Welcoming back Creativity
It used to be fun. It used to feel innocent. It used to feel like free choice. The reality is that it probably never was, but at least it used to feel it! I am without doubt eternally grateful for it, for connecting me to lost friends, for connecting me to amazing people all around the world, and for being an integral part of building my business.
However it has been a long time now that it has felt like a weight holding me down, and I have struggled to know how to break free. In 2017 I made the decision, 1 week before Christmas, to turn off my phone. I completely turned it off for 2 weeks. I remember how different I felt. I remember how reluctant I was to turn it back on. I chose to do this because I knew what these platforms were doing to me, and I was exhausted! Constantly sucking me into them, distracting me from living, and from seeing and feeling true life happening all around me. I had to turn my phone back on though. I had to let them work their way back into my psyche, because my business relied on it and I felt like I didn’t have a choice. I felt like I was betraying myself as I pressed the button, but they soon made me forget all of that and ‘life’ just carried on as before!
And so the last 3 years have gone by. In 2018 I did the same over Christmas, but again only for 2 weeks. In 2019 I bought a book called ‘How to break up with your phone’ and every word resonated with me. Of course it did. It would resonate with every one of us. We all know what these devices and the ‘magic’ worlds within them do to us. How they feed our desire to be seen and to be liked, how they make us feel like we need them to achieve - like an opiate they pull us in. However, despite this book, I still held on; as we all do, or at least as we used to.
2020 was touted as the ‘Year of Clear Vision’ - well it didn’t quite mean what we all thought it might, but it wasn’t wrong. 2020, amongst so much more, showed many of us the immense power of these platforms. It highlighted to us how they are privately owned businesses, whose own personal agendas can legally allow them to dictate and control what we share on them. Natural health narratives were silenced left, right and centre last year. Anyone questioning anything outside of the mainstream narrative was ‘fact checked’ (and guess who owns the ‘fact checkers’!) and often heavily censored. When you dig deep (or as it happens not so deep) you can easily find where the money lies in these privately owned businesses, that are the centre points of our whole lives, and it is not in anything natural, and lets be honest, not in anything to do with health, in the true sense of the word.
When you combine this censorship with the clever algorithms that mean you have to pay for even people who choose to follow you to see your content, you can’t help but realise that staying in these spaces is comparable to staying in any abusive relationship. It is the fear of stepping out of what you know, the lack of belief in yourself to find another way, the lack of ability to know you can and will attract what you are worth outside of it, that life can exist without it, and that it can and will be better, that keeps you locked in.
However, as with those in an abusive relationship there can be a tipping point. That tipping point has come for me this year. Despite my whole business being built off of, and running through these platforms, my body, my very being, cannot and will not tolerate it anymore. Staying feels like I am disrespecting myself. I am. I was.
Starting my weekly Soul Review in November of last year was the beginning of this process for me. My soul was literally calling me to sit down at my computer and connect with you from my heart. Without the falsities of making things look pretty on Instagram, and the limits of what would or wouldn’t be seen on Facebook, worrying that I may enter into some petty argument in front of the whole world, I wanted to just sit and write. Being in this space is scary at times because there is no promise of an audience. As I sit here now in my bedroom, nothing but dark around me and the sound of my babies sleeping next to me, I am alone and I am free. Every time I write one of my ‘What’s on my heart?’ blog posts, I sit in the moment and I see what pours out of me. I never have a plan how it is going to go, or an expectation of who it is going to reach or how it is going to reach them. I don’t worry about algorithms or pissing anyone off. I am not being distracted by people messaging me, adverts flashing around, or thinking about that post I just read or comment I have to reply to. I just write. I am in my creative flow, and getting onto paper what is my truth in this moment. And when I am done I can close my screen and just trust in the power of attraction to know that it will reach whoever it is meant to.
That feels good. That feels like taking back control to me. That feels like sovereignty, and I like it!
Come the Spring I would have completed my escape from my old blue friend that I joined 13 years ago, saving off all of my history, closing my groups and wiping my account. Will I be sad? Yes. Will I be scared? Yes. But I do know to my core that it is something I have to do in order to create the freedom I need to live my life in complete truth and integrity? Absolutely! I cannot and will not tolerate the abuse anymore. I believe in my worth. I believe I can and will attract my community in other, more authentic ways. I am enjoying the rawness of Telegram immensely for example (see link for my channel below), and I am committed to keep showing up here, on this blog, week on week, to speak what I am called to share in the moment.
I feel like I am entering a brave new frontier, but really I am just remembering true connection and the power of creativity. They tried to strip it from us, but they underestimated the human spirit when it is pushed too far. I know I am not the only one who feels this, so I am excited to connect with you all as we navigate this path together. It may be clunky at first but I know it is the right thing to do. I will see you out there.
I would love to hear where you are at with all of this in the comments below. I know many people are feeling this way and I am intrigued to hear how people are navigating it.
(As mentioned above, you can join me on Telegram here. You need to download the app first and then come back and click to join my channel. I am loving it because it has everything in one place. Channels so you can hear from those you want to, without algorithms, group chats with family and friends, and then 1-2-1 ‘texting’. It is so refreshing to not be mindlessly clicking through loads of apps all the time, and there is nothing addictive about it once you are in there, to pull you into thoughtless, numb, scrolling. Come and check it out if you haven’t already.)