S2 E33:🚫 I Cannot Be Alarmed To Be Alive: Listener Voicemail Episode
EPISODE SUMMARY
What happens when you actually delete the apps? After the last episode of the Money Healing Club podcast with Amelia Hruby about social media and money, listeners are sharing their own stories of breaking free from the scroll. In this special voicemail episode, hear from Tamara Mendelson (coach and educator) and Shae Shaw (the Party Poet) about their journeys off social media, the grief that comes with leaving, and the surprising ways their lives have opened up. Rachel also shares practical tips for what to do with all that time you're not doom-scrolling.
"I cannot be alarmed to be alive anymore. Everything on social media is a sell, is selling you something. My social now is a bird app - I listen to the birds and I love it." - Shae Shaw
Key Takeaways:
Leaving social media is a process with real costs and benefits - it's not just willpower
Every "no" needs a "yes" - replace social media time with something intentional
Revisit hobbies you loved as a kid to find non-numbing outlets
If family uses social media to stay connected, find alternative ways (WhatsApp, Marco Polo, voice memos)
Business owners face unique challenges with platform restrictions on web versions
Featured Voices:
Tamara Mendelson - Educator, writer, positivity mentor and divorce coach (tamara.mendelson@gmail.com)
Shae Shaw - The Party Poet (partypoet.love)
EPISODE BREAKDOWN
02:00 | Tamara's Question: Quick Fixes That Add Joy What else can you do besides leaving social media to spend less and feel better?
04:45 | Rachel's Answer: Rediscover Your Kid Self How childhood hobbies reveal what brings you authentic joy
10:00 | Shae's Declaration: "I Cannot Be Alarmed To Be Alive" A poet's righteous rebellion against the attention economy
13:00 | The Business Owner's Dilemma Why it's so hard to be halfway in when platforms restrict web access
Resources Mentioned
Join the Conversation
What's YOUR social media story? Are you fully in and loving it? Halfway out? Totally off the grid? What's the most random thing you bought because social media convinced you it was a problem you needed to solve? The Money Healing Club podcast wants ALL the stories - click the big orange button: https://www.moneyhealingclub.com/podcast
Your next listen:
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Full transcript: https://www.moneyhealingclub.com/podcast
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[00:00:00]
Rachel: Welcome to the Money Healing Club podcast. I'm your host Rachel Duncan. I'm a certified financial therapist and art therapist, and I founded the Money Healing Club. You've come to the softest place to land in personal finance where we talk about all the things we don't usually say when we talk about money.
Just a reminder, this podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only. For help with your particular situation, please seek help from a licensed mental health tax, legal, or finance professional. So a few weeks ago, I did a deep dive on this podcast into how we are all impacted by social media, and I had a guest expert, the vocalist of the vocal critics out there about social media. Amelia Hruby from the Off the Grid podcast. Go back to episode 32 if you wanna catch up on my great conversation with her. And I say great not only 'cause I thought it was great, but you guys really liked that [00:01:00] episode. I've been getting so many emails and texts from my friends about how that podcast has impacted them.
I received two voicemails in particular that I'm going to share with you in today's episode. So we all have such a multifaceted, layered relationship with social media. Even the content I am receiving online is more and more critical of the very platform. It's going viral on. We are all seemingly really frustrated and identifying how we get hooked on these platforms and honestly loving it. Look, I don't take lightly someone's relationship with social media. I don't think you can just get off social media like that without there being a process, without there being some costs and benefits there.
But I will say these days in my financial therapy sessions, one standard question I'm asking my financial therapy clients is, what's your relationship like with social media these days? That's often where we're starting. [00:02:00] When we talk about impulse spending. So just a reminder, if you want to go back and listen to my conversation with Amelia, it is episode 32 called Your Attention and Money Are Sacred.
But now let's hear how some of your fellow listeners are talking about their relationship with social media
Speaker: Hi, Rachel. I just listened to the podcast by Amelia Hruby, and it was amazing and so smart. And as a, as a creator and a coach, I have used Instagram and Facebook and like you and like, um, Amelia didn't have great success with it. And I'm very happy to hear that I don't have to be on social media. So I just took Instagram off my phone.
