Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - BRB, Healing From Social Media with Jenny Wise Black

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

Today’s guest has been a licensed marriage and family therapist for over a decade and it was only when her smartphone broke that she found her true life’s work: fixing our relationship with our devices! Jenny Wise Black has seen firsthand the trauma – yes, trauma – that is caused by the constant, everyday use of our devices. So, how have we gotten here, and more importantly, what can we do about it? Kaitlyn describes her personal relationship to her phone and social media, and why she’s deciding to take a break during this very painful time in her life. Your host also opens up about her recent breakup and the fears that come along with it, many of which (if not all) can be traced right back to her phone. Luckily, Jenny has advice that is truly life-changing when it comes to making us whole humans again, including using “inside treats” versus external validation and building our resources from what we need versus what we’re addicted to. We guarantee you’ll come away from this episode with so much more knowledge and maybe, like Kaitlyn, some sadness but also hope for a better future!  Stay connected, Vinos!  Watch on the Off The Vine YouTube channel  Follow on Instagram @offthevinepodcast  Join Our Off The Vine Facebook Group  Thank you to our sponsors! Check out these deals for the Vinos: BETTERHELP - This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/VINE and get on your way to being your best self.  ANGI - Your home for everything home.  HONEYLOVE - Get 20% OFF Honeylove by going to honeylove.com/VINE!  JENNI KAYNE - Find your forever pieces at Jennikayne and get 15% off with promo code VINE at jennikayne.com/home!  SHOPIFY - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/vine.   Draft Kings: Download the DraftKings Casino app now, sign up with promo code VINE, and new customers get a deposit match up to $100 in casino credits when you deposit $5 or more! Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Michigan/New Jersey/Pennsylvania/West Virginia). Please play responsibly. In partnership with Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races in West Virginia. All games regulated by the West Virginia Lottery. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. 21+. Physically present in Connecticut/Michigan/New Jersey/Pennsylvania/West Virginia only. Void in Ontario. One per opted-in new customer. Min. $5 deposit. Max match $100 in casino credits which require 1x play-thru within 7 days. See terms at casino dot draftkings.com slash player’s choice. Restrictions apply. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Off the Vine. Hey everybody. Welcome to Off the Vine. I'm your host, Caitlin Brousseau. Today we had on the podcast, Jenny Wise Black, a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in how media impacts our mental, health. It's just fascinating. She was incredible. She's the author of Our Digital Soul and creator of Lose the Phone podcast. And it's a series and movement, actually, that supports humans as they heal from media addiction and trauma. I know that sounds heavy, but it's actually true. And I know you guys are just going to gain so much from listening to this podcast. So enjoy. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for having me. I am absolutely fascinated by your work. and I have to tell you, the reason I found you was Paige, she's a boxing instructor at

Title Boxing and Cool Springs, and I like to go there. And she was talking about the importance of, like, working out for your mental health. I was at church, and they had a counselor come in to talk about media trauma. And now I've talked about it on so many podcasts, just about this one specific thing where I say, apparently this trauma counselor said, when you aren't in a traumatic event, your body doesn't have the chance to fight or flight. And so when you're consuming media on your phone, your body doesn't know what to do with the trauma, so it gets trapped. Page was talking about how boxing or working out, even going for a walk, how exercise can really help release that trauma

that we're all now experiencing through our phones. So I was fascinated. And then I just kept talking about it on each podcast. And then I go, wait, why don't I have her on the podcast? I was like, how did she hear about me? Yeah. That's just amazing to me. Yeah. So the word gets out and you're doing important work. So I was like, I can't wait to talk to you on the podcast today. So you've been a marriage and family therapist for over a decade, which is incredible. And then why did you decide to get into that work? So like most people will say, it completely found me. So I was a therapist before and after phones came into our reality. So when I was doing therapy pre-phone world, people would come into therapy with a presenting issue. Like they knew why they

were there and what they needed to work on. We created a plan and we worked that plan. And on average, almost every single person was out of therapy in a two-year time period. Because they because they worked on the issue. Yeah, you got to work on it and go do it. Well, all of a sudden, like overnight, people were just showing up with trauma symptoms and didn't have any named traumatic issue, like there was no recovering from it. They weren't getting better. And so it was like, what's going on here? Well, at that same exact time, I'm the first. Definitely the first iPhone parent and had the first iPhone kids. Okay.

So everybody's like, wait until eighth grade. Well, it wasn't even available until my kids. So at the same time, we were in our family dealing with like, why am I not okay? Well, mine made sense because I was working with trauma clients and had just the vicarious trauma. Like, okay, I have a really stressful job. And then my kids, it was sort of like, well, adolescence is really hard. And then it was like, this isn't normal. Like, we are all exhibiting symptoms of PTSD.

