Escaping the social media bubble
I’m at the end of a voluntary (and now I’m thinking I totally could have done something extra with it like got people to sponsor me in a whole Sober October kind of way) Facebook break. I decided on an arbitrary amount of time that I thought would be enough to give me more insight into my Facebook habits and also help break some of them. So it was for ‘at least two weeks’ and it’s done now.
How has it been? Remarkably similar to giving up any other substance you’re addicted to, to be honest (or, indeed, like a detox and this kind of break has been described as a digital detox). The first couple of days I was quite jumpy and reaching for my phone or opening up Edge on my desktop, almost certainly with the subconscious intent of hitting Facebook. And now, almost two weeks in, I’m finding I miss the habit of it (just like I missed the habit of smoking for a few weeks after the nicotine had left my body) more than the actuality of it.
Mostly, the habit that is still niggling, is the having a moment to wait for something – a pause in work, a kettle to boil, the school bell to ring… I’m doing it less, but I am still automatically reaching for my phone (or the browser icon on the computer) quite a bit. That seems to be one of the things that smartphones and social media has brought – a need to fill every moment with something, and the fear that not doing so will somehow make us inefficient or unproductive or whatever. But I think those empty moments are really important for mental health and maybe even physical health (no, I don’t have facts and statistics to back this up, this is just me mulling over my personal experiences). At first, I started just replacing Facebook with something else digital and online (looking at the headlines, scrolling through Instagram or Pinterest, trying to find other news or commentary sites to read when I’d read everything on The Guardian (OK, probably not everything, because I rarely click through past the front page)… But I’ve gradually started reaching for a magazine (I have three subscriptions now and I’m behind in reading some of them – I did, just, manage to finish the previous issue of Flow the morning before the new issue arrived, but I have two The Simple Things to finish and the new one just turned up (beautiful cover!) and I have one and a half issues of Breathe to catch up on, too) or a book, instead. Or, I have a couple of mini sketchbooks that sit in my bag and a few pens, so I can doodle or draw when I’m out and about. When I’ve been at my desk, and found myself at a point where my fingers are itching to open up Edge and look at something online I’ve instead put my hands together, taken a few deep breaths (yoga practice coming out, there), and gone back to work. Guess what? Actually more productive and efficient that way, rather than taking ‘breaks’ to scroll through page after page of social media statuses (and adverts). Who’d have thought it?
I’m finding there’s really not much I’m missing by staying off Facebook. I don’t feel I’m going to shut down my account or anything that drastic. But, I think I’ll mostly stay off it. I popped on briefly today and there were a crazy number of notifications, almost none of which were actually of interest, but which would normally have grabbed me away from something else immediately they appeared – things like Friend X commented on the same post as you in Group C, Person B posted in Group Y, etc. etc. So, next time I look in, I will be turning off all of those kinds of notifications. I will look at the groups I’m in and remove myself from some and keep others, but just look at them maybe once a week or a fortnight to see what’s been happening. Usually, there are one or two interesting posts that have a bunch of comments on and that I end up being drawn into every time someone comments. Reading them when people are mostly done commenting will be easier and just as useful as seeing it all ‘in the moment’. I had a brief scroll through my own timeline (my Instagram posts have been automatically posting to Facebook, so not everyone will have realised I wasn’t actually there) and saw that there were some likes and a few comments on the Instagram pictures (mostly daily practice paintings) and I appreciated this, without needing to have seen those likes and comments the second they were posted.
Next thing I’m going to need to deal with is cutting down on looking at Instagram – the same thing applies, that they will still be there if I see them all at once at the end of the day, or in the morning, rather than checking in multiple times to see how many extra likes I’ve got on the latest picture I posted. Though, I actually feel I’ve been cutting down there, too, as a natural adjunct to the Facebook break. It started with probably spending more time on there (and Linked-in, for some reason), but the recognition and self-realisation I’ve come to about Facebook is clearly also relevant to Instagram and others, and my urge to reach for the phone has reduced, which has naturally lead to less Instagram scrolling.
