Day 8: My Third Spiritual Awakening
Reflections on Social Media Addiction, Identity, and Finding Peace in Simplicity
Dr Gabor Mate says, “we lack compassion for the addict because we are so addicted ourselves, in ways we cannot recognize.” (That might not be the exact quote he said - I can’t remember where I found it originally and this is me pulling it from my memory!)
I have noticed that many people really find it difficult to be in space with me talking about social media addiction. They might either make a joke out of it, or encourage me to get back on and moderate. It’s bizarre.
The most common made joke is the fact that they’re mentioning Instagram in my presence, and a fear that it might trigger me. (Don’t worry. Your mention of Instagram does not trigger me in the slightest. I have absolutely no desire to get back on it, and it kind of makes my stomach turn when it’s mentioned, in the same way in which when I smelled wine three weeks sober, my stomach flipped as well).
The fact that Instagram comes up in many conversations, without me mentioning it, kind of demonstrates to me the fact that we as a society are somewhat addicted to it (don’t you think?) We are in denial of social media addiction being a thing…and yet… I walk into coffee shops and every single person in the shop is on their phone or computer. At every yoga class/women’s circle/ event I go to, people are asking me if I have Instagram as a way to connect afterwards. A guy asked me out on a date last week and asked me if I had Instagram in order to connect. People are even tagging me in stories on Instagram after they come to my yoga class, even after I express to them during the class that I’m not on Instagram and to contact me somewhere else (I know this because I have a third party app I’m using, ManyChat, to check my DMS from time to time to make sure I’m not missing something important business-wise). This is a thing. We, as a society…are kind of addicted.
I asked ChatGPT to give me some facts on Social Media addiction, and here’s what came up…
Global Prevalence: An estimated 210 million people worldwide are addicted to social media. Lanier Law Firm
Daily Usage: The average person spends approximately 2 hours and 24 minutes on social media each day, equating to nearly one-third of our waking hours. Niagara Recovery
Behavioral Impact: Over 50% of Americans believe they are addicted to their phones, with up to 60% of teens showing signs of cell phone addiction.Virtual Addiction
This is a thing….. Yet why do so many people struggle with compassion for it? Is it because we as a society are so addicted on the whole that it’s easier to joke about than recognize?
As I move through my social media detox and start to take responsibility for my life, I’ve made it into week one off Instagram & Facebook, and I’ve started to think about some of the other apps I use, and how they affect me.
The past two days, I spent a lot of time talking with my friend Becki about tech use in general, and how we can manage it. One of the things we discussed is WhatsApp.
I think WhatsApp isn’t really used this way in North America, but in Asia, we use it for everything.
I say Asia because for the last ten years, I’ve lived in three countries on this continent—Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia—and I’ve noticed this trend across all three. I didn’t have WhatsApp before I moved to this part of the world. But over here, we use WhatsApp groups for:
Organizing parties
Booking appointments with our dentist
Getting medical results from doctors
Arranging services to come to our homes
Speaking to delivery people
Organizing community groups like running clubs, meditation communities, etc.
Office conversations: team groups, etc.
Yes, we literally use WhatsApp for everything here. It’s amazing that you can reach everyone at any time! It’s also…overwhelming that you can reach everyone at any time. And we’ve developed this urgency culture of the expectation to respond instantly.
One of my biggest struggles over the last six years of running the Mindful Life Practice is figuring out how to organize my life in a way that feels grounded, intentional, and peaceful, which is ironic because that is what I am trying to support and offer others in establishing. When it comes to tech, I find WhatsApp is the best way to connect all of my clients. I’ve tried having two phones—one for work and one for personal life—but that didn’t work. I’ve tried having two WhatsApp accounts on the same account—one for work and one for personal life—but that didn’t work either.
Every morning for the last six years, I would wake up and be hit with a wall of cortisol. Between Gmail, WhatsApp, and Instagram, I would face an overwhelming number of messages before I even got out of bed. It’s ironic, isn’t it? The sutras teach us brahmacharya—moderation in all things—but technology has a way of pulling us into the extremes, and I had no way of finding balance with it.
I teach my students to not look at their phones first thing, but the reality has not always been in practice for me. I have made it some lengthy streaks of time without checking my phone in the morning, but the problem is that I have to reach for it in the morning to turn off my alarm. And then , it’s in my hand already, so I will scan my WhatsApp and email to see if there’s anything urgent before I go for my walk, do my yoga practice or meditate. But the chaotic mess of notifications often pulls me away from the present moment and into a state of reactivity. Amongst positive messages of people checking-in and saying hi, there’s often a big mess of, at the same time:
Complaints about something
People asking for refunds for something that was accidentally charged, for ex. A membership they thought they cancelled
General inquiries into retreats and trainings (which is exciting!)
Cancellations from retreats (rare, but a huge bummer when it happens as it creates issues for me financially and logistically, which I know are typically beyond the control of whoever cancelled, but still disappointing).
It’s not just messages; it’s energy, pulling me out of equanimity.