So I knew that from working with trauma victims. Right. And I was watching my kids and I was like, this isn't normal adolescence, even though adolescence is anything but normal. Of course, of course. And because I'm a marriage and family therapist, I was like, okay, I have to take my own advice, do my own self-care, take care of myself, my family, and just see what's going on. So during that time period, I was going to take a 30-day sabbatical just to reset my nervous system. And nothing was working, nothing was working, nothing was working until four months into my sabbatical, my phone broke. Okay.

So mind you, I'm not paying attention to that at all during this time. And I was really active on social media. I was kind of in the beginning of that. Like, I love it. And the day that my phone broke, immediately, Caitlin, I'd done everything. I'd been on antidepressants. I'd been doing all sorts of deep yoga. Yeah.

I had like all this spiritual care. All the things. Nothing is budging. what I would describe as this sort of layer of blah and this hum of anxiety and then my phone broke that day and it was gone like instantly like I saw my phone was broken and I was like what could I do today what could I be today and I had this perfect day and so I was like do I have to get my phone fixed like I just felt like I was taking a vacation well it just makes so much sense because it's starting to be more known how much our phones are actually affecting us but you don't know until you know either

you go into that blah phase and the anxiety or until your phone breaks or you don't have it because so when I was the bachelorette so long ago now they take your phones away and I remember thinking that would be the most stressful thing and like I'm not going to be able to talk to my family my friends like go on my phone and I gave it and within hours I was calm and I was sleeping better I was like I have no one to answer to like of course I missed my family or certain things because that was a situation, you know. But I mean, it's my work. It's my entertainment. It's my numbing tool. It's so many things in the palm of your hands. And your connection to everyone you know and love. And connection. Or hate. That's the thing too. It's your connection to everyone.

And you're available to people 24-7 with this thing and you feel this need to respond. So I want to talk a bit more about how now in our lives, what was it? The Boston Marathon was one of the first events, this traumatic event that there was body cameras, there's phone footage, it's going everywhere, it's going viral, and we're all able to see it. But we aren't able to process those feelings of being there and going into that fight or flight. So that's probably just been happening now for however many years. Yeah. So the sort of rest of that story, it was the first time we had researched what I call media trauma. So in the clinical world, this has been called vicarious trauma forever. And that's why, like, if you're working, if you're like a nurse on scene,

you know, first responders kind of thing, they have vicarious trauma. It didn't happen to them, but they're right there. So we kind of understand that concept. But the idea that the Boston Marathon bombing showed that the people who watched the bombing through their screens were actually more traumatized than the people who were at the actual event. That is crazy to me. You could never even fathom being in that situation, but is that because of the body response? Okay, one, the body response.

So what you were saying about, I have all of those same emergency triggers go off in my body, that cortisol, that adrenaline, that fighter flight, but I'm just sitting there, right? So on a physical level, your body's filled with all these chemicals that were made to make you run or hide. And we're just frozen so that those chemicals get trapped in our body. So on a very practical level, that's happening to us all the time. You know, we're talking about a bombing, but that happens when you, like, see your best friend with, a group of people, you know, it happens in all these little and big ways when we're seeing everybody else's life and it's just stuck. So a lot of that depression and anxiety that I was feeling that a lot of us are feeling is just the practical trappedness of all of those chemicals

in our body that don't have enough time to go through our system. Because our bodies were not made to assimilate that much of the emergency chemicals, right? At these rates. That's not a human pace of intaking that level of stress. And so that's why you're seeing people come in and be like, I don't know what's wrong. I can't get rid of the anxiety. There's not a specific issue. It's literally just us taking in either I call big T trauma or little T trauma or different levels of so many different events that we're just consuming on an everyday basis. Now, the question is, what do you do about it? So one part of it is the chemical thing. There's three parts. The second part is in your human life, the way humans were made and how we have evolved to this point in history, we actually

spend a tremendous amount of our pre phones, pre screens, we spend a tremendous amount of our energy building our resources. If you are in real life, like what I'll tell people is if you have 24 hours away from your phone, or let's just say away from the internet, internet doesn't work in your house or life for 24 hours. And you make a list, I have people, make a list. I have a journal specifically for this of everything you would do, everything you want to do and need to do without the internet. You could fill up a whole journal, thousand things, right? And what I have found is every single thing that someone puts in that book is actually a resource that will help them in life. Every single thing. Like give me an example.

Most people will wake up, roll over, pick up their phones and start scrolling through something. scroll through Instagram for the first hour of the morning. They're waking themselves up. They're like, I don't know, whatever that is. If you woke up and just stared at a wall for the first hour that you woke up, it would actually feed your body nourishment. But we consider that wasting

time. Right. And actually what we're doing when we're on our screens is one, usually we are wasting time. Absolutely. Tremendous, I would say, 80% of the time. And they're depleting themselves of resources. So you're using up all those stress coping mechanisms in that first hour. If you're getting triggered, you're getting triggered, you're jerking triggered. And then you're

waking up and facing your day. And you've just emptied your gas tank for no reason. So you would have all that energy and resources. You'd have, if you laid in bed, you'd be like, oh, you know what I need to do? And also the other part is your brain, even if you weren't looking at traumatic content, even if you weren't looking at things that emotionally triggered you, which it seems that women do more than men, your brain only has a capacity to assimilate so much information. So we are like taking about a thousand times as much information in a minute as people did a hundred years ago in their entire lifetime. Whoa.