I use Instagram almost entirely for art-based interaction and inspiration. I have got work through pictures people have seen on my Instagram. I love seeing work by others and giving back in some way, by commenting on and liking others’ work (I don’t like and comment on every single picture in my feed, just the ones that really jump out to me). So, I’m not going to give that up. BUT… One of the elements of self-recognition is to understand that Instagram and Pinterest as inspiration are kind of hollow versions of true inspiration and they are their own kind of bubble. They can both lead to the ‘I’m not good enough’ trap that most artists fall into regularly. When you expose yourself to thousands of pieces of art a day, much of it by people at an entirely higher level and far further on in their art career than you, the ‘inspiration’ can lead both to inadvertent copying (one of those images that flashed past you today, may be the source of that awesome idea you have a couple of days down the road, without you realising it), to a feeling that you will never be that good, and to an inability to settle on your own style or preferred method or media. Experimenting with new materials and ways of working is a really important thing to do to grow as an artist, but if you want to do so on a daily basis because of that awesome art that Artist C has been posting this month, or the amazing range of work you’ve seen on Hashtag Q, you’re in serious danger of losing your own focus.
So, I need to come up with a more defined way to cut back on Instagram, without losing it entirely (at least for the moment). There is this idea that there’s lots of work to be got through Instagram and Pinterest, but actually, while there are artists who do get clients and commissions a plenty through social media, many don’t. If I spent half the time I do on Instagram researching and contacting potential clients it’s quite possible that this would be a much more productive and lucrative use of my time. And, obviously, there’s also the whole making art rather than looking at art. The less time we spend scrolling and liking and pinning and tweeting, the more time we have to paint, draw, ink, scribble…
The other thing I think I’ll probably do is remove all the news and political sites from my Facebook feed. I don’t really feel any worse off having got my news direct from the news sites and the ones I haven’t seen in my feed (either through their own Facebook page or through friends sharing them) I don’t feel the loss of. I haven’t really done it yet, but I feel like I may be more likely to get back into writing blog posts about issues that concern me in the news or in politics (or just in general), rather than typing a brief(ish) Facebook status, or a mini rant when hitting ‘Share’ on an article. I kind of feel as though Facebook sucked the writing out of me. Because there were more people who would read and (more ‘importantly’) interact with a post on Facebook than an actual blog post, it became easier to engage with people through Facebook than my blog. (Facebook probably didn’t help this, by mostly not showing people links to blog posts!)
But… while interaction and readers are great, they are not what I ever really blogged for. If you’re new here, you might not know that I was a ‘parent blogger’ – I refuse to call myself a ‘mummy blogger’, sorry – over at www.wahm-bam.org – and got to the point where I was making money from it and getting lots of ‘stuff’ to review. When I started blogging it was purely for the act of writing and to get stuff out of my head and onto a page, which was a really useful and mental-health-friendly thing to do. It was also a good way to share pictures and information about the girls with their grandparents and aunts and uncles. I gradually started writing other things, too, some related to parenting, and some not massively (political, philosophical and personal meanderings through my thoughts and opinions and principles). I wrote up recipes and created new ones. I gathered a small group of other (mostly parent) bloggers around me and we ‘hung out’ together, commenting on each other’s blogs, and sometimes met up in person at conferences or small meet-ups. It was like a virtual coffee morning, or sitting on a friend’s sofa for a couple of hours chatting about the world. And I think social media kind of took that and ran with it and somehow turned it into something else entirely. (For me, at least. I think there are still people who probably get that feeling out of social media and don’t get the whole overwhelm thing.)
The writing was always the most enjoyable and fulfilling part, though. And mostly I’ve always been a dump-it-all-out, rambling kind of writer, rather than someone who plans it all out with headings and bullet points (though I can do that, too), so it’s not really about the craft or even creativity, but maybe more about quietening my head. (Painting and drawing quietens my head in a whole other, much more mindful, way, which is equally as useful.)
I’d love to get back to doing more of this kind of writing (the kind that this whole blog post has been, in fact) and Facebook (etc.) is not the place to do that.
