain really likes novelty. So there’s unpredictability, I don’t know how many likes I’m gonna get, I don’t know what’s going to happen.
And so all of this kind of comes together and creates a form of an addiction for you that I think slows you down in other areas of your life. So there’s that part of it, there’s the whole part that’s happening in your brain. And then there’s also the time suck, so that I was spending time on social media.
And I don’t think
of myself as a big scroller, I feel like I get a lot of stuff done. But I was like, Wait a second, if I’m not doing these little tasks that I have, then I’m probably I wonder how much time I really am using.
So then I started figuring out, so go with me here, and I want to you’re about to be alarmed. Okay. So I used to get up every morning and look at my phone. And I don’t do that anymore. That’s one good practice. So I actually leave my phone on the bed stand, and I go downstairs, which probably shouldn’t even be on my bed stand because I don’t use an alarm. So I just wake up naturally. So I probably shouldn’t even be there. So I’m going to say that that’s one thing, I can shift.
But I would go downstairs and get my dogs ready and get my coffee and all that good stuff. And then I would come back up, and then I would do a couple things. And for myself, and then I would check, right. But then at night, you know, I look on Instagram. And I just scroll and it feels fun. Like I check in, I see what everybody’s been doing. And so I realized I was doing that for like about an hour, right? Like that time goes by really fast. And here’s the other thing that would happen, I would be waiting for my kids to go pick her up, I pick her up two or three times a week, wait for her. I would just scroll right.
So there’s another 20 2030 minutes throughout the week, you know, throughout in those little times where I’d be waiting. And then during the day, I’d post my own thing. And then I would check sometime I will do a Facebook Live. And I’ll go back and check. Do you see how it like accumulates. So it might only be a little bit, but it adds up all of these little 15 minutes here. 20 minutes there. So here’s what happens. By the end of the week, I realized that I was really like spending more time than I was consciously aware of.
And I like to think of myself as a really good steward of my time. But I had to get honest with myself. But here’s the thing that’s about to blow you over. Are you ready? Because we’re gonna do some math. I had to get out my calculator. All right. So if I, if I’m scrolling on Instagram, an hour at night, say before I go to bed, or like, if I meet and lunch alone, I’m scrolling.
Okay. So I’m not, I don’t feel like I do it a lot. But I’m those I’m being honest. That’s what I do. And then those little 15 minute breaks right throughout the day. So I think it’s pretty conservative to say two hours a day, like two hours a day, probably if you combine every little time every time I open my phone, which is a habit, right, so we open our phones.
And so if I’m on two hours a day, which doesn’t seem like unreasonable, I think if you’re honest, you’re probably on about two hours a day. After a year’s time. I’m on social media for 30 days. For 30 days, it’s two hours a day, times the number of days in the year is 730 hours, divide that by 24. And it’s 30 whole days. So if somebody walked up to me and said, I’ll give you 30 days, even half I’ll give you 15 days, where you can do tasks and learn things and meditate and see your friends and connect with your family like that is precious, precious time. So I was like, I want to know how addicted I really am. I want to know if I can take a break and how addicted I really am to this. So what I did was Friday, I just posted that I was going to take a social media break for the weekend. And I’ve done this off and on a few times. The first time I did it was several years ago on Thanksgiving and it was really hard.
So I was actually a little bit concerned. But I did it I posted that I was going to be gone and then I was gone. And the interesting thing was even though I was gone only a couple days and I actually don’t think of myself as an excessive poster. Like I could go a week or two weeks on my fate personal Facebook page and not post a thing right but I am pretty active on stories but been on Sunday morning I got a text from somebody that is an acquaintance, not somebody that I’m like close to are like Super, you know what I mean? Like, just somebody I know. And they said, Are you okay? And I said, Yeah, why? What’s up?
And they said, We haven’t been on social media. And I went, Oh my god, like, Am I on that much. So maybe I am not being clear with myself about how much I’m actually on, which means I can collect a ton of time that I don’t even realize I’m losing, I can plug the drain. And I can start to really get stuff done. So here’s what ended up happening for my for my weekend. I ended up starting Saturday morning, I was going to I had an eye doctor appointment.
So because I couldn’t scroll on social media, while I was sitting in the waiting room, I had my earbuds in. And that morning, from the time I woke up to the time I finished at the, at the eye doctor, I had finished an entire audio book. Now it was a short audio book, I listened to Abby Wan backs, Wolf Pack, and it was really good. And I wouldn’t have it gave me so many good ideas. And it got me motivated and excited. And I would not have listened to that. I maybe never would have listened to that, like I picked it because it was super short. It was like an hour and 20 minutes. And I knew I could finish it in a short amount of time. And then I drove to get my daughter and I listened to a different audio book. So then I opened up a neville goddard book.