And so our brains, part of that anxiety and depression is our brains like, slow down, slow down. I can't do it. And then we try to go to sleep at night and our brain's like, oh good, finally, I can organize all this information. And so we're like, yeah, because we can't get it. into our system. Which is why people probably have a harder time sleeping, getting actual good rest is, I'm sure, such an issue. And we all know that sleep deprivation can cause anxiety, the stress, all of those things. And that's, we're just keep doing it to ourselves.

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play-through within seven days. See terms at casino.draftkings.com slash players' choice. Restrictions apply. You said something like, you're like, I get it. Work is on your phone. How do we limit ourselves? Or I always say you're the curator of your own media intake. So what accounts are you following? I'm sure that helps. But what's like a solution to the problem. So this is now what I do full time. Like I will not do traditional counseling anymore because what I was seeing is if you don't deal with your phone issues, we're wasting our time in the care of the office because you're just going to be retramatizing yourself. as soon as you walk out of this office. Yeah, like in the mornings, I wake up and I purposely do not go to my phone. I put on a meditation. I, like, sit and I stare at my dogs for a little bit because people have told me, and I've done counseling around this where I'm like, okay, but that's just a tiny little piece of the day.

Right, but it's a great start. And it's a great place for people to start. So what I say is the number one most important relationship in your life is your relationship with your phone. It's not your dogs. It's not your partner. It's not your job. number one relationship and so until you get that in a healthy place in your life it will impact

every other relationship you have including your relationship with yourself so i don't have a smartphone okay at all tell me you have a flip phone so i don't have a flip phone i have i have a gab phone and then a lot of people are getting light phone so it's basically a call and text phone the reason it's not a flip phone which maybe they're better now it's just it's easier to use right more user-friendly Yeah. So text and call, alarm clock. Yeah. There you go.

Yeah. So I have that. I truly believe, like, deepest part of me is I look to like, not just a better future, but we're like in such a dangerous place. Oh my gosh. I know. You're an adult. So like think about kids who've been on this since they were babies, which is what's happening now. So development, like we have to find another way or we are not going to exist as a species soon.

Everybody's least favorite research is. is that these have only been in our lives for about 10 years. That's what scares me the most because if it's already, right, if we're already here in 10 years. And we know, you and I can say we know the mental health implications, or mental illness implications rather. What is crazy is that our eyeballs are already changing shape. Right now, look at your phone.

Okay. Okay, keep looking. Keep looking. Pretend you're scrolling. See how you're looking? See how you're looking? Yeah. Okay. Now, Caitlin, look around the room.

So where your eye patterns move is showing how many places of your brain you're connected to. So there's two things. One, your brain only has to stay in this one place, which is so dangerous because the more you use one muscle and the less you use other muscles, one will overdevelop and you've communicated to your body and your brain. I don't need these other muscles, right? And people are losing their peripheral vision just after 10 years and changing shape, which means if we continue on this trajectory, and we haven't seen it.

starting at birth yet, we will very soon have a disability in which people can only work on screens. They will not be able to go on hikes. They will not be able to build houses 10 years. And that's in adults. That isn't even showing children yet. The ways this is changing us on an evolutionary level, what I keep telling people is today you have a choice. You still have a choice. And every year, I don't know how much longer will have a choice. So that being said, I believe the number one thing every one needs to do is get another phone that only calls and texts. Wow. Number one thing.

And I think it's the only phone that kids should have, but I think every adult should have one because we are absolutely breaking ourselves in this world of 24-7 available work. That's never worked for any human being in the history of the world. Why do we think it all of a sudden is going to work for all of us? What's basically saying is taking this one thing, addiction, is one solution to all of your problems. And our phones have become the thing we have. been trying to go to for every single issue, feeling, sensation, connection. It defines addiction.

So the way that you heal from an addiction is you turn that one thing into 10 things or 100 things. So it's doing exactly the opposite of what we've done. Get an alarm clock. Get a watch. Get a phone that texts and calls. Use your laptop for work, not your phone. Set up hours that you work on your laptop. You do not bring your job with you to the lake, to bed. This thing, I just discovered this sort of in my last round of kind of talking about it. When you think about your house, for example, which we're in your house right now, which is so generous and trusting and like, I'm letting people into my house. You know, you don't just let anybody into your house, right? So however many followers you have on social media, what number of those followers would you let into your house?

