25 Tips: Scroll to Serve Your Soul

I had a playful time writing this piece for you and my prayer is that it lands in your soul in a way that serves you and the highest version of you that is so magnetic.

I’ve been contemplating the constellation of social media in the expansive sky of my own life, our global community, and for Mamas.  I’ve surrendered to the sacred space of my intuition to guide me as to how I can utilize social media as a space to serve.  I desire for social media to be an oasis within which to leave a lasting legacy, practice medicine and honor the Healer that I was born to be, and to empower women in deeply meaningful ways.

The following 25 tips (after some more life chat Momversation flow below), are key ingredients I’m stoked to incorporate into my own social media recipe.  May it stir the pot of your own delicious concoction, and as we collectively continue to show up and collaborate with one another.  May we do so reverently and with radical compassion for ourselves and all Mamas.

Social Media.

Those two words are so powerful and hold so much weight, evoke so many emotions in the present climate. No two people have the same relationship with social media.  There is a complex cascade of emotions and behaviors that surround each person and their presence on and interaction with social media.  Take a pause from scrolling this now and inquire of your intuition around what is your visceral response to social media?!

Can you bring the highest version of yourself, her most powerful, potent, magnetic, majestic feminine energy when you interact on social media platforms?  I know that you can. You’ve felt this energetic exchange before.  And you’ve felt more deflated versions as well.  You can choose this way of life, dropping into gratitude and existing in alignment with your highest self.  It will serve your highest good and all those around you.

How big of a role does social media it play in your life?  Do you entertain multiple portals through which you interact and people can reach you?  Is it for personal or professional use, or both?  The fingerprint and influence of no two people is the same on social MEdia.

And we do use it for ME.  We enter in with expectations and we want to be entertained.  So we go down the rabbit hole of watching food videos, sporadic zip popping cringes we can’t seem to peel our eyes away from (just me?!), and the reels and the videos, all the things entertainment.  I can just envision the social media moguls, “Are you not entertained?!”

The platforms themselves are vast neural networks of fascinating data mining and algorithm exploration that present us visual cues based on our patterned behavior, carefully selecting content and suggesting other accounts that we may feel drawn to interact with based on previous behavior.  This isn’t unlike Netflix when suggesting other shows and movies, “Because you watched....”

All humans desire to be loved and to be understood.  And we have taken those desires to the interwebs and to our social media profiles.  We do develop certain resiliency traits, and yet we are still vulnerable to comments and messages, words we receive through social media, likes, loves, perceived reactions via the myriad of emojis, all the things.  So it’s not just a game for us.  It is a way of living, a place we show up continuously and to which we devote a large majority of our time.

So, Mama, your scrolling is not innocuous.  It is seeding your mind with so much information, millions of neuronal connections are synthesizing all of the data.  Subsequently, you’re formulating thoughts, feelings, actions, reactions, and ultimately it’s posturing how you’re showing up for yourself, those around you, and in the world.

Most of us 80’s ladies 20 years ago would have thought social media was some class in school that had to do with communications/advertising.  And it does.  We have become our own advertisers, our own marketers and those of our family.  We're comfortable sharing with varying and often fluctuating levels of access into our personal lives and those of our family.

We crave the connection, and more so over the past year. We love the validation of being seen and it can be so fun sharing our family.  And then we feel the protective layers of Mama bear come out—  the potential data breaches, questioning ourselves if we are sharing too much of our children, if it all makes us more vulnerable, etc.  We wonder how we actually are just putting up our stake on the vast social media realty, but don’t actually own our corner of the social media interwebs.

It’s a complex interplay of forces in the intergalactic digital sky, and prominent in households everywhere.  Somewhere, right now, there’s a Mom who dropped her iPhone on her face whilst she was aglow with her phone in the dark in bed and she dozed off.  And another, taking her 5 minutes (okay who are we kidding, her 50 seconds of fame on the toilet conducting a quick scroll).

I’m here to offer that we actively take inventory of our cognitive real estate as to what we are parading in front of it constantly.  And that we invite ourselves to get curious in actively participating and noticing what emotions are invoked when we get our scrolls on.  These opposable thumbs have gotten so dexterous at navigating us around social media and the internet.

We can choose be active participants on social media.

I want to offer you a few ways this can be an empowering space for you, one that you allow to be transforming, connecting, and a creative expression of who you are. And by a few, I mean 25.  So take this quarter for my thoughts if you feel it will add value to your life. Take these 25 seeds and plant them if you choose, in a space where they will grow and be nourished in a way only you can.  For you.

25 Tips for Scrolling to Serve your Soul

1. YOUR Curated Art Gallery

Make sure it is FOR YOU.

Your own curated art gallery; your space to release your Inner Artist.

She’s brilliant.  She exists in alignment with your core values.  She’s your future self guiding you.  Get started in loving action today.  You don’t have to know where it all leads.  Just start.  Share your vision.  Share you unique blend of creativity.  And ultimately, don’t do it for anyone else except for you.  Truly.