My friend Becki has been staying with me in Ubud for the past two days, and she’s been a Godsend. I believe this was divinely organized as she didn’t realize how much I needed it at the time when she asked if she could come up and stay a few nights. One of the many things she supported me with, is she helped me reorganize my WhatsApp into something more manageable today which I want to share (in case you have these problems too!)
I’ve always used the “Archived Chats” feature for community groups in Bali—things like:
Ubud Women’s Social Club
Bali House Swap
Bali Pet Sitters
Kirtan groups
….etc.
These are groups I don’t want to leave but also don’t want to see daily. They’re part of my role in my community, but they’re not part of my work or my personal life.
I thought that there was no way to further sort my WhatsApps, and everything other than that was in my main inbox. I left it as is.
Becki introduced me to a feature called “Locked Chats,” which she uses for work. I started moving all work-related conversations there, keeping my main feed reserved for personal relationships. And in doing this, I had two profound realizations.
First, I noticed how few relationships I have that aren’t connected to work. So many of my connections are tied to my role as Sober Yoga Girl / the Founder of the Mindful Life Practice. I am so grateful for my friendships that have formed through this community, but I’ve also let all other relationships fall to the wayside in the meantime. And second, once the chats got separated into the “locked” folder, I realized how strongly opening the “locked” chats affects my nervous system. This morning before meditation, I opened the locked chats for a moment and was thrown into a storm of cortisol, so quickly that I had to shut it.
And I think that’s a good thing - because I’m starting to become more and more sensitive to how the first things I look at each day will effect me. As I become more and more aware of this, I know that eventually it will get to the point where I just won’t even want to open the locked chats until after my practice or later in the day. Today, it was so helpful for me to have this set up. I waited until after I taught the first Meditation and Pranayama class, Becki and I had had breakfast and went for a walk, before I went through the locked chats. And then one-by-one, I addressed them.
A key teaching in the Buddha Dharma and also Patanjali’s Sutras is the existence of dukkha (suffering). It arises when we cling to things that disrupt our inner peace. My attachment to being hyper-available and hyper-productive has tethered me to stress. The Buddha’s Eightfold Path calls us to right mindfulness—awareness of what we consume, how we work, and the energy we carry.
And the longer I am disconnected from Instagram, my mind grows quiet, and I become aware of how unhealthy this is. Humans weren’t evolved to live this way.
I read a quote on Substack today that said,
“Babe don’t make any huge life decisions until you’ve been off your phone for at least an hour. Those thoughts are not yours.”
This resonated so strongly for me. I can’t even get over how true this is. I feel like, since I started detoxing off social media, I can hear myself think, for literally the first time in my adult life. My thoughts are finally mine again, and not influenced by social media. I’m processing things at a mile a minute, and crying alot. It’s led me to make some big, massive changes already.
This moment in my life feels like a third spiritual awakening. I’ve written about the first two in Sober Yoga Girl:
The first, at 25, when I left my newly married husband.
The second, at 27, when I got sober from alcohol.
And now, at 32, I feel a deep rearrangement of priorities, for what might be the third awakening. Yoga teaches us that transformation happens in cycles. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that our dharma is ever-evolving, like seasons changing.
I’ve built this identity for myself—Sober Yoga Girl—and for years, it has served me and others. It was once a necessary phase of my dharma. But now, I find myself asking: who even is “Sober Yoga Girl”? She feels like a character, like an era of my life. I mean…she has kind of become a character….maybe she just belongs in that book? (Sober Yoga Girl.). Can I …. start to let the identity, “Sober Yoga Girl,” go?
The idea of doing so reminds me of Taylor Swift honoring her eras on tour—each one important but not an era she has to be in, forever. She can change.
In her last song, on her last album, she writes:
“The only thing that’s left is the manuscript
One last souvenir from my trip to your shores
Now and then I reread the manuscript
But the story isn’t mine anymore.”
The story isn’t mine anymore.
I have loved this lyric ever since I first heard the song, in April of last year, but now it feels so true for me. Yall…I’m starting to think…I don’t think I want to be Sober Yoga Girl anymore.
When I started this Substack, I called it Dharma Daily with Sober Yoga Girl. Seven days in, I’ve simplified it to The Daily Dharma with Alexandra McRobert.
No Sober Yoga Girl.
Not even Alex McRobs.
Just me. Alexandra McRobert.
It’s not that I reject the old version of myself. In the Twelve Steps, Step Twelve reminds us to carry the message forward. Sober Yoga Girl was part of that message—a vehicle for sharing hope, healing, and transformation. But now, I feel called to something quieter. (And maybe I’ll change my mind - so don’t hold me to promising this!)
Right now, my practice feels simple. It doesn’t need to be a podcast, a magazine, or social media reels. It doesn’t need to be an identity like Sober Yoga Girl.
It’s about living the teachings of ahimsa (non-violence) and satya (truth) by being fully present with someone, looking them in the eye, and embodying what it means to be in practice of yoga.
In this simplicity, today, I feel peace.
In love and gratitude,
Alexandra