Like two? Like whoever is my closest friends and family. Give me a number. Okay. Let's say how many people? 50. Yeah. That's probably just an appropriate amount for a human to be able to intake.

Right. Into the intimate walls of their house. Of those 50, how many are you going to let into your bedroom? 20. And of those 20, how many are you going to let your bed? One. Yet, we lay in our beds with all of those people. We wake up with them.

We go to sleep with them. And our bodies, the thing that's so scary to me about this is that when we get in bed, we're in our jammies. We're in our most vulnerable, exposed state. And that's where we look at all this stuff. So if I'm in the airport, from the airport in Manhattan, and I'm seeing some trauma on a screen, I'm in a different guarded kind of way, right? But when I'm in bed, I'm vulnerable, exposed and open. And so what I'm starting to realize is it's not just the content. It's where we consume the content that we have this different set of coping and protective layers.

Yeah. We're just opening up our spirits, our hearts, and our minds to get into some really deep places when we're looking at social media on in bed. It's crazy, too, because I'm going through something right now where, I mean, by the time this comes out, everyone's going to know, but like I'm going through a breakup with someone I was engaged to. Now we both are public figures. We both came from the same show. We have all these followers who we've let in and we've invited them into our lives and our relationship and our home and what we're doing morning, afternoon, night. It's become part of like business, but also I feel like I'm supposed to entertain. I love using my phone to entertain. But now I've gotten to this point where something like going through a breakup, it's a loss. It's grief. going through like the thought of losing somebody, all of these big emotions. And now these people are on the other end of this phone expecting you to share it with them while you're going through it. Then they think you're hiding something from us. Why wouldn't you be honest? I thought you were an open book. I thought you were this. And just tell us already that you guys are broken up.

And I'm holding so much responsibility because I see them as this community that I've built for myself and it is affecting my mental health so much, even though I have the logistic side of my brain that goes, these people have their own things going on. They have their own traumas. They have their own dark places. They're looking to me for an escape. Like, this isn't reality. You have to give yourself time first before you give strangers on the internet time, no matter how much you think they're your community or family. But then my other side goes, oh my gosh, they hate me. I'm going to lose all the support and people are judging me and they think it's just all me and it's my fault and my brain is like, here's the logic of everything and then here's the emotion and I'm finding

myself in the middle of that. I just want to cry. I just want to cry. Yeah. Like I can't even imagine that. Yeah. Like having been through some really tough breakups, that's so painful and hard. So painful. Without having to manage. Anybody else's thoughts, our opinions about it. So what you need to know is I only have five definitions of media trauma right now. Part of that was the cleverness of M-E-D-I-A. We were able to come up with one for each letter. Right.

But you are helping me know a new one. Really? This is the sixth one. Like my heart, like I'm in two places. Like I'm feeling for you just on a deeply personal human girl level. Yeah. And then like the therapist in me is. like, so I'll just tell you because there's so many people going through it.

I'm just going to tell you what I would tell any client in my office. Surely you've experienced certain levels of trauma from being in media that we haven't even touched on. Yes. You've probably talked about on your shows or maybe you've only talked about in your therapy. There's no one who's in the public eye that doesn't have a visceral reaction to the term media trauma from the inside.

Right. Right. So just the whole idea of even getting canceled or the fear of being canceled, that's It's like a modern day version of getting excommunicated. Right. It's incredibly traumatic. Other than being physically harmed, it's about, and maybe even a more traumatic thing. Right.

So that's real. But it is so easy to forget that you don't owe anybody anything. But the problem is you built this. Right. It's kind of your Frankenstein. You built the monster. You fed the monster. and then at any given time that monster can eat you, right?

What is so important, every time I get in this conversation, there's always someone that says, well, I mean, there's got to be a way we can balance out, like social media and our personal lives and whatever, as long as we know who we are and that this isn't the real us or whatever. And I have this, like, strong reaction of you cannot balance it. Yeah. You can't because you know, anyone who's listening to this knows,

you scroll through your Instagram and you can see 10,000 beautiful. amazing things. You can have 10,000 beautiful, amazing things said about you. And then one thing can be said, it's like, it's not an amount of time that balances itself out, right? Right. So that being said, I do not believe there's a way you can balance it at all. The only good thing that you can do is put it in the proper order. When you go through a personal loss, you need to go dark for as long as you need to go dark. And, you know, in the Jewish tradition during times of if they would cover mirrors for two reasons one you're not supposed to be thinking about yourself right now right but two so you don't have to see yourself in pain well that's sad right and so

what i want to say to you is if you want to be someone who has something to offer the public yes it will be essential for you to go dark for times as long as you need to to be a whole person to come back can have anything to offer. I am going to prove you wrong. I sure hope you do. I am because that is my plan. Having to also be in the public eye and come out with a statement for everybody is so crazy to me, but also gives me the opportunity for them to understand it and then start to move on because otherwise it just keeps going. We're doing that today. And I would love to go dark. I want to do all of the things that I've learned over the last 11 years of therapy. So I got this like poster board and last night I wrote a target like that just keeps getting bigger. So I did the middle circle. The main one I