Make social media your own little paint splattered, coloring outside the lines corner of the world.  Share and believe that your people will find you.  Create for you, for the thrill of serving your inner artist and tasting the delicious freedom that comes with creating in alignment with your core values.

You are a gorgeous Artist.  I want you to think of yourself uniquely as an authentic creator of brilliant and beautiful art to behold.

This is new pivot-shift for me, viewing social media as a place I can get creative as the artist and Healer that I am, where I can practice medicine.  I do think social media can be a vehicle to serve others, that it can be medicine.

I hold space and hope that it can be a healing remedy, and I am training my brain to go to work finding evidence each day that this is true.  And I am seeing it sprinkled more and more when I spend time scrolling because this is what I’m manifesting.  I’ve left the days of trying to take photos of my child’s milestones, posting according to some predetermined plan, even posting consistently at least for now, and largely from selecting amongst the myriads of filters behind.  They just weren’t serving me or my highest good.  And I’m claiming that.

2. Create >>>> Consume

This is probably my favorite point on here and one I hope you tattoo on your mental wall graffiti.

It’s just so juicy and really illustrates my desire for your social media prosperity and for it to add to your life rather than to detract.

I often notice a growing seed of discontentment personally when this ratio is off.  Meaning, I do periodically just deviate into a consumption mode to the detriment of my creative expression. And this inevitably results in me feeling uninspired and a passive participant rather than the active one I desire to be, offering my wisps of wisdom + pouring into others.

You must take an active role in what you are consuming and what you are creating. You must recognize and allow yourself to be in tune with your intuition and how you are emotionally reacting to content and whether it is serving your highest good.

We are ALL INFLUENCERS when we hop on social media.  Let your inner creative genius flow and have fun with it.  Create.  Carve out time to create off of social media.  And then post if it serves your highest good.

3. Tell YOUR story

Your story is brilliant + beautiful, authentic + true, and reflective of you.

Your story, the one that flows and is unabridged and honoring of you and where you are.  It’s the one that is most transparent and validating.  Even if you choose not to share your story with the world, write it down for you and for your babies to enjoy in generations to come.

I absolutely LOVE hearing about birth stories from the Mama’s point of view.  I love being a part of it every time I walk into the delivery room or into an OR for a C-section.  Write down your birth story or stories.  These are among my favorite Momversations.   Write it down for you.  An expression of the warrior that you were in the moments of bringing your miracle into this world.  There is often an element of trauma involved in the birth story as well, as births rarely went as we envisioned (welcome to Mamahood!  Uggghh so cliche I just wrote that and I’m not taking it out because I want to see how easy it is for us to say non-nourishing catch phrases like that to each other ... among my least favorite is “Sleep before the baby comes” .... like we were under any illusion we would be getting endless snooze vibes haha).

Writing out your story, capturing the emotional current, and honoring it for each detail and how you pivoted, evolved and flowed with what transpired is healing and affirming.

So write your ongoing story, not one that you try and fit into hashtags, or you saw somewhere and are trying to emulate, or a formula you’re following for consistent posting.  You’re not a mathematical formula, you’re a coloring-outside-the-lines, individual.

Bring that feminine energy to social media.  One of leadership, of integrity, of empathy, of compassion, of perspective, of generosity, of creation.

I’m only just coming into my own and embracing my bravery in telling my story for me.  Boldly.  Unapologetically.

4. Scroll to serve YOUR soul

Let it sink in and percolate.  Spa Day cucumber over eyes in this.  Let this mantra lead you when you’re scrolling.

I titled the article with this because I believe in it so deeply.  I desire for social media to be a space that ultimately serves your soul. So sear this one into the mental stratosphere’s as well. Scrolling can occupy a lot of our time.

Listen to your intuition.  Tune in.  Pay attention to any tension in your body.

Be aware of the emotions that are evoked when you’re scrolling. Set an intention for your practice as you would do before yoga or active meditation.  If what you’re feeling is not in alignment with your highest good and core values, you will pivot to what is in alignment, or you will pivot to an activity offline that does fill your cup.

Recalibrate so that your activities online are charging and fulfilling, inspiring and empowering, and bask in your own ability to uplift and bring that energy to others.  You are also teaching your children how to interact in a healthy and nourishing way with the social media realm they will collide and interact with at a much earlier age than any of us did.

Realize your mental space is a priceless treasure trove.  You’ve got gadgets and gizmos a plenty.... you’ve got whozits and whatzits galore.  You want thingamabobs, you’ve got 20 (followers).  But who cares, no big deal, you want MORE..... You wanna be where the blue star people are, you wanna be dancing beside an over the water bungalow, strolling along down an Italian Tuscany street.  Out where they walk, out where they hashtag, out where they stay all day in the curated filters, you wanna be part of that world.  But do you?!

Your world is incredible, it’s real, it’s raw, it’s authentic, it’s your corner.  Mermaid vibes resonating with and realizing how Ariel was a determined mermaid and could have existed in blissful harmony in her underwater world, but she chose to pivot and gain her legs and dance on the shore instead.  Some of us are mermaids, and some are meant to stroll (with appropriate scroll) down the what’s that word again.... street.

