This is my long goodbye...

I used to write. I used to write a lot. I've filled dozens of journals in my 33 years. As a millennial preteen  who was already filling journals with my thoughts when the internet arrived, my words spilled off the paper and into blogs (Xanga anyone?). In the early days of Instagram when people were actually reading captions and still had attention spans longer than 5 seconds (thanks a lot social media), I'd write until I hit the character limit. 

And people always responded.

"Thank you for putting into words what I've been feeling"
"Thank you for making me feel less alone"
"I needed this reminder"
"You should write a book"

No, I am not announcing that I'm writing a book, at least not yet. Not now. 

I'm announcing that I'm writing again. To you, my community.

Social media is making me sick - it's making us all sick. As a teacher, I cannot in good conscience tell my community to continue gathering with me in the hellscape of social media anymore. That would be like teaching my yoga classes in a college bar on a Friday night.

On TWO separate occasions this week, I found myself reading an article on social media, invested and eager to reach the conclusion, only to do so and find an obviously AI-generated image attached to what I came to find out was the AI-generated story I had just read. MADE UP BY A COMPUTER! The robots are getting better at pretending to be humans. They lie without shame, they're only interested in internet traffic and learning what gets a human's attention so they can get better at attracting and captivating our attention. As I type that, I realize humans are becoming like robots as much as robots are becoming like humans, but I digress...

My point is, I don't wanna do social media anymore. It's grossing me out. It's also dysregulating my nervous system, overstimulating me, wasting my energy, and stealing my precious life from me. It doesn't deserve the nuance and complexity and softness of our humanity.

So this is the beginning of my long goodbye to social media.

I'm not leaving abruptly and I may never leave entirely, as there are people I love strung all across this planet who I like to keep in touch with, but I do want a way to tell my community "hey if you'd like to meet in a calmer setting, you can find me here."

These musings will go out to my community in my email newsletter. If you would like to receive this (infrequent) newsletter, Subscribe here.

What you can expect from the newsletter:

• Infrequent emails (bi-weekly except when there are announcements)
• News about my events and workshops
• Announcements about my online programs and courses
• Blog posts exploring yoga, healing, breath, mental health, being alive during the apocalypse
• Probably some dark humor (laughter is medicine)

Thanks for being here. Talk soon.
Christen