put Jason and Caitlin. Those are the two people that matter through this right now. And then on the outside it's like our family. And then outside of that is like our really closest friends. And then outside of that is like gosh, I don't know if you're close with your cousin or whatever. But outside of that, I can't let that come into this. I can't let that. I can't answer to that. I can't answer to it. I can't take that on as a responsibility for their feelings. I'm a mega empath and I do take it on and I can't. And I'm so in I when I saw that I go yeah, I can't go on social media then because that's allowing that to be more important. And these are the people that matter in this time. And I know that hurts for some people to even like my off the vine listeners like,

I've let them in so much that it might even hurt their feelings that I'm like, sorry, you don't matter. Okay. We'll flip it, though. Okay. If you want to be like, oh, buy this product because I have this product, right? You trust yourself and your audience trusts that. Yes. What would it be like to actually model?

I'm going dark and I'm not telling you what's going on in my life to show you you. Yeah. You're allowed to go dark and not tell anybody what's going on in your life. And the thing I'm seeing a lot, and I don't know how young your demographic is, but it's getting younger and younger every day. What I saw in my daughter was in middle school, which was forever ago now, was that you saw these kids processing all of their trauma in real time on Instagram. It was so terrifying to me as a mom and a therapist because when you start processing

your trauma publicly to a screen, you are extending your trauma. You are taking your trauma and using it against yourself. You aren't going to heal in that process. You are traumatizing and re-traumatizing yourself because you will not get in the virtual world the care that you will get in the real world. First with yourself. You don't know how long this will take you. You have no idea.

It's not like, oh, in 30 days, I'm going to pop back up and be ready. You'll be ready when you're ready. Okay, my gals, are you with me that summer? worst time to suffer with an uncomfortable bra the heat no no thank you now thankfully honey love has revolutionized the bra games so do what i did upgrade from traditional bras that use uncomfortable underwire and bulky fabrics that just trap in heat honey loves bras feature supportive bonding that eliminates the need for underwire without sacrificing lift plus they're made with fabric that's super soft it feels like you're wearing nothing you'll immediately feel and see the

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I go like I'm bawling my eyes out and I want to help others through if you're going through hard time and I just find that like builds this incredible connection and I like it to be like this place on the internet where you don't just see all the perfect images and you see the real for who I am and what I'm going through but I have the hardest time finding like the line of what's too much because then I don't also want to trigger anyone else for them to see me crying and you know it's just like this confusing time where I want to show up as this authentic person and be, if I'm going to be an influencer, I want to influence people to know that like it isn't all happy on social media and perfect. And I don't know where to draw the line.

I would say the line is when you don't need to do that anymore. What one is that? When you don't have a need to. So that's how you know. That's how you know when it's time to write the book. What's happened in the last 10 years in particular is what used to happen in the therapeutic space or inside a super intimate safe relationship is now happening with all cameras on right that is media trauma right you're taking someone's intimate trauma and you're saying it belongs to the whole world right they have access to it they have seen it now we have been touched by so many people who've been through traumatic stories and then share their stories and we see their resilience we want to emulate that but what's happened

is we have too much ability to exploit ourselves too early in the process, and that is its own kind of trauma. So this happens all the time as a therapist. For instance, if you were my client and I was currently going through a breakup, and you're like, I'm going through this breakup. In the therapeutic relationship, the rules are I don't disclose my breakup until I'm through until I've ended the grief process because what happens in that moment is then it becomes about my I can't see and now you're worried about me or whatever now if you're my friend you know what I'm saying I'm not going to be like in the position of being an influencer the same is true don't share it until you have worked through it and it's not because you're keeping secrets or you're hiding it's

because you will show up in a way that becomes more harmful to you and to other people if you haven't come to the end of your process, right, if you're still not in the middle. And you know when you're in the middle. That doesn't take a professional. Now I'm kind of laughing at myself because I'm like, I said I'd go dark. I was like, I'm in for like a couple days. But you're saying like you should do that until you are healed from if you're going to talk about that. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Exactly. You don't want to use your audience to process your trauma. Now maybe it's a good time to write a book. Even if it's just for myself. That's exactly right. Yeah. You write it for you and you let it come to the end of itself because what happens when you're in the public eye grief is a wild ride

yeah and there are things you will say and do in that process that one aren't fair for the public to have access to yeah two it won't be your advice at the end of the story that's so true right i was nothing on instagram right other than that i was super early right it's like like i only knew one other person on instagram and facebook when i really so i was super early and i had a knack for it yeah super young so um I cannot explain to you. And like, this is, this is the day I'm going to get a phone call from you if you get to this place. Like, how old were you when you first got really active on social media? I was probably 25 and I'm 38.