But we all find our voice.  So find it.  Claim it.  Be in awe of it.  Exercise it.  The world needs to hear from your one and only unique flavor.  You are a gorgeous and wild endangered species.  There will never be another you.  It’s a 4 chair turn from me.  Be the Voice.

5. Your Mamarazzi is Showing

Honest Inventory: How often do you enjoy a scene or space in its naked glory rather than already getting your social media director self hat on and creating/conjuring up the image you’d like to capture for your social media?!

So when your inner art director is creating an elaborate set on the beach for a family photo before you’ve even sun screened everyone and disembarked them from the stroller, smile and celebrate your mental meander to realize real and raw, loyal and true life is infinitely more beautiful.

My daughter has infinitely inspired me to turn down my Mamarazzi tendencies and appreciate candid photos and whatever is captured behind the lens at that exact moment of life.  I don’t often ask her to pose for photos anymore, and I don’t want her to feel that anything she does is or isn’t photo worthy.  I want to bask in her wild imagination and fierce female self for the treasure that she is.

So if you’re dressing up a location and already envisioning a post, take a pivot.  Be in the moment, laugh and infuse some humor into the situation, and then participate and allow life to unfold just as it was intended to.  And then post that if you feel so led.

6. Mama’s House

Treat it as your house.

Have boundaries and know you don’t have to answer the door.  Be home or don’t be home. Don’t feel that you have to explain anything to anyone.

Back door friends are the best friends was a sign that hung outside my late Grandmother Mimi’s (back)door for decades.  And I loved it.  I mean this to say that people know how to get a hold of you, and the vast majority of your contacts can access you off of social media.  I don’t mean this to say relationships cultivated on social media can’t make the leap off of the social media portals- they do each day and they can be extremely valuable!  Just that you’re not always open, you’re not always home.  And you dont’ have to answer the door or respond to every comment/like/message/notification.  Mmmmkay?!

OOohhh, this brings me to my next juicy point about NOTIFICATIONS.  I personally feel we are giving away A LOT of our power in having our attention jolted minute by minute by notifications.  Turn them off.  See if you miss them.

I turned all my notifications off for social media and also for my phone a while ago, and I don’t miss them.  This way, when I’m interacting, I do so intentionally, and purposefully navigating to accounts I want to see and information I’m seeking.

You may need to have the notifications on for work, and if this is the case, consider getting a separate device for your personal social media presence if possible.  Just notice and realize you’re giving away your neuronal intellectual property each time you divert your attention to a notification that pops up.

And if it brings you joy in a you-love-the-arcade life way, then get your notification neurons on- You glow girl!  That phone will keep lighting up and you are in your element and I’m here holding space for that.

I’m also here to offer that a lot of us could benefit from shedding limiting beliefs and stories we’ve told ourselves on how available we really need to be, and drawing that line to our availability is empowering and it starts somewhere.  And I offer that this is a really easy and accessible place to start deciding when you’re home and what you’ll answer to.

So get curious and fascinated and play around with your notifications and what you want to hear, see, process on a consistent basis.  Next level pro tip: I rarely have my sound on.  I can’t even remember what my ringtone is for my phone currently I silence my phone and I check it periodically throughout the day.  If there is a reason personally, then yeah I turn the sound on, but the default state of my phone is living on mute.  There are wonderful adaptations this day in age where you can designate who can get through to you for calling on your DND (do not disturb mode), and yes your alarms will still go off.

7. Take breaks

Schedule breaks or consciously break up the time you’re spending scrolling so you can devote your attention to marinating on what you just digested or can shift your attention to other things that fill your cup.

These could be 15 minute breaks after 30 minutes of scrolling or whatever you decide.  Just monitor your consumption.  This could be taking day long, weekend long, week, month, sabbatical, permanent breaks from social media.  No one size fits all strategy.  Just tune into your own station and be the DJ.

Scroll with intention and to avoid the rabbit hole which we all wonderland into and wind up at the Mad Hatter tea party from time to time, set gentle chime alarms or something to arouse you from your social media scrolling stupor from time to time. Especially if you’re tired and just prone to mindlessly scrolling.

Build your own house.  Answer the door if you want to.  Show up sporadically.  Don’t show up at all.  Don’t feel like you need to announce your departure from social media- it’s not an airport.  Do announce it if it brings you joy.  Take unsolicited breaks.  Only align with those who uplevel, inspire and are high vibe for you online.  Challenge yourself to learn and grow and surround yourself with a diverse community.

8. Be aware of your emotional compass

I invite you to think of all your emotions as teachers.

I believe there is so much freedom on the other side of fear.  Sadness and loneliness exists to motivate us to seek community.  Rejection can be redirection.  Anger is an umbrella emotion for so much more and is worthy of exploration and nourishment.  So don’t label your emotions as good or bad.... rather what if they all existed for you?

Can you sit with them and allow them?  If you’re triggered on social media, take pause and sit with that emotion, ask it what it’s there to reveal to you. Learn. Grow. Nourish. Pivot. Just stagnate not.  And don’t project.  That doesn’t serve your highest good and often can inadvertently hurt others in the process.