I'll still check it from time to time 'cause the only way I get to see what my grown kids are doing. [00:03:00] But my question is , what other things can you do besides getting off social media that are a quick fix? Like you said about you didn't buy the weighted vest, that was a really good example. So just like one more example of what you could do, which would be a short term way to add more joy and spend less money.
Rachel: I was so tickled to get this voicemail from my friend and colleague, Tamara Mendelson. Tamara is an educator, writer, positivity mentor and coach. She helps people who are stuck move forward and thrive, particularly people who are going through or recovering from a divorce. As well as many other things.
She's wonderful. Right now. Her website has been hacked, but she wanted me to let you guys know that you can reach her at [00:04:00] tamara.mendelson@gmail.com. I will put that in the show notes. But anyway, I am so glad to hear that. Just this one episode felt like a big permission slip to. Stop struggling on social media if it hasn't worked for you.
Now, social media has been an effective media channel, marketing channel for a lot of businesses, but not for everyone. And it's also not necessary. I would say if you enjoy marketing in those channels, then okay but if you don't, you don't have to. And so. I'm so glad to hear that you felt like that was a big old permission slip to just stop trying to do something that's not working.
So I love this question what other things can we do short term to add more joy and spend less money? You guys, this is my bread and butter. This is all I talk about. This is the main topic in the Money Healing Club, as well as, my one-on-ones and my small groups. This is what we talk about a lot.
One question I like to start with is, how did [00:05:00] you love to spend time as a kid? For me, I collected rocks. I read a lot. I listened to music and studied the lyrics. I made things, I did crafts, I rode horses. I mean, this is all just off the top of the dome. Make a big list and you'll really find that you get back into, what it was like to be a kid where doing things you loved felt.
Usually pretty effortless. Kids are very in touch with what they need to do and what they love to do. Or if there was a thing you always wanted to do as a kid and you weren't allowed to, or it wasn't accessible to you, write all of this stuff down. It's really gonna speak to some core stuff of how you think about the world and the things you love to do.
And with that, I want you to think about what's one of these things you might cultivate in your life right now? The sillier the better. You know, is it a dance class? Is it learning how to sew [00:06:00] your own clothes? Is it, you know, baking the biggest cookie that you can fit in your oven? I really encourage you to get into silliness.
I think one thing, if we're trying to get off of social media, it might be because you wanna like get more done or be more productive. And that certainly can be a byproduct. But right now if, if you're finding that you're spending a lot of time on social media, it's become a numbing outlet. So we want to replace that time with another outlet that is not numbing.
Right? We don't want to replace it with, something that feels like work because then that's a good recipe for burnout, and you'll probably just reinstall the thing back on your phone. So find or rediscover a thing that you maybe loved as a kid. Also, as I think I talked about with Amelia on our episode.
You know, it could just be staring at the wall like you're under no obligation to quote, do something with that time that you were previously spending on social media. [00:07:00] That's, that's really hustle culture speaking, and you don't have to do that. I will say that since I removed Instagram from my phone about a year ago, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, all of those, I did find naturally some things started slipping back into my life that were really important.
And I found more capacity to do some, projects. So, I probably do work more, but I also enjoy my evenings a lot more. I plug my phone in, in my office at about nine o'clock. And I go up to my room, it's on the second floor, and I read, I clean, I organize my closet the other night, I just have more of a wind down.
You know, the sleep hygiene we all know we're supposed to do. But I would say substantially my social media usage has been replaced by reading, but it can be with whatever you want. It doesn't need to be something productive because what social media was giving you probably, or this is something for you to think about.
It was giving you a [00:08:00] time to just be right just deliver to me, just give me funny cat memes. Just give me, the funny thoughts of the day or whatever it is. And it's because you just wanted to receive. So, you know, don't replace it with something that is too much effort because that wasn't the job it was doing before.
And while there's a transition time, leaving anything can have some grief. Um, I also wanna reflect that Tamara said it's a way that she kind of knows what her adult children are up to now. That's real, isn't it? If you have people in your life who use social media a lot to share about their life, well, leaving social media might mean you don't know what's going on in their life in that way.
