Switching off and switching in - Facebook and mobile phones

I have been thinking for a long while now, about coming off social media and not using my mobile phone.

I did attempt to leave Facebook last year, but people kept telling me how foolish I was for doing so, because that’s not what you do if you are running a small business. I kept arguing that I’m not running a small business, so what does it matter - I’m lucky as I am able to do what I love and share this with others, and earn a living from it too. To me this isn’t a small business, it’s living my dharma and being of service. 

I have grown increasingly weary over the years of receiving invites to join ‘small business’ groups, ‘conscious collective’ groups, ‘star seed’ groups, ‘entrepreneurial’ groups and the such like on Facebook. I’m not a fan of groups or of labelling, because this just creates greater separation and it also runs the risk of us putting ourselves on pedestals as if we are somehow better than others. It also limits us and I absolutely do not want to be limited or put in a box.

Yet still, despite knowing all this, I stayed on Facebook, partly because I questioned whether I might have gotten it wrong, and so I suppose there was some fear of somehow losing out on what others were telling me I was gaining. It didn’t help that I contacted Hays House, a holistic publishing company, to submit a manuscript, only to be told that they will only accept work from writers who have a certain number of social media and email followers. 

This saddened me - that the publication of manuscripts is dependent on the author having a certain number of followers, not on the merit of the written content itself. It’s as if the author’s ability to social network has now become more important than what they are actually offering or sharing, which seems in contrast to being in service to something greater than ourselves, a channel then, creating in unison with the sacred, at least for holistic manuscripts.

So with a heavy heart I continued using Facebook to keep the option open in terms of book publishing in the future, and I tried to play it’s game; apparently the more you post, the more your posts will appear in newsfeeds, and the more people might know what you are offering and respond with a ‘like’ or a comment. But all the while this made me feel uneasy and inauthentic because I didn’t want to be posting for the sake of posting, plus I didn’t want to be spending my spare time online for the sake of it either. 

Furthermore, I didn’t feel comfortable feeding into a platform that doesn’t necessarily bring out the best in people or support their health and wellbeing. Not only does it provide the possibility for conflict if people don’t agree with you, but you can unconsciously lose hours of your life scrolling through your newsfeed if you’re not careful – it absorbs time and energy! My concerns about this have been proven to a certain extent by Covid-19 and lockdown.

In the earlier days, the fear and anxiety and judgments circulating on Facebook were immense and it took some effort not to get caught up in it. And I did to a certain extent, offering a plethora of free yoga classes through Facebook, as if I alone could somehow ease the negativity and support those who were clearly suffering. However, I was then spending hours on Facebook, and certainly not feeling better for it. 

Fortunately my yoga teacher, Louise, pulled me up on this, not only reminding me not to ‘prostitute’ myself, but to consider any underlying motivations. I genuinely wanted to help people, but I did question whether I somehow needed to be seen to be helping people too. It was this latter point that fascinated me, that reinforced how conniving our ego can be, that even with clear intention, we can still sometimes lose ourselves along the way, and Facebook provides a fantastic platform for this too.

So I have considered that perhaps part of the reason I have stayed on Facebook might be ego. The need to be known, liked, followed. And perhaps this is the reason that I find Facebook increasingly uncomfortable, because I know that it is a trap. It might make us feel that it is essential, that it allows people to find out what it is we are offering the world – for example yoga and Reiki – but I know that people will find us regardless.

Those who contact me for yoga through Facebook rarely make it to a class and those who contact for Reiki, book and then pull out nearer the time. I have noticed common behaviour patterns with it. Furthermore, I haven’t met a single one of my yoga teacher’s on Facebook. Instead I have met them through word of mouth or because we happened to be in the same place at the same time; the divine. 

And yet admittedly, living on Guernsey, in a small community, Facebook can be helpful at raising awareness of events and it can help you to stay in touch with those you don’t see regularly, and share interesting articles etc, so it is not always about being liked or known. This I have considered too and lately this is my motivation for using Facebook, I love to share my blogs, for example and any poignant quotes or new moon readings. But beyond that, I can’t be sure that there is any benefit, I could be wrong however!

There’s more awareness gained recently - lockdown has been a gift for many reasons, but especially because it has enabled me to experience a new way of living, a much slower, nature based and child orientated one, that my soul has craved for some time, and that the moon has been trying to orientate me towards. I have known on a deep level, but I just couldn’t figure it out in my small mind how I might make the changes that needed to be made. The universe has made the changes for me, for all of us collectively. 

It’s not been easy necessarily, there has been a death of sorts; I experienced a significant letting go at the end of the last moon cycle, as the old way of being, that I was holding onto so tightly in my solar plexus, finally let go. I knew it was coming because at the beginning of lockdown I had a very vivid dream of dying, one of my students being the gatekeeper, it was surreal and yet necessary, and all the yoga I have studied with Louise this last month has supported this process with its emphasis on letting go and ‘preparing for a good death’, as she says!