Allow yourself to get curious and fascinated when you do experience inevitable feelings of inadequacy/envy/shame/guilt and go inward to really take notice of why that is. Nurture yourself when these undesirable feelings arise through moving meditations, journaling, etc.  Allow the feelings to percolate and learn from them, allow your emotions to be your teachers.  Practice radical self love and compassion, and then make adjustments for the future so your mental space is healthier.

Show up for Yourself.

Leave yourself a DM.  Drop in some Aff-FOR-mations. Do it for you.  Post for you. Shine out.  Congratulate yourself.  Be bold for yourself.  Dream for yourself.  Play into your passions.  Declare your intentions.

Practice integrity, authenticity and be in harmony with your core values.  Have it truly reflect YOU.  Don’t play a game.  You spend far too much time on there.  Love yourself and allow social media to be a reflection of you, enhance your life, add to your day.  Allow expansive energy and awareness into your life.  It is possible for it to fill your cup.

There are a lot of #triggerwarning posts and I see the emerging trend to label a post or picture as a beautiful gesture of humanity holding space for the trauma someone else may have experienced and is carrying that may be retriggered when they read/see a post.

If you have the emotional bandwidth to respond to people in need when they are feeling isolated, have experienced loss or tragedy, aren’t feeling safe, fling your fingers across the interwebs and give them the gift of your presence through thoughtful and intentional words of validation.  Don’t judge yourself on not knowing exactly what to say or worry about offending them, rather take the leap and be in the moment.  If you think about responding, transcribe your inner true dialogue and send it.  Connect and go beyond the happy birthday and congratulatory posts or they’re so cute baby photos.  Step up in the DMs for those who are hurting or who have been placed on your heart.  You can know them or not know them.

Reach out.  Love.  Send compassion.  It’s not your role to interpret how your gesture is received.  Just send it in pure love.

9. Landscape Your Account

Harmonize with your inner life landscaper, and curate the accounts you follow, mute the ones that you want to “save for later” but aren’t actively serving you, and unfollow if not serving your highest good.

Actively clean and prune the accounts you follow.  Call it all in from the universe- the support, community you desire.

Invite the information presented to you to be aligned with your core values, serving your highest good, uplifting, inspiring, evoking positive vibrations for you.

Be your own museum curator.  You invite the exhibits to town that get you stoked.  You feature those that light up your sky.  And do this consistently like you would when you clean your closet.  Clean and take inventory of your social media account on the regular.  I just did this night before last. ‘Twas fun.  And empowering.

Interact with accounts, leave comments or messages- make your own mark with wall graffiti or DM’s without any need for reciprocity, but because you are sending good vibes to another human.  Practice radical compassion, be patient, be gracious, and imagine and manifest all the prosperous desires you have for your own life with everyone you interact with on social media.

It is up to you to take inventory of your own emotional garden + gallery. What you consume and integrate, what you shield yourself from, etc.  And how others respond to your own art  reflects their opinion is none of your business.  What energy you choose to surround yourself with online, and how you allow it to seep into and alter your emotional current is your business.  Like the advertising planes that fly across the sky, what will we allow to fill our brains and influence us?

10.  CEO of your Social Media

You’re the boss lady.

You can do hard things and you do them everyday.  You are showing up in multiple ways and fulfilling multiple roles every single day which may include (but certainly not all-encompassing): Healer of broken feelings and bruised knees, chef, body guard, human jungle gym, art director, creative operations manager, teacher, personal shopper, human resources, life coach, career development support, safety operator, crossing guard, spa manager (cue masseuse, personal bather, soothing music, zen environment), entertainer, conflict management resolution committee, barista, and poop doula.

Map out what you’re comfortable sharing.  Have conversations with your significant other as to what degree you are comfortable sharing your family life.  When it comes to sharing your children, this is a complex interaction of opinions and feelings.  And a discussion I’d be delighted to illuminate more neurons to in the future.  I do feel it is best had in a thoughtful and insightful conversation with your significant other regarding what your collective comfort and stance is as a family.  And also discuss this in terms with your comfort with others posting about your children.  This is new territory for parents to navigate.  It doesn’t have to be good or bad, it can be neutral.  Spend some time marinating in what your family’s special sauce is when it comes to social media flavor.

The Pediatrician and Mama in me wants to drop this in the global soup pot before moving onto my next ingredient for your own personal recipe. As your children age and interact and perhaps acquire their own social media account, I implore you to be mindful and intentional, transparent and aware of their growing, developing brains.  We exist in an era when school and educational pursuits are often online so establishing a safe portal of communication between mother and child, parent and child is a vital sign, a lifeline that must be open and constantly revisited for their own health.  Open the portal of social media platform from you to your precious ones to encourage their growth and resiliency and exploration, and also for their safety and protection from potential predatory behaviors, and their vulnerability at a developing age.

We are the CEO’s of our family’s social media presence and make decisions regarding sharing our children and families.  We are the marketers, and there are many Mamas running social media accounts which help support their families and lifestyles.  Can we bring a high vibration every time we sign on, be active participants of the platform, and decide to get vulnerable and interact with those we admire or choose to uplift?

