How to do an Energetic Digital Detox

Between the election and our continuing to stay-safe-at-home, this past week has had many of us glued to the news even more than normal. We know it’s simple to turn off, but easy? Not a chance. It feels like we need a crowbar to physically peel us away.

Couple this with the recent documentary, The Social Dilemma, and many of us are shaking our heads. I mean, we knew it was bad, but I don’t think any of us knew just how susceptible to programming we’d become—not to mention used!

Like many, I had the knee-jerk reaction to cut out social media altogether, but instead, I did a massive digital detox—not only on social channels, but my inbox and phone too!

Plus, I’ll share two additional energetic tips at the end!

Making Instagram not so Instant

Marie Kondo Your Digital

Since I mainly use FB for groups that interest me and to share articles about the climate crisis, I focused on Instagram. Before I clicked the infamous icon, I took some deep breaths and tuned into my body. As I scrolled through or watched stories, I noticed how I felt inside. I deleted or muted any account if…

• I felt the slightest negative feeling

• I didn’t recognize the person running the account

• It was a business I aspired to patronize, but never did

• I had too many of the same types of accounts (all those pretty plant-food pics made me hungry!)

I dedicated 30 minutes a day consciously sensing my reaction to what was being pushed my way. If the content or person didn’t “spark joy,” educate or inspire, I pressed delete.

To be clear, I am not advocating for a pollyannish “happy only or else” approach. I still follow many environmental, vegan, social, and animal rights activists and groups, and that content can be heart-wrenching. However, I choose to educate myself on these important issues and support their work so by curating my “feed,” I am empowered as opposed to programmed.

Email

Many of you have told me that you love my emails, but they often end up in Junk or you mentally “save” same them for the later limbo at the bottom of the pile never to be seen again.

Here’s a hack:

I sort my email by “From”, then it’s easy to delete in bulk. For any email that I was deleting en masse, I took a minute to Unsubscribe so I would actually stop the inflow and save myself this deletion step in the future. I’m a newsletter junkie and know how much work the creator put into it so this took some soul searching, but again, No Joy? or feeling like a “Should Read”? Unsubscribed. Please don’t ever mark someone’s personal newsletter as spam. That’s just unnecessarily aggressive and punitive.

Tackling the Junk folder is a little more work, but again, I sorted by “From,” but instead of just deleting the offending email, I actively “blocked” them. This doesn’t stop the tide fully, but now I am in the daily habit and can control it.

When I found the emails I did want to see that always ended up in Junk, I took the extra step to mark them as “not junk” or “safe” rather than just move them to my inbox, again, saving myself work in the future.

It takes some time, but I am now intentional about what I let in and have reduced the overwhelm immensely.

Phone

I take a lot of photos that I think would be interesting to share, but since I haven’t mastered posting in real time, most of them just remain on my phone taking up space. I dedicated 15 minutes a day to do a visual purge. Now I take fewer photos and videos and clear them on the regular.

Then there are those apps that sounded good at the time, but I never use. I removed them or if still needed, moved them off my home screen.

I put all social media apps into a folder. That extra step of having to open the folder before clicking gives me just enough of a pause to tune in and ask myself—am I feeling bored? Uncomfortable? In resistance? In fear? FOMO? I can then choose to deal with those feelings or continue on. Either is fine. If I choose to continue, I’m much more aware of my thoughts and feelings than if I’m just mindlessly scrolling to numb or fill (more like kill) time.

I was so inspired by the freedom and control I felt by these items, I even culled through my podcast list!

Computer

Tech of every kind intimidates me so I have never had a good organizational system and my computer was a mess! I’m not fully there yet, but I overcame my resistance and started cleaning up and organizing my files. Just like in the physical world, it’s so much easier to organize fewer things so I’ve done a huge purge of old files and put into folders only what I truly need.

Bonus Tip #1

It goes both ways. I’ve always considered myself a minimalist when it comes to my social media posting preferring to err on the side of value vs volume. Now I take it even one step further. Before sharing anything, I check in energetically and ask myself:

Does this feel good to post?

• Is it helpful?

• Does it provide value?

• Does this information need to be known?

• Does this voice need to be amplified?

If so, I send it with a blessing that whomever it reaches will receive it with the positive intention with which it was sent. This sounds more involved than it is, it can be a quick gut check.

Bonus Tip #2

Consider giving back. After pouring my heart and soul into these hopefully informative and inspiring blog posts, I have a new appreciation for the time and energy that other bloggers must also put into theirs. As a result, I’ve been more proactive in giving back. I have been surprised that even the biggest of content creators—whether they be bloggers or podcast hosts or activists—will acknowledge my quick response telling them what I appreciated or learned and how I plan to use their content. I’ve always been generous sharing other people’s content, but am consciously doing more to promote them and their work which feels great energetically!

Become Empowered!

Social media, the news, sports—none are good or bad. We just need to be conscious about using them so we are not used by them. A digital detox greatly helps us do just this!

These are some of the ways I Marie Kondo’d my digital information. The resulting energetic shift was palpable! I hope you will feel just as empowered if you do the same. Maybe you’ll even get a spark of KonMari when you see my name in your inbox! Maybe you’ll pass it along to a friend or two.