I Couldn’t Hear Myself Think
I couldn’t hear myself think. And it was because I was being bombarded with what everyone else thought via social media. Not that it was at the fault of anyone else, but my own scrolling hands. And well, there is something particularly odd about the suffering that we inflict on ourselves and that’s why I took the last month or so off from social media.
Many studies on the effects of social media have not been conclusive because, in all honesty, it’s still so new. Sadly, our generation and the younger ones will be the guinea pigs to see just how badly this all affects us. However, generally, I think most of us can agree that something is happening when we overindulge in social media and it’s not necessarily positive.
It was after a conversation with my EightyTwo NinetySix co-host and friend Gabrielle Hickmon that something clicked for me. We were recording the first episode of our third season and I felt like I was all over the place. When we wrapped, she asked me three simple words that felt like my lifeline, “are you okay?” Normally, we allow ourselves to automate some generic response but instead, I took the opportunity to be vulnerable. In my own way, I’d been asking to be seen to no avail. I felt like I’d tried to tell multiple people in my life that something didn’t feel right, that I didn’t feel right. All I could conjure up was “I was struggling” and maybe they just didn’t know what to do with that. Especially, when you are a person who presents like they have it all together.
By the end of the conversation, I deleted IG and Twitter from the phone and I looked into the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) that my job offered. According to the Office of Personnel Management, an EAP is a voluntary, work-based program that offers free and confidential assessments, short-term counseling, referrals, and follow-up services to employees who have personal and/or work-related problems. All this time I didn’t think mental health services were covered when I had benefits at my disposal to utilize.
Even before my first therapy session, taking a step away from social media immediately made me feel like I could breathe again. Like I wasn’t drowning in the sea of accomplishments of everyone else. My voice was cutting through. According to my husband, I was even nicer. My reactions were my own and not some mosaic of Twitter ramblings and IG posts. I picked up books I’d been waiting to read, got back to listening to sermons on the regular basis, scrolled less stress-inducing apps like Pinterest and actually lived in the moments we let play out in the background when our phones are our main focus. We feed ourselves so much trauma and negativity in these apps without realizing how depleted it leaves us if we’re not refilling with the right things.
For the first time, in a long time, when people were asking me “had I seen?” or “did I hear?” I could say confidently, no. Sure, it feels scary not to really know what’s happening in the world around you, especially in these times, but it also feels extremely peaceful.
In that same conversation with Gabrielle, she said something profound. “It’s okay to be your own creative project.” I wanted to shout. I wanted to burst into tears. I wanted to run around the room. As someone who has often tied personal value to productivity or more appropriately “announcements,” 2019 was a tough year for me. Not that I hadn’t been working diligently on writing projects but not much could be announced to the reception of applause or more honestly, likes. I’ve been in the dirt. Planting seed, getting better, honing my craft. Not every season is a harvest.
So, I found myself feeling hopeless, lost, lacking faith and motivation, which were extreme triggers to help me realize that I needed to change some things and I needed some objective help because I’ve never struggled with those things. I knew that in order to get past the rejection I’d been facing in my writing that I needed to keep writing, but I couldn’t do it. I was literally feeling like “what’s the point?” I realized I wasn’t going to just be able to pull myself out of that thinking alone.
It couldn’t have been at a better time this all came to a head as we approach the end of 2019. We’ll soon be ushering in 2020 and I want to have a clear mind. I’ve always been a sucker for new years, new months, new days. I’m turning a page and it will be a journey to navigate this dance with social media which has afforded me both great opportunity and great growing pains. But I’ve never been afraid of a challenge. I still haven’t re-installed Twitter on my phone and I do my best to get in and out when it comes to IG so I can still promote the things I’m excited about.
But it’s never really about the apps, is it? Whether they take away the likes or not, it’s about the work we’re doing within ourselves that indicates how we show up to the virtual world and how it affects us. I have some holes I’ve been trying to fill with ambition. So, I’ll be patching those up, being my own creative project and learning to believe not just in my head but in my heart what God says about me over anything else. Truly working as unto the Lord and believing in God’s timing, not my own. Seeing myself more clearly, trusting myself, trusting my work and trusting the path that’s all my own, not anyone else’s.