11. Surf the Inflammatory Waves

Surf Vibes!  Let’s surf a party wave together.  Grab your board and we can paddle out to the lineup and float over the gnarly stuff and also take in the beauty.

Be aware of the inflammatory cascade.  Decide which waters you’re comfortable in and which you feel over your head in emotionally.  Whatever it is, ensure it is allowing peace into your spirit and not churning up any turbulent tides.  And if it is, surf these tides and learn from it, lean into them.  You’re strong enough to soul surf.  It empowers you those waves, so let them.

Much like eating lots of trans fats causes inflammation and buildup in our arteries, consumption of continuously inflammatory and emotionally triggering content can be toxic for your mental health.  So be wary of the constant stream of opinions and unsolicited advice that this portal can open up.  Develop a social media callous and decide in advance how you will handle these scenarios.

Believe that if you impact one person, this is a massive shift and you have held space for them and helped them in a potentially expansive way.  Be loyal to yourself.  The truth is that your content is for you and exists to reflect you and who you are at your brave core.  Role play with yourself how you will respond to trolls, and not the cute fluffy rainbow hair hug kind trolls.

Continuing down the highway of a constant barrage of information, we arrive at social media news.  It’s a valid news outlet for many people and where we can often learn of current events, pick up on emotional hot topics and circulating inflammatory issues.  It can also be a place of good news, and it can be a healing space to connect with those who are hurting in some way.

If receiving news via social media is important to you, challenge yourself to hear from a variety of sources  and viewpoints so you can formulate your own stance.  Broaden your perspective.  The invitation to do so is yours.

It is massively good and massively destructive all intertwined. Nurture yourself offline, or shift into creative mode.  If if is inflammatory for you, then go inward to the root cause of your inflammation and tend to yourself, care for yourself outside of the social media colorful chaos.  It’s your long game, it’s your short game, it’s your no game at all.  You can put on the jersey or not.  You can play or you can sit sidelines.

12. Non-Verbal Vibes

Realize social media is a vastly non-verbal.

We evolved face to face interaction and all of the language cues that non verbal posturing and facial expressions can communicate for a reason.  There are forms of social media such as videos/reels/audio clips etc that help to bridge these gaps which can be helpful.

Be mindful when interpreting an emotional current from someone communicating with you.  If it matters to you, contact the person off social media or inquire more so you can learn from their reaction and perhaps how it was misinterpreted.  I firmly believe the confrontation done respectfully is fertile ground for growth.  Jumping to conclusions doesn’t serve your highest good.

Basically, road rage on social media serves no one.

13. Bless + Block

You have the power to Bless + Block. 

Again your house. Your museum. Your creative collaboration with your inner genius zone.  You don’t have to invite everyone.  You can bless and block.  Send Aloha.  Be grateful for the interaction and for your strength to move in a different direction.  Bless and block, baby.

14. Online Yearbook

Because really we’ve just taken the yearbook online for a MUCH bigger global class of ongoing humans in a virtual school and walking down the halls talking about our weekends, recent trips, things we find noteworthy.

We find clubs and groups that align with us and have their own section of the yearbook.  The good news is we can bring our own editing skills to the yearbook pics (FINALLY! Haha) and not cringe at the bangs we once rocked with pride.  Seriously though, we are all in this online school of learning from and about one another.  Let’s be the ones that build one another up and see this glorious gift for what it is.  What it can be.

Recognize your participation in an ongoing online yearbook complete with mean girls, those who want to hang out this summer and leave their number, your besties who write heartfelt messages you treasure and those who just sign their name and move on.

We judge others’ pictures and we go to the index to see how often we appear on other pages and often denote value based on how often we show up/how many pages we appear on, accounts who tag us, etc.  The ever powerful presence of the yearbook has gone global and viral and we are all at school.  Again.  Walking the halls and electing people to homecoming court and as prom king and queen based on our perceptions of who should be elevated and represent us, and which accounts are most worthy of our time. This is dangerous and slippery and gives away too much for our precious mental space to a place that cannot ever measure your infinite potential and massive presence, individuality, uniqueness and inner beauty.

I imagine civilizations of the future utterly fascinated with the way we interacted on social media when they analyze our global culture and community in retrospect.  How would you describe it to non-earthlings, our social media space?

I hope my corner of the yearbook is one in which people feel safe, seen, validated.  I hope I truly feel enriched for knowing them and learning from them.

15. Cultivate your Cognitive Gardening Skills

Get your gardening gloves on.

Your garden is meant to thrive and be lush and prosperous.  Regularly tending to you and developing awareness of the Mom guilt/shame that arises is an amazing skill to cultivate not only on social media, but in all the postures you assume throughout your day.

This is so big for the Mamas.  This Momversation right here bears repeating.  Mamas, get those gardening gloves on and recognize the weeds that arise in the mom guilt/shame when getting our scrolling on.  It is an inevitable consequence of being a human and being on social media.  So have grace and compassion on yourself to notice when it happens and get curious as to why.

