Balm restock & offline thoughts
Delete the app in your head
Two updates: one shop related and one about my changing relationship with social media. I mentioned the latter in my last email and got a lot of replies, so I want to expand on it. But first, the former.
I’m pouring a new batch of The Healer Balm next week (the first batch poured in the new space!) and I’m opening up pre-orders to help me gauge what sizes you want this go around. Balms will ship by the end of next week. I will be updating my shop less frequently as my fall semester gets underway (eee!), so if you know you want a Healer Balm this autumn, you may want to stock up now.
I deleted the Instagram app from my phone a week before our wedding in late June. I was following the practice of abstaining from inebriants of all kinds in the week leading up to a ritual. I had gotten into the habit of periodically deleting the app from my phone earlier that spring and really liked the effect it had on my general ability to be present. It was an easy choice to abstain from it leading up to an important ceremony.
In my last email I included “Deleted my instagram” in the list of things I did this summer, but I should have been more specific (because a few people messaged me about being sad my account was gone!) I didn’t delete my account, just the app from my phone, and I just haven’t been able to bring myself to download it again.
My purpose with this piece of writing is to share reflections about an app I used to spend quite a bit of time and energy on and how my relationship with it completely changed in a relatively short time.
If you are rolling your eyes like, “deleting the instagram app off your phone is not a big deal, please get ahold of yourself.” I am honestly right there with you. I can’t count the amount of times I have seen people making big “I’m deleting instagram” announcements only to quietly return a few weeks later. It’s a funny phenomenon. It’s hard not to feel like, it’s not that deep, babe. Keep doing what you’re doing! We don’t need this update.
But for those of us who have largely made our living from connecting with an audience that we have mostly found through one app for the better part of a decade, it does feel like a big deal. It feels like a big risk to disconnect.
Years ago my friend Chanelle, a fellow herbalist, told me, you can delete your instagram and still have a successful business. At the time, I loved using Instagram so I brushed the sentiment off with the thought: Interesting, but it doesn’t apply to me.
I thought about that comment a lot this summer as I watched waves of new subscribers roll in alongside orders to my shop despite my radio silence. That was one of the biggest revelations I had about being offline. That it might not be as big of a deal for business as you might think.
A more personal reason I had for being offline: I don’t like to be influenced during moments of big transition, which has largely defined my summer. I have to hand it to that part of myself that instinctively looks out for my best interests: I think it was a much better choice for my mental health this summer during all of our moves and changes to get lost in a fantasy book series and long form pieces of writing than subconsciously comparing myself to the endless scroll.
It is natural for social media preferences to change.
This is not the first time I have loved and left an app that was once an important tool for connecting with my peers and for sharing inspiration. I grew up on xanga, myspace, and tumblr - social media sites I have all long since left. Right now I would so much rather share and consume deep, investigative writing on substack than 15 second blips elsewhere. Tastes change.
On that note, I keep hearing that we don’t absorb most of the information we consume when we get lost in rabbit holes of short form, rapid-fire videos. Turns out we are mostly scratching a dopamine itch akin to gambling that is not great for our brain, specifically our frontal lobe. So, what is the point of pouring energy into creating educational herbal and garden content that likely won’t even be absorbed by the people watching it? But will rather contribute to the shortening of their overall attention span? Seems like it might be a bit of a time waster for both the creator and the consumer - and no judgement! I have spent plenty of time on both ends of that.
And the most obvious and heaviest reason for needing to step away from instagram: my heart and brain cannot make sense of the non-stop stream of Palestinian mass death alongside videos about matcha ice cream, new sweaters, and opinions supporting and defending the rise of fascism.
Let me be clear, I am not looking away from the horrific war on Palestine and the suffering all over the world. I just don’t believe instagram is the only or best place to learn about it. Again, opting for longer form pieces to read and listen to has felt like a better way to engage.
The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. This is currently where I am at. My intense appreciation for the app turned to a strong aversion and now that is melting into something that feels a lot more like indifference. Now that I’m feeling somewhat settled into my new place, I’m starting to have thoughts like - oh it might be fun to share before and afters of the studio and garden via instagram. Maybe I will. But only if it feels fun. And with the understanding that my relationship with the app has fundamentally changed. It is not the axis of my business anymore. It’s an app I can freely delete or tune into when it feels good. And turns out, it’s of no consequence when I decide to delete it again. That is, if I can ever bring myself to open it up again.
Sharing Amanda’s GoFundMe again - it’s getting close to meeting the goal! Since many of you are herbalists or herbal adjacent, you might already be aware of Amanda David and her company (Rootwork Herbals), school (The Peoples Medicine School) and farm (The Jane Minor BIPOC garden). For those of you who are not, go ahead and read about the work she does, it’s awesome! I witnessed the beauty of it all first hand for years and when I lived in the Ithaca area, Amanda was quick to welcome me in and help me feel like I was part of the herbal network there. I’ll never forget her generosity and welcoming spirit and the way it made me feel as a new person in the community. Thank you for considering donating to her relocation fund so that she and her family can be safe and so she can focus on the beautiful work that she does with and for her community.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments - I’m interested in hearing about your relationship with social media too. Also, it helps my little newsletter when you engage with it via giving it a <3 or leaving your thoughts.
Holding onto these last days of August,
Geraldine
Whoa, "delete the app in your head". Yeah!
Right there with you, Geraldine! Been a gift to be away from Instagram and I don't plan to ever use it the same way again. <3