#176 The Breaking Point with Instagram...
We forget and remember, forget and remember...
I think I’m at my breaking point with Instagram.
It reminds me so much of what happened with alcohol in 2019. Before I quit drinking, there was this long buildup - a sense that something in my life wasn’t aligned anymore, but I kept finding reasons to delay the decision. I was going to Norway, then Morocco, then my friends were visiting Abu Dhabi. It felt like there was never a “right time.” And then one day, it simply broke. On the plane ride home from Morocco, I knew with absolute clarity that I would never drink again. A clean line was drawn.
In January 2025, I did my first real Instagram detox - not a few days, but over sixty days. What shocked me was how closely the withdrawal mirrored alcohol withdrawal. I experienced depression, anxiety, craving, loneliness, and a kind of internal agitation I hadn’t felt in years. But once I got through those first two weeks, I remember saying to people, “I hope I never go on Instagram again,” almost word for word what I said at three weeks sober. And just like with alcohol, people encouraged me to “come back,” told me I needed it, or casually asked for my handle - the same way people had asked me to “just have one drink.” In some ways, Instagram was even harder to escape, because it’s woven into everything.
What surprised me most were the benefits of being off social media. When I was off Instagram completely, I felt a profound shift inside myself. My interoception, my awareness of my inner world, deepened. My mood stabilized. My mind felt clearer and more present. I had a much stronger sense of my values and purpose. It felt like a breath of fresh air after years of suffocation.
I ended up returning to Instagram when I decided to speak publicly about my sexual assault. That one post, though important, pulled me back into the same cycle: engage, withdraw, engage again, withdraw again. It reminded me of people who take breaks from alcohol, start drinking again, take more breaks, start again, and so on. During this time I joined AA for support and eventually created the first Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous meeting in Ubud, which tells you everything about how deeply this addiction runs.
And now I can feel the same buildup again - that sense of something inside me preparing to break open.
On December 3rd, I’m finally going to do the Vipassana I was meant to do back in January. Something in me knows that ten full days in silence, off Instagram, will recalibrate me in the same way my detox did earlier this year. I suspect that when I come out of those ten days, I’ll feel the same clarity I felt on that plane in 2019 - the clarity that says, “I don’t want to go back.”
I read a statistic recently that 55% of people check Instagram within the first ten minutes of waking up. It landed heavily because I used to be one of them. And the truth is, I am at my absolute best when I do not touch Instagram at all throughout the day. My internal world becomes more spacious. My nervous system softens. My creativity returns.
My conflict, like so many people’s, is the belief that I need Instagram for my business. And yet, when I actually look at who joins my retreats and teacher trainings, most of them have met me in real life. They felt my energy, my presence, my compassion, my sobriety story. They connected with my teaching, not my marketing. I would far rather be a living testimonial of my work than a digital one.
Recently I’ve been researching why social media is so addictive, and the science behind it is disturbing. Instagram uses what’s called a variable reward system, the same reward pattern used in slot machines. The brain receives unpredictable hits of dopamine, not regular ones, and it’s the unpredictability that keeps us hooked. You never know when the next like or comment will come, or what the next scroll will reveal, and that uncertainty is what trains the brain to keep checking, pulling, refreshing. It’s not the content we’re addicted to, it’s the possibility. This is why it’s so hard to quit. And it’s also why quitting brings such profound relief to the nervous system: suddenly your brain is no longer waiting for the next unpredictable hit. It can finally settle.
In January, I’ll be running another social media detox. Last year, it was completely informal - just me sharing thoughts randomly. This year, I’m creating an actual program, and I’ll be working on it during my Vipassana. If this topic speaks to you, keep checking back here on Substack, because I’ll likely step away from Instagram before then - maybe for good.
The one exception is the studio: the Mindful Bali account will remain active for updates on classes and trainings, but that will be run by my social media manager, and I won’t access it. The handle is mindful.bali . Follow us if you’re interested!
But for me personally, I can feel that something is shifting. I think the breaking point is close.
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