And then actively weed and prune and get your social media garden back to a place where you enjoy the fruits of your labor again, back to focusing on yourself, your family and others that uplevel your life.

You do not need to have your nursery all decked out with a chandelier and a personalized baby name wall prior to the hospital.  And if you do and it brings you joy, clap clap, shaka... love it!

Start being the medicine social media needs and craves and post the real.  Also the reel, if you choose.  Allow the guilt and shame to flow right on past.  You’re not entertaining that and it doesn’t grow in your little garden corner of social media or your mind.

And if you don’t feel like gardening at the moment, then plow your field and return another time, or don’t.  There is a season for everything.

Not everyone wants to play in a garden such as these.  So grow your garden, cultivate it with compassionate care, and marvel at its beauty because YOU created it.

16. Avoid Comparemode

Listen, we’ve all been there basically asking the social media algorithm bartender to pour us another one because we’re over here throwing back compare shots.

We all compare.  We’re humans.  But truly, as in a yoga practice doing the poses for yourself and recognizing your body as the unique and incredible miracle that it is to bring forth and nurture life, so also social media is your own personal expression and is not meant to be compared to anyone else.

So metrics for yourself can be fun to play with, but comparing likes, followers, etc., comparing lives and lunchboxes and birthday parties isn’t coloring your creative sky.  Inspiration/inspo is another thing, but challenge yourself to have it be that: inspiration for you to then go forth and create in your own unique design and capabilities something that reflects you.

17. Write + Release

You’re here living your one wild and precious life. 

Release into the vast media meadow the ongoing transformative metamorphosis of what feels good and pure, true and beautiful about your life.  Harmonize with what feels beautiful about your life.

You decide from moment to moment and day to day what you’re willing to share about your experience as a human, woman, artist, Mama.  You are unique and there will never be another you.  There are Mamas and other humans out there waiting to hear from you.

If being more private and introverted online serves your highest good, honor that.  If you want to proclaim and record your life as an ongoing story then you glow girl, and there can be benefits to that too like the reminders you get and and an ongoing family album that you can then export to photo books.

Write for you and without expectation of receiving back.

Likes, loves, messages, comments, shares, etc are independent of you and are not a reflection of your worth or of the massive growth occurring in your life.  So release what you choose to write and share without expectation of receiving back.  This is an online gallery for you, and it may resonate with others and most likely will.  Release yourself of the need to garner approval in these external forms which are outside of your locus of control.

Some of the most influential artists have been understood and appreciated after their time.  Grow truffula trees in your garden.  Clean water, fresh air.  Grow weeping willows.  I always envisioned as a little girl camping out + reading next to a pristine river underneath the nurturing shade and natural tent of a weeping willow tree.  I still go there in my mind when I picture my ideal nature preserve.  But I’m also drawn to the allure of the fresh smell of butterfly milk and the Lorax’s truffula trees.  So I’ll not be pruning my daffodils and the like, although if that is your thing that’s amazing.  I’ll be walking amongst the tall gentle sunflower giants, resting in the weeping willow Mother Eywa, and frisking about with the barbaloots under the truffula trees.

So it is a sacred privilege, the invitation to interact on social media.  Be in gratitude, because when you drop into gratitude you are automatically out of self-serving and entitlement mode and/or fight or flight mode.   And if you don’t feel like gardening at the moment, then plow your field and return another time, or don’t.  There is a season for everything.

18. Be in the photos

You’re a gorgeous force of nature and all your sides are good. 

Invite yourself to play with dropping filters or excessive editing.  The flaws make you more fabulous.  The authenticity makes you more relatable.  Your wounds make you a wounded healer.  The adversity you’ve persevered through did not break you, it molded you into the human + Mama you are now.

This goes for on and off social media.  Be in the photos with your babies and loved ones.  And be in some solo photos.  Honor your integrity, beauty, and creativity.  Honor the innovator within.  Glorify that girl that is now a woman and all that she stands for.  So take some selfies, even if just for you.  And see her for her power.  Judge her not.  Be in awe of her and what she has accomplished and what she dreams and holds for herself and her family in the future, all of the good she is calling in from the Universe, even at this present moment.

We want to see you.  It is so easy to hide behind the camera and in Mama life rarely are people taking photos of us.  Ask your significant other if possible to take photos of you in candid Mama life that you can treasure forever.  Be in the photos in all of your glory.

19. Dopamine Driver

Social Media can be uber addicting.

It’s like a personal arcade with unlimited tickets to go and view all that catches our attention.  Once upon a scroll, we were going to sit down for 5 minutes, and now 45 minutes later....

The Dopamine Driver will go where you allow and will probably just aimlessly meander the streets of social media town unless you have a clear directive. So gaining clarity around the Dopamine Driver in our brains is huge.

Understanding the Dopamine Reward pathway is pivotal information for connecting to how you neurochemically are processing and building habitual habits and postures around your social media usage and addiction.

I did say addiction, because it is for many of us to varying degrees.  We can make it a positive addiction- some examples of that in life are working out, eating healthfully and mindfully, cultivating rejuvenating sleeping habits.

