I can scroll social media with the best of them.
I am all too familiar with the rabbit hole effect- that moment of “Just let me see this one thing” that can become a mind-numbing hour or more of your time. It’s almost like you come to afterwards, as if having been in a trance. “Scroll, scroll, scroll”… searching for that meaningful interaction that will brighten your day or just make you feel okay.
Except I come away feeling restless, agitated, and empty. And like I just lost precious moments of my life.
Meanwhile, my creativity begs for me to listen it, to make time for it. It yearns to be expressed. And it feels like there is never enough time to do all the things I want to do.
Lately, undeniably, I am hearing (feeling, on a body level) soul whispers that are getting louder and louder:
“Unsubscribe. Delete. Opt out. Put on silent mode.”
“Guard your Sense Doors.”
We live in the Information Age. The shadow side of that is Disinformation, Too Much Information, Over-Stimulation, a deep and palpable sense of Not Enough, Fear of Missing Out.
It is fucking MADNESS.
It is impossible to know everything. It is impossible to do everything, be everything, take advantage of every opportunity.
Yet with any engagement with social media, the virtual world around us melds to our imagination and stirs up unfulfilled desires and a sense of Not Enough.
Our inboxes, newsfeeds, and text messages are increasingly bombarded with new and time-sensitivities promises- new opportunities to learn and grow, the seduction of fulfilling potential, a chance at renewal and growth. The endless pursuit of Good Enough- in a capitalistic world that endlessly tells us that we are not.
The ultimate fulfillment of happiness appears in a clever marketing package, convincing us to subscribe to yet another thing, sign up for yet another class…and overwhelm follows. I can’t tell you how many unopened courses or workshop links crowd my inbox and make me like shit (until I catch myself) when I see them, and at the same time make me feel like screaming and throwing my phone across the room. Just seeing that many invitations and opportunities makes me feel like I’ll never catch up.
And do I need to catch up? Am I really incomplete? What even is good enough?
Soul whispers manage to break through the veil of delusion. They tell me, again and again, to drop it all and go within. That I am enough already, just as I am. I feel as if the Universe is asking me to allow for the sweetness of silence. To move at the pace of a poem. To sit and stare at the birds and the trees.
So that I can hear.
To let things emerge, organically, instead of feeling like I have to make everything happen with cramming more information into my already full brain, and more things to do in a schedule that is already full. So that what shall be, shall be. And to be truly at peace with that.
Too much information, too much stimulus, can take us away from our capacity to listen within.
It’s hard to be intuitive if we are stressed out, tired, and outside of our true limits.
And the only way to even find what our true limit is, is to slow down enough so that we can pay attention to ourselves and see how we really feel once the adrenaline and burnout subside.
Our attention is power. Our ability to listen (to actually be able to hear!) to our intuition, to rest, to be intentional, helps pave the way to an inspired and fulfilling life. Yet what we pay attention to determines what we focus on, where our energy goes, and hence, how we ultimately use that power.
The best thing we can do is DISCERN what we take in, what we say yes to, and whether that is in alignment with Who We Are and What We Want to manifest with this life.
The Buddha wrote about this. He counseled, “Guard the Sense Doors.”
There is a store consciousness within each of our senses, and when we let something in with our attention, it germinates those seeds and makes it harder to see clearly. There is a saturation effect with how much information one can actually hold at any given time. We gotta be discerning about what we allow in.
Sometimes Less is More. Choose what really matters to you, be clear (and unapologetic) about your priorities, and be selective about what you say “Yes” to.