Okay. Yeah. So this is just me, just this little old mom, two kids, you know, a therapist. Yeah. What do I have to share on social media, right? A lot. But I think, like, but like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, whatever.

I know what you mean. So when my phone broke that day, basically it changed my experience of myself instantly to such an extent that I, that's why I ultimately ended up saying, I'm never going to have a phone again. I'm never going to live like that again. I mean, I'm so excited for you. Like, if you really do this, social media changes your brain. Yeah. Every single thing that you're telling me, I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

Because I used to think in all of those same. constructs that you're thinking right now and when you're not on social media your brain goes back to being you in your head in your life and you never have to explain anything like that to yourself again damn it changes the way you think it changes the way you see the world changes the way you see yourself and it will change every single relationship all for the better I do believe you so you're asking good questions and you're asking unnecessary questions. Damn.

It's so hard. It's so hard because I love showing up on here. You think you do. You think you do because it's all you know. It's how, you know, it's how you know you exist in the world. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

I mean, the number one fear I had when I first got off of social media is, well, I even exist anymore. Right. And that's how powerful it is. Have you ever watched like a black media? your episode like that's what that reminds me of is that you you think you don't exist without this and putting yourself out there and showing the high highs and all these moments like you think well who am i if i don't have that you exist for everyone by yourself yeah wow but then i'm like

well then i won't have a podcast and then i wouldn't have that's not true really i have a podcast oh you've a podcast i thought you just did okay wait tell me about your podcast you're going to love what it's called what is it lose the phone Yes, as I'm like sitting here reading my notes for you. The idea is that, well, it's morphed because it was supposed to be, give me 30 days to change your life. So it was lose the phone, find the flow. And I was going to take, well, I have one person, so I've got my first, our first season just finished. And basically it's like you're going to get rid of your smartphone, get a dumb phone instead.

A dumb phone. The company, the gab company did research the whole time on. This is the phone that you have. Okay. So that company did research on the first artist, basically gave up his phone to see, could he, what would he write? So music artists. What would he write and create in 30 days if, if creativity took the place of his phone. Oh, gosh. I bet it was beautiful. First 30 days. So the first season just documents those first 30 days happen. Nothing. He hasn't written anything. He hasn't done anything because all he can do, he's just figuring out reality. He's re-engaging with reality. And it was like, So we talk a ton about that. He asks Gab and me to extend it another 30 days because he hasn't started writing yet. So now I know, oh, this is a 60-day process.

So the next 30 days he wrote four or five hours a day. And so then the end of the podcast is him playing the music that he wrote during this time. And like what happened to his brain and his life and relationships in that process. And so every season is going to be a different person who picks an aspect of their life that they want to see improve. and they're willing to give up their phone for it. My eyes are watering. That is the coolest thing ever. I know.

What a brilliant concept and important and like I'm sure so rewarding for people and not only for the people doing it, but the people that'll be listening and seeing the proof and the pudding of like what it does. I've not been on social media in years, six or seven years. I haven't had a phone for longer than that. And I have done a TEDx talk. I've written a book. I have a podcast. I'm on your podcast right now. Yeah. Like, it, it, my mission in life is to prove you can be and do and have like opportunities that do not without social media.

But you're proving me wrong. Right. I'm obsessed. I can't wait. So how could people, is it out? Is that season out? Yeah. Yeah. It's on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts. That is a really cool idea. Not fun. Yes. And was the music just like, was he just, transformed. It's just, it's been such an incredible thing to watch. Even the, like, kind of tension, like in his voice, like watching him relax. Yeah. And I've talked about my experience with Hoffman so much on this podcast. But like when I came out of that week, people, of course, after you've done it, you don't want your phone back because you realize how free you feel and you're more present and you're so in the moment with other people and you have deeper conversations and you see different things that you don't see before and all of these things. So when I went to Hawaii for three days

after, I didn't turn on the TV once. I did a little bit of social media, but was very aware of what it was doing if I was on it. And anyways, I saw the most beautiful things in the whole world because I was looking around. And that's another thing that we're not doing is just like you're talking about that peripheral vision and just seeing the world. But okay, this is a very deep conversation and a deep question, but I have a huge fear of having kids because of all of this, because of what life could look like in 10 years with all the things we're talking about. And I always thought having a family would be, I can't wait, I want to be a mom, all these things. And each year that goes on, I get more and more terrified to have kids.