I have a feeling that the world generally is going through a period of death. Some are literally dying and passing onto the other world, two of my friends have lost their mums, for example. And some have been dying while in this world, as parts drop away that are no longer needed, and new lives begin, with different priorities, different intentions, different ambitions and different energies.

I am enjoying all that the ‘new’ has ushered in, the planting of vegetables and the medicinal seeds from Fi, the time spent on Saints Beach, where I was rewarded this morning with my first marble, opportunities for sun rise and sun set, of running in the lanes and noticing the hedgerows, the cliffs in all their beauty and my boys, my beautiful boys, watching them moment to moment, growing and maturing, learning and deepening their interest in the world around them, off the screens and out in nature.

I have also enjoyed Diana Beresford-Kroeger entering my life. Diana is an Irish botanist, medical biochemist and author, who is also the keeper of ancient Celtic wisdom, so she straddles many worlds and weaves them together beautifully. I have learned a lot from Diana these last few weeks in watching her documentary, reading one of her books and her many interviews, and my life has been enriched for it. I am inspired by her ability to speak her truth and live from that place too, with a deep knowing of self. 

She has inspired in me a need to plant and to be in nature, to bathe in the trees, and to speak more of my truth out in the world. She has also given me permission to honour the deep calling, the one that tells me that I don’t want to spend too much of my time on Facebook, and the other one that has questioned whether I want to continue using a mobile telephone, and thus unintentionally supporting the installation of the dreaded 5G.

 The last few weeks I thought I had run out of mobile data so I was no longer able to use my mobile phone outside of the house. As it happens I had just accidentally and unknowingly turned it off – or it was the work of the divine – and yet what a wonderful lesson I learned. It was refreshing not to be distracted by my phone when out with the children, or to feel that I was beholden to anyone messaging or calling. 

Diana has definitely brought with her a call for action; to actually take action, not just talk about it, or think about it. I don’t want to be part of this life lived on the internet, disconnected from nature and distracted from my children and denying my own inner truth and wisdom. I am grateful to the online yoga classes during lockdown, but I shan’t miss it once we are able to connect in person again, for it is not the same, and you cannot put a price on the benefit of real touch. 

The world needs more real touch. Touching the earth, touching trees, touching plants, touching those we love, touching lives in ways that we cannot even imagine when our heads are down staring at screens, blinkered to all that is happening around us, numbing out, distracted and unnecessarily busying ourselves, trying to be someone, living and yet not truly living. It’s that kind of living that makes us sick; that makes this planet sick. 

Lance Schuler, who taught me how to teach yoga, reminded me recently that for those who wish to be taken seriously while protesting against 5G, they must abandon their phones, just as you would not take an animal justice advocate seriously while wearing fur. Valid point. His words written about 5G are shared below*. He also asked us at this time to re-examine everything we have learned and to reject anything that assaults our souls. 

I have been examining what I have learned and I have become increasingly aware of that which assaults my soul. I am aware that the way that the world has been going is not necessarily the way that my soul wants me to go and it is not a world that I want my children growing up in. That sometimes we have to align with a different way, and that while this may take courage, it becomes the only option available to us, because life lived out of alignment, will negatively impact on our health and wellbeing and further deplete mother earth in the process.

It is for this reason that I’m going to give it a try. I’m going to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, and see what life is like lived off social media and my mobile telephone. Just for a month. So from Beltain, on Friday 1 May, I shall switch off and switch in, and see where I’m at, and what I’ve learned by the beginning of June, and whether I’ll be switching the mobile phone and Facebook on again. Here begins the experiment! 

I’ll continue blogging and teaching and sending newsletters by the way. 

Love Emma x

*As there is increasing awareness that the 5G roll-out is a possible player of our current situation we invite all of you who can, especially in the West, who have mobile phones to consider the opportunity this situation lends to us and ‘lay them down to rest’.
We feel that one of the most immediate threats that comes to life, and loss of our freedoms comes from the use of this device.
5G is an escalating virus taking the radio assault to a new level on our planet; using much higher frequencies, much greater band-width and much greater power levels. This will eventually be escalated from short range to ‘planet wide’ and from an indirect to direct assault on the ionosphere when literally tens of thousands of 5G satellites go into operation over the next few years.
With evidence of these non–native micro waves greatest effects on the worldwide starvation and death of species and the more dangerous effects of the most innocent bystanders our GRANDCHILDREN, where these waves have a much more harmful and devastating effect.
With more than 5 billion people now holding open sources of microwave radiation in their hands, Mother Earth is burning, yet no fire fighters are coming…
For most people considering this proposal may seem like an impossibility, but that is because they do not remember that only 25 years ago almost no one had a mobile phone. 
Were we more human then? Are mobile phones dehumanising our physical and spiritual connections to our existence? 
For those who wish to be taken seriously while protesting against 5G, they must abandon their phones, just as one would not take the animal justice advocates seriously while wearing fur coats.
If we all discontinue their use we can return to a more EVEN playing field for those who choose not to use them, and with that new opportunities and freedoms will return so that we can all function and operate more equally, non-discriminately, and less destructively. (Lance Schuler).