Oooh I just Anik the Geek out when I can bring out my inner neuroscientist. Brain chemicals in the form of dopamine are released when our brain is activated by a rewarding stimulus.  Be this rewarding stimulus, likes/loves/followers/messages/interactions with our posts and accounts, I think yes.

Research has shown that rats could be motivated to stop pressing a lever that previously released a rewarding stimulus by the administration of a dopamine antagonist (drug which blocks the effects of dopamine).   I personally feel the reward system and cascade is extremely complex and dopamine is likely one player, albeit probably pivotal in helping us interpret pleasurable stimuli and the environment around them.

Let’s honor that in the social media realms, our inner dopamine agents are LIGHTING UP with pleasure and reward pathways when we’re interacting on the medias of social.

So just have your dopamine detective hat on from time to time to know that you are literally neurochemically wired to have responses to things that please you and to develop habitual patterns of behavior around them, ahem scrolling, grabbing another piece of chocolate as you graze by the fridge, etc.

Mamas, we are not immune from the dopamine reward pathway, the addiction to social media, and it is time we take our power back from allowing it to unconsciously drift us off into the abyss of comparison, shame, guilt, envy and insecurity.

As humanity collectively is susceptible to the dopamine reward pathway, realize developing brains could be even more so.   Your children are watching how you respond and integrate social media into your life. So your social media hygiene is an excellent opportunity to model healthy habits for your children.

20. Intentionally Infuse Humor

Add in some humor to it all, for such is the salve of life.

Laugh about it. Realize it is a massively impactful way to connect with others, cultivate community, learn, grow, evolve, reach out to those who are hurting, share life with.

Really and truly I think humanity connects across humor because it heals us and we need to laugh and not take life too seriously.  So ensure you get some humor medicine in your scrolling.

21. Judge Sludge

If you are feeling more isolated and judgy on yourself, then take a step back to see you wildly wonderful life for what it is.

Like sludge in pipes, this kind of posturing can be sneaky and slippery and ultimately stagnates your growth and results in you existing in low vibes.  Overall, you won’t feel fulfilled, motivated or inspired.

Wounded feminine energy can masquerade like this: when she’s feeling wounded she may feel insecure and take on the victim role and start judging herself and ultimately be inauthentic in the process. This deviates you from your highest self.

In my youth soccer playing days up through college at Miami (Go ‘Canes!), one of the best pieces of advice I ever got from a coach was to intentionally find space for myself to survey the field and gain perspective.

If you find yourself spiraling into a “should” storm and really getting mean girl/harsh inner critic, and let’s be real the biggest critics are OURSELVES, Mama, pause.  Listen.  At times, it’s more of a whisper than a shout.  It could be body shame.  It could be shame around spending time with ourselves, our dreams, our children.

No one is doing it all.  So fly that mythical unicorn right somewhere over the rainbow and be free from that limiting belief which serves no one.  Go into your inner courtroom and reverently approach the bench of your judgey self and ask her to take you off the stand and on a life chat walk. Maybe you journal it out, go for a moving meditation (walk/run/bike/yoga/swim/surf/hike/parkour, etc) or a night to yourself, fill your cup and do it reverently and with intention.

And congratulate yourself on noticing the drift toward the judgey side and your ability to pivot to the soul chat side of life that is curious and fascinated, uplifting and owning it.  So basically sit on your comfy couch rather than being sworn in on on the bench next to your judgey self.  Yeah, I’m going soul surfing on that one.

22.  It’s your Party and You’ll Post if You Want to

Post if you want to... Post if you want to (singing over here).

Post or don’t post.  Interact or don’t interact.  Learn the algorithm or don’t. It’s all a choice.  No should do this or should to that, could do this or could do that.  We can all benefit from ceasing shoulding on ourselves.

Utilize empowering language around choosing to or get to or will.... You are responsible for what you see/consume/give your time and mental capacity over to.  Take control of your social media space.  Ensure it is a place that is sacred, refreshing, and a catalyst for your personal growth.

If you find that it is not after some introspection, then you choose/get to/will change that.  You can choose to take drastic measures as so many do in announcing breaks or your permanent departure, your disappointment in a space or platform.

We bring such heavy expectations at times, let us take pause and remember these houses were built and we don’t have to be invited.  And yet we were, and we each can create a little patch in the community garden to grow something totally unique and nourishing, nurturing and inspiring, beautiful to behold and to share with the global community around us.

23. Claim your Social Media Flavor

Maybe you’re a lurker and looker and not a poster.  Mamaste to you.

Maybe you want to incorporate social media into your consistent presence, or you want to combine it with your business ventures. Maybe you’re just there for social happy hour and connecting with the tribe you’ve built and that are magnetically attracted to your energy.

You might oscillate between being a lurker, looker, poster.  You’re an influencer though each time you come into the space because your opinions and the way you interact all matter.  You matter.  So lean into your power and use it in a way that adds value to your own life and to those around you.