And I started listening to that. And I listened to almost the entire thing from the time I was driving down to my daughter’s now I wouldn’t have been scrolling on social media while I was there. But I probably wouldn’t have thought like audiobooks, maybe at that time. So I got down to her place, spent the day with her. And I said, I’m not going to be on social media today. And she seemed pleased. And we spent time together. And it was really fun. And I felt like much more involved, like much more present in the moment as we were spending time together and talking. And then I dropped her off and I came home.
So now I’m feeling really connected and good. My husband was sitting on the couch, and he was like, I’m gonna watch a movie. And I was like, I’ll watch a movie with you. Where before, I would have watched the movie and periodically checked my social media. Now, here’s what I did, so that I didn’t go into the social media because I realized that lots of times I opened my phone, and I would just go to the folder by habit. So all I did was I moved the social media apps to a different folder that way autopilot didn’t take over. And I would have had to think about it. And in the time it took me to think about it, I would remember that I’m not on social media. Okay, so I watched two movies with him. And then I ordered groceries, I had my groceries delivered.
And then I did like some food prep and meal prep and made like delicious food. And then I was just so much more present and happy. And I realized that my stress level was already being lowered. Again, I already was feeling a little bit more like organized or connected or in the moment or mindful. And, and Sunday I ended up we’re having some painters come to paint some stuff next week. And I packed up my daughter’s entire room so that the painters could get in there and paint. I did a hair mask, like I talked to my inner being and I heard with clarity, which was really something I always Can I always feel like I have a pretty good connection.
But I mean, I’m I mean, like a startlingly good connection, I have wanted to sell some stuff. So I organized all of that. And I took pictures, and I put it on Craigslist, like I was fully in the moment, I want you to just think about all the things I just said, the things that I did with people, I would not have been as present. And I never would have done all of those tasks I never would have. Because I would have just allowed myself to like, chill out on the couch and just scroll and it becomes mindless. And it becomes to a point where you don’t even realize how much time has gone by. And here’s some of the problems with it.
Right? Well, there’s a privacy risk, right inherent privacy risk with always posting where you are and what’s happening. And I don’t worry too too much about that. But I have noticed there have been times where I’ve traveled and people have asked, like, Where are you staying? And I know that they are totally that. I mean, I felt like I want to just tell them because I felt like oh my god, I know.
They’re so honest and kind and they’re just genuinely interested. But because I was alone, I didn’t want to tell right? So there’s an inherent privacy risk with always being on and always posting and always location shotting when you’re on your Instagram stories, and it’s this huge time suck. And there is a comparison factor. So I realized that the stress that I
noticed I did not have was because I wasn’t looking at somebody else’s life. I was enjoying my own and in a different way where it felt really good and flowy and also on social media, you know, as much as I like to be around people that are of similar mindset as me. Facebook can become like an echo chamber where you only hear things that you believe or that you think because you surround yourself so much with those people.
And actually, like having conversations like having talking to my husband, he has a different opinion about many things than I do. And so being able to like listen and get a different opinion, that wasn’t threatening, right, that I could actually listen and absorb. So I wasn’t just reading somebody stuff and feeling fired up. I was having a dialogue and a conversation and sharing my opinion and my thoughts, and he could do the same and it was different.
So they say that it takes about 100 days to return to your normal dopamine levels. After you’ve gotten off social media, I was only off two days. And honestly, Sunday night I put them back, I didn’t even really feel the need to put them back. Other than for my business, right. So I have coaching clients, and I wanted to make sure they knew they could reach out to me and all of those kinds of things. But the reality was, it was fabulous. It felt really good.
And I learned some things about myself and I got a ton of stuff done. And I entered this week, way more alert, with my vessel full. I went to sleep so much better last night, because usually I’m on like the screen before bed. Last night I went to bed, I fell asleep like 915. I wake up naturally in the morning pretty early anyway. But I was up at like 515, which I really like. Because in my imaginary life, I watched the Sunrise over the ocean. And even though I’m here in my home, I can’t see where the sunrise is, I like to imagine that I’m up in time, I say Hello, this is sun when they actually gets light.
And so it did a lot of things for me mentally, so much. So that I’m going to do this social media free weekend, I think every weekend, like it really was a good break. So here’s the thing. Here are some things, if you don’t want to take a full break, if you just want to take a little break, if you just want some tips here would be my tips, is to stop looking at your phone when you first wake up. So if you grab your phone, when you’re still laying in bed, and you start looking, I want to encourage you not to do that it really does raise your stress level. And I don’t believe that that’s super healthy for you.
And so, you know, when I made that shift, when I started where I just simply waited, I just left it on my nightstand. And I went downstairs and did my things and got my coffee, and spent a little time with myself. First, if that really did help, that really was a big impact. And I wonder if perhaps that’s why this weekend, I wasn’t as difficult for me as it was when I did this like two Thanksgivings ago when I just did it for one day, right. And so I did find myself some time picking up my phone and wanting to go to the app, but I realized that it was out of habit. It wasn’t because that like I wanted to check something specifically it really was out of habit.