Kokeshi Doll Colouring Pages
It struck me the other day that I haven’t created a new downloadable colouring book in absolutely ages. So I’ve put a new one up on Etsy – it’s chock-full of hand-drawn kokeshi dolls for you to colour and includes some fairly blank ones for you to decorate yourself, as well as plenty with lovely floral and geometric patterns that you can let your pencils loose on.
You can buy the Kokeshi Colouring book from my Etsy store …
… but I’ve also made you a sampler that you can download for free, to get a taste for what’s in the book.
I hope you enjoy these – happy colouring!
Going with the flow – floral pattern
Part of the new calmer lifestyle I’m trying to adopt, I’m throwing out all my design career goals and schedules and plans and ‘going with the flow’. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to do any work for studios – but I will only do so when I have the time and when it’s a call/assignment/trend that really calls out to me. There are opportunities at all of the studios I work with for this, but I have a tendency to try to challenge myself to new things (not always a bad thing, of course) or to do a gazillion designs for one assignment, rather than one considered one.
Mostly, though, I want it to mean getting back to enjoying creating art that I love – both creating and looking at. Enjoying the process and just really embedding myself in whatever I’m creating (this is a mindful thing in itself, I believe, from what I’ve read).
Friday night, I did some loose pen and ink doodling – flowers (so often flowers!) and Saturday night I dived into Illustrator and dug into my most preferred method – and then mixed it up a bit. I had such a lovely time (I did watch something at the same time – that’s a habit I may struggle to break – The Hundred Foot Journey, which was a lovely film to watch) doing and was really pleased with the result.
My favourite is the grey blue background. I like the faded silhouette leaves in the background, but I wonder if they might be better done to fit in much more in the gaps of the main design, rather than just as a repeat behind them.
Anyway, the point is that this is what I love to do. Create patterns from the heart – whether based on drawings, paintings or completely digital. Explore colour combinations and test out what different background colours do to a design (I love how different purely changing the background colour can make the feel of a design). Play about with fitting motifs together in a pleasing way.
I really like the effect of having the black and white collection of flowers, juxtaposed with the colourful print/cutout effect ones. This is a bit of a new thing for me.
The whole process of this was free of stress or anxiety. It was just for me, without the need to meet a brief, meet a deadline, or try to work in new methods. Proper relaxation. I hope I get to do more and more of it.
Peace, calm and embracing single-tasking
I’ve been suffering for a year and a half with numbness down the left side and almost constant dizziness. The severity would change, but it would be there most of the time. I had lots of blood tests done and a bunch of things ruled out. Then I was referred to a consultant neurologist, who ordered more blood tests, an MRI scan and a variety of other tests. He then referred me to a colleague for a second opinion: a couple more tests and a repeat MRI scan, to see if anything had changed. In amongst all that, I also came up with plenty of my own theories, none of which seemed to pan out. I’m now at the point where my next neurology appointment will almost certainly sign me off from them and send me back to the GP to try out other things, but I’m hopeful that I may have worked it out myself, finally.
One of the first questions that one of the first GPs asked (after the one who said ‘It’s a virus. It’ll pass.’) was ‘Do you have a particularly stressful life?’ My answer was ‘No, I don’t think I’m especially stressed.’ And I didn’t think I was. I associated stress with being worried about work and I had got to a really good point with work, where I had a pretty perfect amount that allowed me to make what I needed and do so predominantly in school hours, with the occasional few hours over a weekend or one or two week evenings every few weeks. (After years and years of working 15+ hours a day, this was a pretty good achievement and came mostly through better time management, improved efficiency and also getting the right kind of work.) I had also come to terms with the fact that I am actually good at what I do and had learnt not to worry that I was going to make a big mistake and no-one would ever give me work again. I also associated stress with money worries and, while we certainly aren’t rolling in money, we were comfortable and had built of buffers to deal with any slow work periods, or emergency spending needs.