So I think if that's the case for anyone here, especially if you have family members who are very active on social media and that feels good, find some other ways to be in touch with them. Maybe it's starting a WhatsApp group chat. Let people know, let your children know, Hey, I'm not gonna be checking that anymore, but I still wanna know what you're up [00:09:00] to.
I think we all want to connect and see if there's other ways to connect. Hey, old fashioned emails y'all old fashioned emails. Old fashioned phone calls. Hey, when's the last time you sent a voice memo to a friend? You know, on the text app you can send a voice memo. It's my favorite kind of podcast.
Oh, another really lovely thing that my friends and I started using in the pandemic was Marco Polo, where you can send group video chats, video snippets, but not chat, like live. You record like you're leaving a voicemail, but it can go to a group of people and it's really a tool that got me through the pandemic and was really the best form of social media.
The most social of social media. So if you're gonna write anything down from my reflection on Tamara's voicemail, it is that every no needs a yes. There's no such thing as negative behavior. We're all doing something. So if you're going to remove social media from your phone or say remove a shopping app from your phone, all these [00:10:00] things we quote know we should do, have some intention, have a plan of what you're going to do instead.
It will start feeling more natural. At first, it's a little awkward, but I promise you it will start feeling more natural when you start feeling the benefits. There could be health benefits, attention benefits, mental health benefits, just feeling like you can wind down at the end of the night. Those good feelings start replacing the dopamine hit from the social media.
Rachel: Okay. Next we're gonna hear from someone who is super fired up about their relationship with social media.
Speaker 7: Hello, Rachel. I just wanted to give my two cents about social media. I am a part of the baby MySpace generation who had to lie about having EDU email address to get a Facebook, and now I am in my mid thirties. I [00:11:00] have deleted my Facebook, tried to save all my pictures and things. I've deleted Instagram off my phone and am forced to keep downloading it again to post certain things for my business account.
But as a whole, I have deleted nearly all notifications. I cannot be alarmed to be alive anymore. And the fact that everything on social media is a sell, is selling you something. I don't care if I'm keeping up with you we're texting and I don't text. Like my social now is a bird app, I listen to the birds and I love it.
And my life is so much better deleting Instagram, and I hope to eventually not only use technology that I want and not be forced to do it, to be alive and be connected big steps. [00:12:00] Thank you
Rachel: Mm, that was the great Shae Shaw. Everyone AKA the party poet. You've gotta check out Shae's work at partypoet.love and see what she's up to. And if you didn't know there was a .love domain, now you do. Thank you, Shae. So leave it to a poet like Shae to underline the radical, rebellious nature of stepping off of these platforms. Can't you feel the beautiful righteousness in Shae's note? And I'm right there with her. Shae's got your back out here in the wilderness folks.
And I'm proud to say I am one of these lucky people who gets to occasionally text with her.
I think also Shae brings up a good point where, you know, social media is not new anymore. And if you're a elder millennial, like me, we have lived through several iterations, even epics of social media. You know, it's about now half [00:13:00] and half my life. That's been on the internet versus my life, not on the internet.
So it feels like there are these chapters, in terms of how I've interacted with social media for sure. I love how Shae brings in the MySpace baby. That really was the first thing to the start of Facebook. I remember the first time I heard about Facebook and it was such an exclusive invitation to join I think it was the comedian, Iliza Shlesinger, is that how you say it? She said millennials ran on Instagram, so Gen Z could fly on TikTok. I mean, we're really in this era of very distinct generational experiences with this stuff. And as a business owner, I know exactly what Shae is talking about with.
The pain of removing and reinstalling the app, like these apps have made it so restrictive that it's really hard to negotiate your own relationship with the app. It is sort of. It really is all or nothing. Right now I'm kind of with Shae in this in-between place. I [00:14:00] have social media accounts.
I check them on my browser. I do a scheduling platform, so I'm not personally on the apps very much, but I do still need to go in there and log in and interact with folks. And there are a lot of limitations on the web version, specifically for Instagram.