Maybe you just want to see the food videos or watch some gender reveals reels.  Maybe you want to do some travel wanderlusting.  Just ensure that it harmonizes with you, it lights up your inner symphony and that it brings you joy and uplevels your life.

There is exquisite content out there for everyone.  And your content is exquisite too.  We all wouldn’t choose the same museums or concerts, and we certainly don’t paint our canvases the same color or in the same styles.

So in this vast expanse of online curation and museums, wall graffiti and precious art collections, direct your own with loving intentionality and presence.  Give pause to whatever doesn’t light up your soul.

If it challenges you or makes you uncomfortable, ask yourself why and how/what can you learn from this?  Take it as a growth opportunity.  If you are feeling inadequate, guilt, shame, or catch yourself ensnared in a sticky web of comparemode with a side of envy/jealousy/pity party, then pivot to another activity after again asking yourself why you feel this way and noticing it.

We can choose for social media to be empowering, a place of vulnerability, a place of creating and sharing our inner artist, connection, serving our fellow humans and the planet.  The choice is yours. Be you a sporadic poster, lurker never poster, constant presence and have integrated it into your daily life.... social MEdia Mamas come in all flavors.

24. Bookends of the Day

From eyes opening to eyes closing. Before bed and when you arise.

These bookends of our day;  both are common times for social media consumption.

We’ve been caring for others all day, and we finally plop down on our bed or the couch and whip out that phone for some juicy scrolling.  I can scroll with the best of them, lemme tell ya, but I want to challenge us collectively Mamas, the world NEEDS to hear from us.  Can we be brave enough to be vulnerable to the degree that it serves us?

Can you challenge yourself to go to sleep and wake up to your own thoughts and dreams, reveries and visions for what you’d like to call in for your future?  I desire so massively for your prosperity, and want to caution you against allowing your mental space to be curated for you... for ideas and inadequacy, comparison seeds to be planted into your mind at the pivotal times of the day before we drift off into our dreams and awaken to the possibilities of a new day.

How can you most reverently start and end your days?  Spend some time smiling and looking within as to how you can best spend these seasons and bookends of your day as your ongoing story is written.  A warm shower with aromatherapy? Guided meditation? Journaling?  Creating a PowerPoint of your next adventure abroad?  Writing down your stream of consciousness?  Delving and getting lost in some amazing literature?  Revisiting photos of you + your family (there are after all literally 10s of thousands of them housed on our phones... I see you Mamas), or perhaps it is cuddling your babies or significant other and an early bed night.  Or maybe it’s a Netflix binge night for you #nojudgment.

Just ensure it serves your soul and reclaim the pockets of your day which are truly yours unhindered. Don’t give them away freely.

25. Uplift Other Mamas

Existing in the highest vibration and accessing your highest self involves desiring massive prosperity and abundance for all other Mamas.

The same things your desire for yourself, your children and your own life, can you live into the expansive energy of desiring that for all other Mamas?  Your life is a Divine Privilege.  Your calling is sacred.  Tap into the nourishing flow and power of your feminine energy to truly hold space for other Mamas, and uplift them in powerful ways in your interactions on social media.

Challenge yourself to pivot when you feel insecurity arising and instead dive into gratitude.  From here you can access true happiness for what other Mamas are experiencing and send them vibes that are pure and empowering.

When you see a Mama thriving in her genius zone, feel that collective energy and know that the prosperity of any one Mama uplifts this world in a tremendous way.  So allow social media to be a platform to celebrate all the milestones Mamas are experiencing along with their growing babies.

In closing out this Momversation/Social Media TED talk,

Raising my Mama-latte to Cheers you.

Mama, you are so much more than the limited words in your social media bio. 

And the edited photos that are posted of your family.  Believe that the only followers who truly matter are the miracles of your love within your own home and that this is your legacy.  All the rest of it is for fun and creative expression.  Lift and release the burden for social media to be any more than a place to play creatively.

Go from passive to active, from consumer to creator, from participant to director, from receiver to giver, from entertained to entertainer, from low vibrations to high vibrations which requires a mindful approach to the scrolling.

Calibrate your emotional compass so that social media scrolling serves your soul.  It is possible.  We can choose to shift into a recognition that we decide what seeds are planted and subsequently grow in our cognitive gardens.  And what serves one person may not serve us.

How will your social MEdia environment and component of your health look different after reading this?  Truly, my vision is for you to incorporate social media into the various aspects of your holistic health, just as you would your physical, mental/emotional, spiritual, occupational, financial, and other realms of health.

We are social creatures.  And we have evolved in a mighty way into our presence as social beings on social media.  So make your corner of the social MEdia creation a place of respite and refuge, a place of warmth and reception, of growth and transformation, transcending cultural and inflammatory issues where humanity is respected and revered and where you hold space for your fellow social MEdia artists.

Onto you creating your own delicious recipe that is flavorful + fulfilling for you!

For after all, we are artists, curating our own galleries.  Show up for you. Tell your story.  I am clearing space to tell my story more authentically and boldly, and I’m so excited to connect with you and hear yours.

All my Aloha, Mama.

See you on Social, or maybe even out in the wild.

- Anik