So, of course I wasn’t stressed. When any of the doctors asked me what I did, I told them I was a publishing project manager. I didn’t mention that I spent four or five hours most days on a separate art career (Because it still felt like a hobby, perhaps? Because it was too much fun to count as work? Because I was still learning?). And I didn’t mention that I was a school governor and a playgroup committee member and a frequent volunteer to do this or that to help with school and playgroup. After the election, when I added to these voluntary commitments by becoming Branch Secretary of my local Labour Party, Women’s Officer for the Constituency Labour Party and also attempting to steer a new Communications Group within the CLP, I didn’t mention that to the new consultant when I met him. Because none of this seemed at all relevant. I love volunteering. I especially love (something that continually surprises me) attending meetings and joining in with discussions and even more love chairing meetings. I love that people listen to me and are interested in what I have to say and feel that it might have some worth. I love the challenge of making sure a meeting runs on time. I love trying to mediate when people get heated in their different opinions (not always successfully) and trying to make sure everyone gets their say and people listen to those who find it harder to speak up. I even quite enjoy writing up and reading reports.
But… one of the reasons I love all of this is that I had become addicted to the tension of anxiety (Would I be on time? Would I be able to keep the meeting running properly? Would I have the time to prepare the report? Would anyone listen to me? Would I say something stupid? Would I make a big mistake? Would be laugh at me? Would people hear me?) followed by the rush of success, or just getting through it. It was like a drug, really, and I think quite possibly there were chemicals and hormones swimming around, contributing to it.
We went on holiday this summer – a full ten days in a beautiful part of the world (Kingsand and Cawsand in Cornwall) staying in my Great Uncle’s lovely cottage there (thank you, Uncle Leslie). While there I did have to do a bit of work, but not much, and I was able to postpone it until we got home, in the end, thanks to some delays somewhere else. I didn’t do anything to do with any of my voluntary roles. I also made a promise to myself and to my family to try really hard to stay away from politics. (The leadership election had been causing me huge amounts of anxiety and sleepless nights, trying to decide who I should vote for and convinced that it was essential to get it right.) I didn’t succeed completely with that, but I did quite well. In addition, we did lots of walking, a fair bit of swimming, and even some ice skating. We had lovely food, lovely company – and even managed to converse about plenty of things without touching on politics! And I had loads and loads of sleep. I was in bed most nights by 10pm and sometimes even earlier, and asleep soon after. And, because there were grandparents there to play with the girls, a good few mornings I got an incredibly long lie-in. I think I probably had a few nights where I slept more than 12 hours (my norm is 5 to 6 hours a night). I sat and read a lot. I sat (or walked) and just looked around me a lot, taking in the beauty of the sea and the cliffs and the rocks and the flowers and foliage. I drew and painted a bit, though nowhere near as much as I thought I would.
And after the first couple of days there was no dizziness and no numbness. None. Normally long walks like we did would have lead to an increase in dizziness and numbness, but they didn’t there. It was totally and utterly wonderful. I also didn’t have a runny nose for the most of the time there, which is an almost permanent thing for me.
Of course, there were a tonne of parameters that could have lead to me feeling well for the first time in a long time, and I think there’s a good chance it was a combination of lots of them. My immediate thought on returning (started sneezing the second I stepped off the train) was that we needed to up sticks and move to the seaside. Still wouldn’t mind doing that, to be honest, but it’s not exactly a quick fix! But I think that getting more sleep was definitely a big part of it and a significant reduction in anxiety and also lot of exercise and fresh air.
Given how much I generally try to fit into my day/week, even leaving the anxiety issues aside, I wouldn’t be able to manage more sleep and exercise without stopping something. But I was also starting to recognise what the anxiety was doing to me, and had been for years. I think it started being a big thing (though I think it was probably something that had always been there to an extent) when I went back to work in-house for a bit. I spent the entire time convinced I would exposed as a fraud (not because I was a fraud, I hasten to add, but because I didn’t have a deep-down belief in my own abilities and strengths). I spent my morning commute worrying about whether I would get everything done, about whether I’d miss an important typo, about whether a typesetter would call to say they’d be late with the proofs and how that would impact on the schedule, about whether anyone would talk to me, about whether something awful would happen to the girls and I’d be 40 minutes away and also reliant on hourly buses. During the summer holidays, when various family members rallied round and took the girls on holidays while I continued going into work, I was constantly worrying about something awful happening to them and being really, really far away. This worry manifested (I now realise) in a stomach constantly ‘tied in knots’. And I had that, almost permanently from then until now, replacing those worries with different ones, adding more and more voluntary commitments, or art courses with deadlines or personal goals that I needed to meet.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have stood down from all my voluntary commitments. It was a hard decision to make, especially as I feel it is really important to give back in whatever way you can – but the important thing to note is that, at the moment, I can’t do it that way. I’ll help out sporadically instead of having a regular responsibility – I’ll probably distribute some leaflets for the local elections and maybe help out with a poster or some baking for school and playgroup, but I won’t be responsible for running meetings, typing minutes, writing reports or making anything happen. For a while.
