#213: Instagram: A Love Story
Breaking up with the algorithm, returning to the path
I remember the night I first got Instagram.
I was sitting in a pub called Gabbys (which doesn’t exist anymore) with my sister Em and our friends Anna and Leah. It was a Friday night in 2014, in November, in mid-town Toronto. Leah asked me if I had Instagram, and I said no.
“Oh, you would love Instagram,” she said. “You can add filters to photos and post them to share with your friends.”
“That does sound like something I would love,” I said.
And she was right.
I downloaded it, took a photo of Anna and Leah, added a filter and a white frame - and just like that, I had my first post.
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Sometimes people ask me how I grew my 20k following, and I always say the same two things: first of all, I’m an addict and was addicted to building a following, and second of all, it was a lot easier back then. It was a completely different world. (And “back then” by the way was only seven years ago!)
But back in the beginning, in 2014, Instagram was even more simple. People posted their pets, their tacos, their sunsets. You followed less than 100 people. When you reached the end of your feed, there was a little green checkmark telling you: you’re done for the day.
Imagine that.
No ads. No endless scroll. No algorithm deciding what you should care about.
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I started building a yoga account in 2014 called ygkyogi. Ygk was the airport code of the city I lived in, an airport I’d never been in, but I thought the handle was cool. I shut it down when I moved to the Middle East to teach less than a year later, in 2015. Once I realized I wanted to teach yoga, I reopened a public account in 2019 after I got sober to build my business. It was called “alexmcrobs” so my six year old students couldn’t find me (my name is Alexandra McRobert).
And opening that account in 2019 was the moment everything shifted for me.
Not just in my life, but in how I used Instagram. It became part of my work. Part of my identity. Part of how I shared my story, sobriety and yoga with the world.
And for a while, it felt so aligned. I made so many friends on the platform - friends that I still have today. For example, this week I’m teaching on the Sobah Sistahs Bali retreat for the fourth time - an Instagram connection from all those years ago. If I wasn’t part of Sober Instagram I wouldn’t have got this beautiful opportunity. Same thing with Sober in the City, where I got to fly to Arizona to teach last year. Same thing with Sobriety Sisterhood, who have just reached out to start potentially planning Bali again for the third time (yay!). So Sober Instagram did have a place in my life, in my story, in my journey.
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But something has changed in the last few years.
Not just on Instagram, but also, in me.
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When I started speaking about Instagram addiction about a year and a half ago, it felt like a bit of a joke. People didn’t really take it seriously.
Now it’s different.
Meta was recently sued for causing addiction in adolescents.
We’re starting to understand that much like cigarettes and alcohol, these platforms are designed to be addictive.
In Buddhism, there’s a teaching around tanhā, craving.
Not just craving substances, but craving feeling states: validation, attention, connection, identity.
This is the concept of raga or desire from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, too.
Every time I post, I can feel it.
Instagram rewards me. More views, more likes, more engagement.
And then it takes it away.
And suddenly I’m refreshing… checking… waiting…
That subtle pull of craving.
The Buddha taught that craving leads to dukkha, suffering.
And I can feel that truth in my body every time I get pulled back into the cycle.
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But what’s been harder recently isn’t even the addiction piece.
It’s the content.
Instagram has become a place where I am constantly confronted with suffering in the world - war, violence, trauma. Right now it’s gotten particularly bad - with the CNN investigation story filling my feed. I can’t even begin to start commenting on that because of how much it’s affected me. On the one hand I think it’s great that women are becoming informed of the issues. On the other hand, how am I supposed to move past what happened to me if I keep seeing it on my phone 24/7?
And of course, suffering is real. The Buddha’s first noble truth says that everything is suffering. (This is also in Patanjali’s Sutras, 2.16 (future pain is unavoidable).) In Buddha Dharma, we don’t turn away from suffering. We learn how to be with it.
And yet…. there’s a difference between consciously sitting with suffering… and being flooded by it through a screen, 24/7.
I’ve noticed something in myself:
I cannot be of service when I am dysregulated.
I cannot hold space for others when I am overwhelmed.
And right now, Instagram feels overwhelming.
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There’s a teaching in Buddhism called the Three Marks of Existence.
One of them is anicca, impermanence.
Everything changes.
But I think for a long time, I believed my identity didn’t.
“Sober Yoga Girl.”
The brand. The podcast. The book. The persona.
I thought that was fixed.
And now I’m seeing… it’s not.
It’s shifting. Evolving. dissolving, even.
As I sat having breakfast after yoga with one of my friends who is also an ex-Dubai influencer, we talked about how much social media affected our lives this week. And how we are trying to end that suffering. What she said was, that stuck with me:
“Identity is a cage we lock from the inside.”
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In the sober world, we often talk about letting go of the myths that keep us stuck.
With alcohol, it’s: you need a drink to have fun.
With Instagram, for entrepreneurs, it’s: you need Instagram to have a successful business.
But when I look honestly at my yoga community of students, I see something else.
Most of my yoga students don’t come from Instagram.
They come from real connection.
From referrals. From retreats. From sitting in a room together, breathing, practicing, sharing. From meeting in a coffee shop and discussing where to buy a harmonium case.
They come from energy, not algorithms.
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Right now, I’m in a kind of transition.
I’m still on Instagram, but differently.
I don’t create content. (The last thing I created was ten days ago, which might seem like not alot, but for an addict who created something daily…it really is!) I don’t scroll. I reply to messages when needed. I only have it on desktop. Indah, my social media manager, has posted a few things on Mindful Bali for me - but that’s it.
It’s like early sobriety again.
In 12-step language, this is learning my top lines and bottom lines. (In process addictions when the substance cant be fully abstained from, we have to learn our ways to live with them.)
In Buddha Dharma, it feels like practicing right effort—protecting the mind from states that lead to suffering, and cultivating the ones that lead to freedom.
I’m taking it one day, one step at a time.
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What’s replacing it has been really beautiful.
More in-person connection.
More yoga.
More kirtan.
More recovery meetings.
Spaces where there are no phones. No filming. No performing.
Just presence.
Just practice.
Just being.
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When I got sober from alcohol, it wasn’t just about quitting drinking. It was about understanding why I was reaching for it in the first place. The same is true here. instagram was something I used to numb. And over the past year, I’ve started to see more clearly what I was trying not to feel. That awareness has been uncomfortable, but also freeing. Because once you see it, you can work with it. You will never see it if you’re scrolling 24.7.
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I don’t think I’m alone in this. So many women I speak to feel this quiet pull to step back from social media.
But they don’t know how.
Or they’re scared of what it means—for their work, their identity, their connection.
If that’s you, I want you to know: there is another way. (I’m still finding that way, yet I know it’s there.)
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This is actually why I’m so passionate about the Buddha Dharma course I’ll be starting to teach next week!
Because these teachings give us a framework for understanding:
craving (tanhā)
attachment (upādāna)
suffering (dukkha)
and ultimately, freedom
Not in theory, but in real, everyday life.
Including things like Instagram.
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If you’re feeling this pull too…
If you’re starting to question your relationship with your phone, your identity, or other habits…
I’d love to invite you into my Buddha Dharma course.
It’s a space where we explore these teachings together, not academically, but personally, through meditation, reflection, and honest conversation.
Not to become perfect, but to become free.
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The more I step away from Instagram… the more space I feel opening up.
And the version of myself that’s emerging in that space feels more grounded, more present, more real, and more beautiful than anything I was trying to curate online.
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