My Latest Attempt at Un-Enmeshment
I’ve been making attempts to do so for years … and the photo of the “tech bros” at yesterday’s “event” … alongside the celebration of MLK Day … how far we have to go alongside how far we’ve come side-by-side (see this article) … gave me another gut punch to get back to it.
So we will see how it goes — I’m finding that my work and relationships and interests have become so intertwined with these “social” apps, and it’s quite shocking. I guess that enmeshment is the point of these platforms.
All kinds of excuses are surfacing — you won’t be able to see what friends are doing, what about connecting with your family, your job(s) “require” an account with these platforms …
And I have to question these excuses - are they true? Is there absolutely NO other way to connect with friends & family? Is there absolutely NO other way to do my job(s) without these accounts?
… A few months ago, I deleted my Amazon account … and found that it wasn’t as painful or inconvenient as I expected. Sure, I can’t get the book or that red maca powder (perimenopause support ;) ) cheaper & by tomorrow. Sure, I’m now doing more research to find other sources, including local and/or independent sources … and yet it’s actually become a bit more fun and also interesting to find & support local businesses, i.e. actual humans in my community …
I’m thinking there are more possibilities than fear-based excuses …
___________________________________________
I always ask my workshop participants, “What brings you here? Why did you sign up? What is your WHY?” I do this because practicing yoga for the sake of yoga might go over well for a while … yet it’s usually not what sustains a practice over the long haul (when kids are screaming for attention, when work is overwhelming, when the task or caregiving list just seems too much … when the WORLD seems too much).
What keeps folks — including me — coming back to our yoga and meditation practices is more personally important than “because it’s good for you.”
I want to relieve my low back pain.
I am so stressed, and want to find some relief.
I’m an athlete, and want a recovery day / injury-prevention practice.
I want to improve my balance, which has declined from age/injury/etc.
There are a multitude of other personal, important reasons folks come to yoga — and they are all (I would argue) coming from a place of:
I WANT TO FEEL BETTER.
Don’t we all just want to feel BETTER?
Whether physically, mentally, emotionally … whether in our relationships, our work life, or our interaction with our environment … we want to feel a little more balanced, a little more free, a little more “Things are changing rapidly … AND I GOT THIS.”
__________________________
Back to social media.
I just want to feel better. I want to feel better about how I choose to interact with others and with the natural world. I want to have a little more say in the content I consume and the platforms I support with my eyeballs, my mind, my heart. I know I can’t control it all, and there are shitty people running companies unethically that treat other humans terribly and shove cheap, half-true, dehumanizing and / or destructive crap at us. That is karma they will have to deal with.
And in my attempt to tread a little more compassionately and joyfully in the world — as well as treat my nervous system a bit more kindly too — I’m doing what I can to feel better regarding social media and online content consumption.
There’s an app that was recommended to me by Pennsylvania Women Forward — it’s called Goods Unite Us. You can search the app for companies you frequent and see how they use your money in their political campaign investments.
For treehuggers like me, you can go to apps / organizations like Environmental Working Group to search products you buy and discover how healthy (or not) they are for you and the environment.
I’d love to hear what apps and/or organizations you are investing in to FEEL BETTER in your own life and your relationships with others. Drop them in the comments below!
______________________________
Often, what helps us FEEL BETTER is simply WAKING UP to the fact that we don’t feel so great at the moment. We’re often so heads-down, keep-going, stuck in the past or future that we don’t even notice that our backs ache, our minds are cluttered, our digestion is sluggish, our nervous systems are shot.
Sidenote: Yoga practices at their core, whether physical or meditative or lifestyle-oriented, support us in waking up.
The WAKE-UP can be like a polar plunge — holy shit, what is happening to me?!?! And yet once we wake up to reality, however challenging that reality is at the moment — that’s the pivot point. That’s the potential space, the space full of possibility. What will you do next? What do you really want?
Then the challenge is — Do not fall back asleep.
Whether it’s mindless social media consumption, mindless food consumption, neglect of our body, relationships, environment, etc. … once we wake up, once we become AWARE, we can’t “un-aware” ourselves. This awareness can be seen as a curse or as a potent opportunity full of possibility.
————————————————————————————-
Here’s the post I put up on Facebook & Instagram as I do my best to un-enmesh myself from these platforms. I’m striving to stay awake and do the work to feel better and walk more compassionately and symbiotically with fellow yogis and the natural world. Hope you’ll join me!
Hi Friends!
Find me over on my website at https://ericaengel.com or on my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@ericaengelyoga
I've also got a BlueSky Social account I'm exploring ... https://bsky.app/profile/ericaengel.bsky.social
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.”
-- RUMI