And then there's shame around that too, because how could you not want to? That's what you are born to do is procreated, do this. and you know the shame around all that with not having kids what is your thought on that um it's why i'm doing what i'm doing yeah i i feel responsible like if somebody doesn't say this is wrong it's not okay i believe it's abusive yeah i believe it is abusive and that it has to stop like i'm not going to stop until it is if not illegal absolutely unacceptable socially for someone under age of 18 to have a smartphone um and i think that social media is um it has convinced the world that nothing exists without it and that is a lie yeah that nothing like that's ever been in

existence so how could it possibly be that we could not function without it and so my my mission like the reason i will never go back on social media is because i have to prove that there is a path that exists without it for myself and for anybody else who is being harmed by the way someone has convinced them they have to live their life that that is abuse yeah and you should not have to suffer these particularly traumatic consequences to do what you do right that that's not okay and if if you feel that way of course you don't want to have kids in that world because you don't want your kids to feel this way. Yeah. And then, you know, they come home and their friends all have it and they're upset because, and then you're the bad guy if you don't give it. And every group

of parents is like, I'm worried about my kids. I'm worried about what am I supposed to do about my kids. Right. And I tell every single group, do not even consider what you need to do for your kids until you get this out of your life. Because you are not an available present parent until this is not there. So you are not ready to have kids yet. That's so true. That's why you're not ready to have kids. It's so true, though, because I, of course, want to lead by example, and that's such a huge part of parenting. Again, this all goes back to, it's probably not even, I know the answer. It's probably I'm worried about what people on social media are going to say about a girl who's single again at 38, not having a family and blah, blah, blah, like, I'm just like. You've got to deal with yourself about that.

I know. That is a big thing to process. Yes, it is. So, okay, this isn't interesting. Let's see if we can make this connection. Okay. So other very, very heartbreaking research is how many kids are having attachment disorders now for this one reason. When parents are feeding their babies.

So now imagine. Yeah. Feed your baby. Yes. Feed your baby, right? My skull baby. Right? So, no, like, hold your area.

Yeah. Okay. How do you imagine? Like, I'm rocking my baby on the beach. I'm feeding my baby and act out that moment. Like, you're an act. Act it out. Okay. What are you doing?

I would be. Right. Okay. Yes, I would be doing this. Right. Talking to it. Stroking the hair. Now in reality, Ms.

Influencer Caitlin. Yeah. What do you think you're going to be doing during the 10,000 boring, exhausted hours of feeding your baby? This. So guess what? Baby's number one attachment is made from eye contact while it's being fed. And all these babies have lost that. So we are seeing.

attachment issues after attachment issues because they did not get eye contact because it does start that young it starts in the womb doesn't it right the feeling that is so sad because i obviously not a mom and even i have said to myself oh my gosh how are people getting night nurses because isn't that your bonding time and how are people scrub but when you're in it you're exhausted you think well isn't getting sleep more important than like so i could show up as a better Or is the real thing. Right. Well, so what I was realizing as you were talking is, guess who you're holding right now?

Me. And what do you need? That, that, that, this, me, right here. Yeah. Nowhere else, but right here. It's boring. It's exhausting. It's unfulfilling.

It's sad. There's more healing than you know that needs to be done. Gosh, I've done a lot. You tap into the first level. Yeah. And you tap into it. You have done so much. Until you've done it where nobody else knows about it, it hasn't gotten down, gotten down, gotten down to those deeper places.

Wow. So you need that time and attention. Yeah, I do. And I need it to come from myself. Instead of picking out my phone lately, I've been trying to just open my book instead. But even that, to me, feels like a numbing tool sometimes because it's an escape. I think we do need little escapes, you know, from ourselves. We just don't need ones that are taking over our consciousness and abusing us.

Great point. that's very valid very fair AI is terrifying to me which is another thing that is all going to happen from your cell phone which is another thing that we need to protect the next generation from but it's just like it's so scary to think that you're one person you're doing as much work as you can through yourself through helping others and understanding all but like in reality phones are just getting crazier and more you know AI more like um really, I don't know the word for it, toxic, I guess, or unhealthy things are coming from our phones every month or something new. I guess there's not like an answer. Yeah, I have been through

this. Right. Layers and layers and layers of this. And to believe, like, I deeply believe in practice to be the change that I want to see. Yeah. Yeah. And what I kind of like a spoiler alert, like I don't want you to know this. Like I want you to discover this. Yeah. Yeah. Um, The change that you will make in your world by your deep, internal, connected healing that does not exist for anyone except for you, what that will do is more impactful and influential than anything that you put out there. And so for me, I say, I want to live at a human pace that, you know, screens were not made for humans. They're made for profits. Your phones were not made for humans. they were made for profit right and so the more i learned to function at a human pace the more

anyone i have contact with in real life has permission to act in a human pace and once you get a taste for that once you start actually living in the stream that you were made to live in it's like being a fish finally in water yeah yeah instead of like flopping yeah you when you taste or see or hear something from that world, it does not work for you. It doesn't work. It's not, you don't want it. Right. It's like, why would I want that? I have the real thing. The last thing I'm going to ask you is, I'm blanking on the term for it. You have some term for treats. Inside treats. Inside treats. What is an inside treat? So exactly what you just said. An inside treat is when you're when you're with your boyfriend and nobody knows and you've found this road

back behind whatever and this song comes on that becomes ultimately becomes your song right that's an inside treat yeah that's an inside treat and it goes somewhere that cannot be taken away and when the moment you take that this is our song i remember when we heard it on the drive whatever and you post about it it's gone it now exists for everybody else's consumption and guess what they consume it yeah they sure do it's now theirs it's not yours yeah you've literally fed other people your inside treats but social media promises to give you everything right yeah it can give you everything yeah and it will take everything away from you it will cost you everything to get everything social media has to give you.