For example, you cannot accept collaboration requests on the web. You cannot post to stories. You cannot post reels. You cannot go live and you cannot schedule content. So you can check things, you can check your dms, you can like things, you can make comments, but you are pretty limited in terms of how to do business, how you can do business without it being on your phone.
So any of you who are business owners out there, I feel you. And when I'm doing a big marketing push, I will put it back on my phone so I can post to stories and then remove it. I also sometimes have my virtual assistant go on the mobile to do that work for me [00:15:00] because she doesn't have a problem with it.
Um, and she can just do it for work and remove it. So those are the lengths that I have gone to because I know if I am personally on the app and interacting with it, I can't like it. It does tend to take over my life.
I also appreciate with Shae is bringing up because if you are, you know, in your thirties, forties, fifties, you've lived a life where there was a time where social media, I don't know, was a little bit sunnier. It was more exciting. People were sharing things. It was a way to connect. People were making friends.
There was a time when social media was actually social. Instead of it being classified ads. And in Amelia Hruby's book that just came out that we talked about in that last episode, her book is called, your Attention is Sacred Except on Social Media. She reflects that a lot of folks, including her really enjoyed social media, in the years about 2014 to 2018.
And I'm not sure why those years were particularly fresh or conducive to connecting, but [00:16:00] I think it's before the ads. I venture to say is before the ads and also before all these business courses about how to go viral and all of this stuff. I, I think that was a time period where people truly were sharing their beautiful meals and their gorgeous coffee latte art, and people were sharing about stuff that's going on, and people really did connect.
So there was a time, and maybe that's why right now, we're feeling so saddened by this platform that used to give a lot of love and connection to all of us. So thank you Shae for lighting the fire, and I'm with you in trying to make this work as a business owner and it being difficult to only be halfway in.
So there you have it. If you have considered getting off of social media, changing the way you're using it, even realizing that, hey, you're probably doing more impulse shopping on social media. This is not. A willpower issue. It is not a personal [00:17:00] failing. These platforms are designed to hook you. They're designed to sell to you.
They're designed to exhaust you. And as Amelia taught us, they're designed to extract your attention. I even have Amelia's sticker from her podcast off the grid. I have it right there on the back of my phone. Get off the grid. As I said before, removing the apps from my phone made a huge difference to my life.
It brought in more relaxation, more reading it brought this podcast. I had the bandwidth to do this podcast. Especially as a business owner, when I consider the types of media, I like creating, I like making the podcast. I don't love making reels in carousels, so sometimes I'll do it. You guys will see me out there, but I really like this medium and I really appreciate you listening to it.
Rachel: Please keep sending voicemails in. I would love to hear your story. I'd love to hear stories of folks that are fully in social media [00:18:00] and feel great about it. Are you a content creator? Are you someone who maybe sets a timer and limits the amount of time on it? Are you someone who enjoys every minute of it?
I wanna hear your story too. I think it's a complicated issue. So go on over to moneyhealingclub.com/podcast. There is a big orange button or you can record your voicemail from your phone or laptop. Don't worry. I will make you sound good. I will edit. I would love to hear at your contributions to this, even stories about what is a rando thing you bought on social media.
That you wouldn't have bought otherwise. What is a problem social media told you you had, that you didn't know you had? I shared the story when I talked with Amelia about getting convinced that I need a weighted vest and that it was a, problem I didn't know I had that social media wanted to fix for me, no shade about weighted vests, but I'm just saying that only came from that platform.
I had love to hear your stories. These [00:19:00] listener voicemail episodes are your favorites. You have told me they're your favorites, so let's keep making them. And I need your stories. I need your questions. I need your deep thoughts about what we don't talk about when we talk about money.
I just wanna thank Sydney Harbosky for helping edit these podcasts and get them out there and putting social clips on the interwebs so I don't have to. She's does an amazing job. And we're also a proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective, where creators like me are uplifting, diverse voices and driving meaningful change.
If you are in the podcasting world or want to make a podcast, hop over to Feminist Podcasters Collective and join. It's a wonderful community. I have loved being a part of. I'll see you next time.