#211 The Slow Breakup with Instagram
I think this is the beginning of the end of my relationship with Instagram. Not in a dramatic way. Not like when I quit drinking.
More like… slowly breaking up.
I’ve been doing this for about 16 months now. Going off. Going back on. Going off again.
And honestly, it reminds me so much of how a lot of people get sober.
When I quit alcohol in 2019, it was a clean break. I said I’d do 28 days, and somewhere between day 1 and day 21 I just knew… my life was better without it. And I never went back.
But I’ve worked with enough people now to know that’s not how it goes for everyone.
For a lot of people it’s messy. They stop, then start again. 30 days off, then back on. Then off again.
And over time, the periods of drinking get shorter, and the periods of sobriety get longer… until something finally clicks. That’s been me with Instagram.
I’ve known for a long time I was addicted to it.
But I didn’t really take that seriously.
In 2023 I started taking my first breaks. And I think what allowed that was that I finally had income that didn’t rely on me being online every day. I was teaching at a yoga school in Bali. I had stability. So I stepped away.
And I remember joking at the time that it felt like addiction recovery.
Because suddenly I was doing all these things I didn’t have the attention span for anymore. Cleaning my house. Reading books. Writing. Just… being a human again.
And then, like every time, I went back.
I think the hard part for me is that Instagram isn’t just an app.
It’s where I lived for seven years. It’s where I built my sober friendships. My community. My business. My whole life, in a way.
So it’s not like I can just say “this is bad and I’m done.”
Because so much good came from it.
But also… It’s not the same place anymore. And I’m not the same person either.
I read this today and it felt a little too accurate: “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”
And I actually laughed because… a few minutes does nothing for me. I need hours. Sometimes days. (My Vipassana was eleven days straight of no talking and no contact with the outside world and that felt…very healthy!)
And every time I unplug for that long, I notice the same thing:
My anxiety goes down. I feel more present. I can actually think again. It’s very obvious to me that I need to be off Instagram.
And still… I go back.
In January 2025, I decided to actually treat this like a real recovery. Not just “taking a break,” but actually having a plan.
I made a 30 days off social media WhatsApp group. I started doing daily meetings. Moving my body every day. Meditating. Reading. giving myself a structure so I wasn’t just white-knuckling it. I made it to more than sixty days before I returned.
The hardest part was : What does my business look like without Instagram? Because that’s the real fear. But the truth is… The depth of what I can offer the world is so much higher when I’m not on it.
My writing is better. My thinking is clearer. I feel more like myself.
So it’s not really a loss. It just feels like one. It’s very similar to the myth that we need alcohol to have fun. It’s a myth that we need Instagram for our business to keep us logged on.
Today I shared a podcast with my friend Mandy Manners about all of this.
We talked about addiction - not just alcohol, but social media too.
How it becomes a way to escape. To numb. To get validation.
How it’s harder to recognize because everyone is doing it.
And what it actually feels like to step away.
The identity shift. The withdrawal. The space.
And also… what opens up on the other side.
If you’re in that cycle right now—scrolling, comparing, losing hours…
I think you’ll really feel this conversation.
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