That is deep and true. But, okay, I was thinking there's a Thomas Merton quote. Do you know who Thomas Merton? No, but I'm excited. He was a monk that's now very famous. Monks aren't famous, but he wrote a lot in the monastery, which is, I think, in Kentucky. And one of his, I think he died in the 60s.

Okay. And one of his quotes is, the more you make of yourself, the less you actually exist. The more you make of yourself, the less you actually exist. So think about the bigger and bigger your presence is in the virtual world. Yeah. The less your presence is in your actual world.

That makes a lot of sense. It's like we crave happiness and this life of healing and getting there. Wholeness. And wholeness, yet we know we're doing everything wrong to get there. But it's not, it's not your fault. Right. Yeah. It's not your fault.

Like this is really. I mean, that's why, so my first 10 years were in abusive relationships. That's why I could see, like, wait, what's going on here? So it's not just that I think that it's media trauma. The way our platforms are designed actually follow the trauma bonds dynamic that keeps people in abusive relationships. One of those things is a promise to fulfill a deep need, an inability to ever fulfill that promise, but to give little bits of positive feedback along with punishments at intermittent

times, that that is an abusive relationship. Yeah. And that is the design of our platforms. So you're in a toxic abusive relationship because you're in a relationship with an abuser, which is the monster of media. It's really crazy to think about it that way, but it is, it is that deep. Like, it really is that deep. If you do the deep diving on it.

Yeah. A couple takeaways that I took from this was that I really want to do the journal, write down what I would do with no internet for 24 hours. I really like that. I like takeaways and I like practices. So I'm going to do that. And then I really loved, and I've never thought about this, the inside treat, inside treat where if you do have that moment and it is special to you.

And of course, I want to share it. but keep it in because you said something where it's you're you're now giving them it is consumed and it's no longer yours and it's no longer right you know sacredness um you use the word sacred and then you said like a special moment right but your deepest pain is also incredibly sacred right yeah and so those sacred moments are for you they are intended to nourish you those inside treats, build up and give you the resources you need to handle difficult, stressful challenges in your life. So what I tell people is make a journal and put resources on the front cover.

Every time you think of it, anything that you have to do, need to do, or want to do, that's not on the screen, that's not on the internet, and keep making your list. And then every minute you have available to you, do something in that book. And I call this the math of being human. When your anxiety and your depression are increasing, all you have to do, it's your body is telling you, I don't have enough resources for what I need to do now. And so when you go back to that resource book, it's putting gas in your tank. It's putting, you know, food in your body. It's cleaning up your space.

Like whatever you will not have anxiety and depression if you have enough resources. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that, my Hoffman binder is my, like, go-to right now because there's so much beautiful information in there that I can flip to and remind myself. But I need to write my own things down more as well. Well, and you need to know what to do with your time. Yeah. Like, we're functioning at these super high levels of, I need to remind myself that I am whole. Yes. Blah, blah, blah. It's all this, like, whatever. We're not spending our time and our energy communicating to ourselves yeah you need food you need rest you need a clean space you need to talk to a friend and have eye contact yeah yeah so it's really about how you spend your free time yeah

and and realizing how much free time you actually have right wow i learned so much today i'm like i'm like sad scared and also hopeful all at the same time that's good that's really thank you so much i'm i can't wait for people to listen to your podcast as well i can't wait to I can't wait for you too either. That's awesome. And just thank you for your time to do this important work and share it with. I'm glad I somehow found you. Shocker, right? Shocker. And you don't even have social media. Right. That's you, you proved so many points to me just with that alone. I'm like, and I still found you. Yep. Yep. Okay. Well, thank you. It was so great to meet you. So nice to meet you too. Thank you for like me to be one of the 50 people in your house. You really are.

I'm Caitlin Bristow. I'll see you next. We're next Tuesday. Hey, hi there. I just want to tell you about a quick podcast study here. As you know by now, we all do our very best to align the right sponsors to the podcast. It is a lot of work behind the scenes, and I'm incredibly grateful for your support. We're currently running a quick survey at podcast 1.study, and we're giving the first 150 people a $10 digital Amazon gift card as an incentive to complete the survey. The information we hear from you

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