Each responsibility I shed, I felt my stomach un-tightening. It was quite amazing, really. But that’s not the end of it. I’m still feeling pretty well, but I’ve found the anxiety and tension creeping back in for other reasons now. I’ve been getting tense about getting the girls sorted for going back to school (because I decided, for the first time ever, that we would clear out all the old uniform and go in with brand new uniform to start the term – some of it is worn out and some of it is too small and some, but really plenty of it is still absolutely fine and this was just an extra and unnecessary burden). I started writing down big plans for my art and design, with new goals of learning this, this and that by the end of the year and submitting X numbers of designs to this studio, that studio and the other… Until I recognised that I was actually creating future anxiety right there. I’m instead going to go with the flow, with some very loose areas I would like to improve on and no weekly or monthly schedule. I think I will try to do a daily something, though, as long as it’s a relaxing one and not one that challenges me too much and causes frustration. I’ve even been feeling anxious about not finding enough time to relax and do nothing!
School goes back next week, I need to get back into my work routine properly, which includes a scheduled day for art & design work (any other time can be art & design fun, instead). We’ll also get back into our family routines, with after-school clubs and activities and an earlier dinner and earlier bedtimes for the girls. I’ve already got back to my regular dog walking, which is wonderful. I’m also going to sign up for a yoga class and a mindfulness class. I’m hoping that both of those will help with the learning to relax and let go and that maybe I’ll be able to retrain myself to manage the anxiety and other emotions so that they don’t take over.
The other thing that I’m working myself up to doing, and may well be the hardest of them all, is to try to cut back on social media. I’m sure I’m not the only one who is tied to her phone so much, getting notifications when anyone comments on a post, or posts to a particular group, checking my newsfeed and Twitter stream to see if anything important or interesting has happened, scrolling through Instagram and Pinterest for pretty pictures (yeah, I’m not going to give that one up), sharing political news articles, silly quizzes, funny quotes. I’m going to try to do the thing where you clear out your news feed by choosing ‘don’t show me this’, I’m going to leave some groups and turn off notifications from the rest, I’m going to take Facebook and Twitter off my phone (see, that has my stomach in knots just typing it!) and I’m going to switch my phone off at a certain point in the evening (need to work out when – maybe at dinner time) and leave it until the morning. I’m going to set aside a time in the week to read the FB groups I’m particularly engaged with. I’m still going to be posting to my FB art page and would like to work out how to maybe keep it on there, so I avoid my personal feeds. I’ll also still share pretty pictures and patterns via Instagram (which cross-posts to FB and Twitter). #
I’m also considering taking email off my phone, but I need to work out if that’s a good idea for work or not.
Maybe one day I’ll take on another voluntary commitment. If I can. In the meantime, though, I’m going to do my utmost not to feel guilty and like I’ve given up. I’m taking a necessary break.
Holiday Flowers: New Colouring Book and FREE sampler
While on our holidays this year (in a very beautiful Cornish pair of villages – Kingsand and Cawsand), I did quite a bit of drawing full pages of stylised flowers – this seems to be my go-to relaxation technique – and I shared most of them on Instagram or Facebook. A few people said they’d love to colour them, so I decided to make a new colouring book largely comprising the flowers I’d drawn on holiday. You can buy it from my Esty store and here is a free sampler to download, too. I’ve done this sampler a bit differently – instead of a single design to colour in, I’ve done a page with snippets from each of the designs. Please do feed back to me on which you prefer, and of course, feel free to share your coloured designs with me.