And the other thing that I noticed that I want to make sure I mentioned is that a couple times, there were some situations that came up where that were uncomfortable. And I realized when I started to think about them, I immediately picked up my phone and I realized that’s my out. That’s what I do. So I don’t drink or eat or any of those things, but I probably eat but like I don’t drink or shop or whatever. But I I pick up my phone so I social media out. So when I was having an emotion and I didn’t have that I had to deal with it.
And I actually moved through several things that had been really holding me back and stuck in my craw. Right. And so when I just could face it, I just sat with the feeling and thought, all right, I can’t tap out. What do you got for me what’s happening it, it really shifted things for me and made me feel so much better. So stop looking at your phone for an hour after you get up. Get some awareness, you know, there’s a feature on the iPhone that will let you see how long you’re actually spending on there. I had mine shut off.
So when that had to get set up,
I actually shut it off. So now I’ve turned it on. So I can see. Because I didn’t want to know that I’m wasting
30 days a year of my life,
right? I didn’t want to know. Also move the folders around. So periodically I do this anyway, we’re all organized all the apps, you know I have an iPhone, so I’ll organize them all by social media or whatever, but they’ll change them so they’ll be all by color. And then I’ll switch the colored envelopes around and this time I just moved the social media ones to their own folder. So it wasn’t easy for me to actually get to them. You can use an extension on your, on your computer, like a blocking extension like for Chrome they have one called newsfeed Eradicator and I kind of like that one because it takes your newsfeed away and just gives you like a positive quote. And that way, I can still check into my groups and do that kind of thing.
But I don’t have to see the newsfeed because what happens, it’s not that I don’t have the discipline to not go into Facebook, but sometimes I got to go into Facebook. And then you get like, it’s human nature, you get like caught up in the scroll right? You see something and you read it, and then you check something else. And before you know it, like you’re angry, because you can’t see somebody’s profile pictures, that’s the cousin of your neighbor’s old best friend that lives in California.
Do you know what I mean? Like, it takes you down the rabbit hole. The other thing is to if you want to do a detox of weekend detox, do it with me jump into my group and join me, but plan something else during the time. So I had stuff planned a stuff with my kid and stuff for myself and stuff with my husband.
So plan something that way, you’re distracted. And you can see how you’re sort of moving through it and what your brains doing. I really liked being distracted with those other activities, because I almost gave me this opportunity to pause and step back and observe my thoughts. Like what I was thinking about the social media or where I why I wanted it, right, like really why I wanted it. And most always, it was to opt out.
And then to create
some guidelines. So for you and your family, like if everybody in your family wants to make this shift, how can you do that together? You know, maybe it’s like, if we go out to a restaurant, all phones have to be in your pocketbook, right? If your or in your pocket for guys like whatever off the table, right. And so I realized that sometimes I would eat, I would just put my phone on the table. But it’s almost like a flag. They’re saying, like this can come between us.
This is more important. So I’m going to leave it here. So I know if it beeps. Or if something happens, right, there’s a notification and notifications off. I’ve had my notifications off for a long time. But notifications off, don’t let that phone be dinging you constantly with Facebook and Instagram notifications, because that will just throw you off track in the best of times, right. So even though I move those apps to a different folder, I’ve always had the notifications off.
So it didn’t I didn’t have to worry about that. So so I don’t know, what do you think I’m telling you, I think it was pretty life changing. And I’m sort of sad about it. But I’m going to go forward. And I’m just going to keep doing it and taking my breaks. And even today I just tried to not be on as much if I posted something I posted I went back to check and then I zoomed out.
So think
think about it. Think about what your habits are. Think about how you’re actually processing the information, how you’re experiencing the information, and what would be better, how could you change it to uplevel your life and to take back a little control over something that might have some control over you. Because that,
my friends is how I think you live a big life.
So don’t forget, if you want to talk to me on how to uplevel your life and you want to have a breakthrough call. I do offer breakthrough calls to people who are committed to a change. They’re excited about switching something in their life and they’re coachable. And if that’s you go to my website, I have a few spots that I’ve opened up this week. If you go to Betsy Pake comm backslash, let’s talk and it’ll bring you right to my schedule. You can pick a time that works for you schedule it right there, just if you schedule it, make sure you’re going to be there, be on the phone, when I call you when a call, answer my call.
And,
again, I’d love to be able to speak with you. So you guys go out and have an awesome week. Let me know if you’re gonna do the digital detox. And I will see you guys next week. Thanks so much for listening to this episode. If you found it a value, please share it with your friends, tag me on Instagram or leave a review on iTunes or any of your listening apps. If you leave a review, and you take a screenshot, please email it to us at support at Betsy pake.com. And we will send you a self hypnosis audio
that will help you
break down any limiting beliefs that you have. So thanks so much for sharing. Thanks so much for leaving your review. And don’t forget to join us inside our Facebook group by going to the art of living big.com and I’ll see you there
