Posting to Instagram Was Taking Over My Life

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I’ve been a creator in digital media for a very long time. I’ve managed content material for magazines, managed company social media accounts, and ghostwritten extra issues than I can recall within the 15 years that I’ve labored as an editor and journalist. But I all the time noticed my position on social media as that of a curator relatively than an influencer.

It wasn’t till I graduated from yoga instructor coaching and have become a yoga instructor that I began a private Instagram account. I selected to do that partially due to my perception that I wanted a platform to market my lessons, though I additionally needed to trace features of my dwelling apply.

I taught myself yoga from a guide greater than 20 years in the past within the consolation of my very own lounge, lengthy earlier than the proliferation of yoga studios. From the start, my dwelling apply was a non-public anchor that kept me sane by marriage and divorce, single motherhood, and an unpredictable profession and revenue as a freelancer and yoga instructor. By all of it, my dwelling apply was an area the place I might simply transfer intuitively, giving my physique what it most wanted within the second. I didn’t contemplate on the time how posting to Instagram may change that.

Wait, what occurred to my dwelling apply?

Instructing yoga in a studio initiated the shift in my apply. Instantly my yoga turned in service to my educating. I used to be all the time fascinated about how I’d incorporate this or that motion right into a sequence that I might educate in school. I started to apply on the studio the place I taught, and I discovered myself feeling pressured to be good in my poses, have a powerful athletic apply, and in any other case present up performing as a instructor even after I was a scholar in school.

Including Instagram to the combination introduced one other layer of efficiency to my apply. It began, fairly innocently, after I started posting footage for an occasional Instagram problem.

After I captured an occasional {photograph} and wrote captions based mostly on class themes I’d taught not too long ago, it felt manageable. Then it progressed to recording my pre-class warmups and my post-class playtime.

Quickly I used to be recording my dwelling apply. I’d pause to take footage of myself doing yoga poses whereas mountaineering; I’d hunt down locations to seize handstand footage throughout my travels. It even obtained to the purpose the place, if I hadn’t arrange my digicam earlier than I started to apply, I’d cease my asana to report my sequence. That’s what it took to be a yoga instructor and influencer—or at the very least that’s what had gotten into my thoughts.

I began evaluating myself to the largely skinny, hyperflexible, White yogis on Instagram. I taught my college students that yoga wasn’t about nailing a Handstand, but I overworked myself in an effort to stay the difficult inversion. I instructed college students that yoga isn’t a efficiency, though I typically felt like I used to be performing my yoga for the ‘gram.

The extra that recording and posting video turned the main focus of my social media, the extra out of my factor I felt and the extra of a time suck my social media presence turned. All of the whereas, it felt like I used to be falling into the exact same entice that I had lengthy warned about after I instructed college students to maintain practicing yoga at home.

A shift in perspective results in private realignment

The performative side of the Western yoga asana apply is an enormous motive why many individuals assume yoga isn’t accessible or secure for them. Social media reinforces the stress to carry out with its concentrate on shows of maximum flexibility and athleticism. And it’s typically those that can carry out who change into influencers. In some ways, the influencer tradition is a microcosm, or perhaps a mirror, amplifying, reflecting, and reproducing arguably probably the most damaging components of our performative society.

Whereas social media can and has been an effective way to create a neighborhood and construct relationships, it has been demonstrably bad for our mental health and basic social wellness. Instagram, specifically, has lengthy been thought of a channel for aspirational visible media. Essentially the most profitable influencers are those that create photos that mimic what you’d discover within the pages of {a magazine}—and poses that their followers wish to emulate.

But it may also be a supply of nice struggling. The extra concerned I turned with Instagram, the extra dissatisfied I turned with my very own apply and the extra uncertain I used to be of my skills as a yoga instructor.

Remembering who I’m

Finally, I noticed that the pressures of social media, the wellness business, and societal buildings at massive exist exterior of my management. What I can management, nonetheless, is how I present as much as these pressures. As soon as I recognized my very own misperception, I used to be in a position to make a distinction between my Self as a non secular being having a human expertise and the human being doing non secular work on the earth.

For me, meaning remembering that I’m not my work or my private model. Sure, I care deeply and put a whole lot of myself into my work, however I typically should remind myself that I’m not the work that I do. This type of misidentification is straightforward in a society that tells us our value is in our capacity to provide and obtain.

It may be simple to fall into the entice of pondering social media is the most effective or solely option to construct neighborhood and share your work with the world. However social media isn’t the work any greater than you’re the work. Social media is just one channel for amplifying your work.

Making that distinction additionally created area for me to ask myself what I’m dedicated to doing with my educating. Was it rising my social media following? Was it creating video content material for Instagram and Tiktok? Or was it educating yoga as a non secular apply of affection?

I made a decision a very long time in the past that my dedication is to educating yoga as a holistic apply to assist myself and others keep in mind our reference to the divine supply. Figuring out what I’m dedicated to allowed me to choose out of performing for the sake of performing. I share solely when I’ve one thing to share. That call additionally frees me as much as refocus my consideration and my time on my chosen medium of communication and connection: writing.

My fact is that social media is finest approached from a spot of authenticity. Going by the method of svadyaya, or self inquiry, helped me do not forget that I’m my very own smartest thing. It led me again to again to myself.

What to contemplate while you create digital content material

If you’re a yoga instructor and a creator sharing your work on social media, do not forget that your work may be a mirrored image of you, however you aren’t your work. If the best way you’re sharing your apply doesn’t really feel genuine to you, rethink your strategy and discover methods to share that do really feel in alignment with who you’re. Ask your self:

What am I dedicated to?

Finally, I made a decision that performing for social media was a distraction from my dedication to my yoga apply and to my educating. So I began looking for different methods to share the apply of yoga. In the event you’re feeling disenchanted and struggling to share your work authentically on-line, replicate on what you’re actually dedicated to and let that be an anchor from which you share your work.

What’s my most well-liked medium for creating?

Phrases are my most well-liked medium. Perhaps your ardour is images and you should take thought-provoking pictures. Maybe you’re nice at facilitating conversations and podcasting is your factor. Perhaps video-focused social media is your jam. No matter your favourite medium, use it to create. Don’t attempt to drive one other strategy merely since you assume you “ought to.”

How can I share in an genuine manner that aligns with my values?

For me, the most important problem was making an attempt to keep away from evaluating myself to different creators or making an attempt to copy the issues they did that made them profitable. In fact I always fell quick as a result of I wasn’t displaying up authentically. Even on social media, success is commonly extra about displaying up as your self relatively than making use of a set of finest practices. Figuring out your most well-liked medium and what you’re dedicated to makes it simpler to make selections about what to share.

Can I share in a manner that feels true to myself?

In the event you’ve felt the stress to carry out on social media and to point out up in a manner that doesn’t really feel genuine to you, you possibly can all the time select to choose out. All of us get to decide on how we create and share our work with the world. Give your self the area and the grace to point out up in a manner that feels true to who you’re. Each time you end up making comparisons between your self and different creators, shift your focus again to your values, your most well-liked medium, and creating in a manner that feels best for you. Think about this apply of returning to your self—and keep in mind, that’s the apply of yoga.

About our contributor

Kimberlee Morrison is an award-winning creator, a yoga instructor, self-love advocate, and founding father of Love Revolution Yoga. She’s been training yoga for greater than 20 years and educating it for greater than 6 years. She’s on a mission to show folks to like themselves by the apply of yoga.