#40: Pause.

A period of inaction, ideally coupled with increased clarity.

I unexpectedly took the past two weeks off from writing and just about everything else in life as our family was hit hard with illness. In my forced moment of pause, two things became incredibly clear:

1. I love to write.

2. I do not want to share my life online.

Germs are nothing new for us, as we have spent the past year fighting just about everything and the prior two before that avoiding germs at all costs. Somehow this particular virus hit different and I spent the majority of the past few weeks sick in bed with one or both of my kids, in a full on head fog and unable to push through despite my best attempts.

None of this information is particularly new, rather two of my hardest earned truths. And yet, I have repeatedly convinced myself that my own internal voice of reason might be mistaken, sure that writing requires sharing my story and my life online, convinced that showing up on Instagram must to be part of the plan.

I recently started reading Momfluenced by

Sara Petersen

and while I am admittedly only a handful of pages in because my brain hasn’t been working these past few weeks, her description of mom-influencer culture and specifically performative motherhood hit hard, almost as hard as the cold I have been fighting. She said, “On Instagram, the private work of mothering is turned into a public performance, generating billions of dollars. The message is simple: we’re all just a couple of clicks away from a better, more beautiful experience of motherhood.”

But are we?! Is that what any of us actually get from showing up online?! Is that what mothers actually need?! Her words continue to ring in my head and have forced me to wrangle with a handful of questions: Have I contributed to the said performance of motherhood?! Am I guilty of glorifying motherhood and packaging a solution that provides a bandaid at best?! Was I swept up in the same desire to tie motherhood up with a pretty little bow?!

For me, the capitalization and transactional cost of sharing our lives online is nothing new and most of these questions had already been swirling around my head for years. But after reading the first few pages of this book, I promptly signed offline, unsure of what to say and how to proceed. Grateful that my cold symptoms rendered me useless as I wrestled with her words and my own truth. Sometimes words do this to me, they catch me off guard and I am forced to sit with them until they make a bit more sense. This book, coupled with debilitating sickness, have forced me to be honest with myself about the life I truly want to live.

Despite sharing openly online for years, I have come to believe that life is best lived offline. I never set out to build an online business and contributing to instagram leaves me feeling empty inside. I do not find clarity or inspiration through consuming other mothers lives or the snippets they choose to share online, the same way I do not find excitement through sharing my own. I rarely, if ever, walk away feeling full after scrolling through endless highlight reels or from creating my own online content. And yet, I have returned to that platform time and time again convinced that I might be using it wrong, repeatedly telling myself that it was necessary to build the life I had envisioned, that this particular performance was part of the larger equation.

It turns out, this version of motherhood, the one I spent the better part of the past 5 years chasing, isn’t actually the one I want. I guess you could say I have outgrown something I once knew quite well. That reality has been anything but easy to accept and somehow even harder to actually type. Admitting that I got caught up in creating an Instagram worthy life isn’t exactly easy, but I happen to believe I am not the only one and that is the only reason I am sharing this truth with you.

Would it be easier to simply walk away, no explanation needed, maybe but then other women who might be feeling the same would not receive the words that I’ve been quietly pondering. Why not just sail off into the sunset and keep this particular truth to myself, because I believe we find ourselves in others the same way I found myself in the pages of Momfluenced.

I spent all of last summer off of instagram and those months ended up being some of the best yet, right sizing my life after some truly difficult years. I reluctantly rejoined Instagram earlier this year, in order to share my writing and while I was determined to make the whole thing more fun, I quickly found myself using bright colors as lipstick to hide the much larger problem, which is that contributing to this type of online life doesn’t feel right. The more time I spend online, the father I drift from the life right in front of me, the life that truly matters.

I am no longer convinced that building something or buying something will fix our individual experiences in motherhood, perhaps motherhood doesn’t need to be fixed at all but rather accepted for what it actually is. Walking away from a space that helped me build my first business isn’t easy, but I must be honest with myself about the life I want to live and Instagram is not it. Instagram is not where or how I want to spend my time.

While getting sick wasn’t fun and my total lack of energy was at times frustrating, the pause and the slowness that was forced upon me felt surprisingly good. In a society that promotes busyness and building an online life, it is amazing how an unexpected virus can force us to slow down long enough to envision a completely different path forward. Much like the early pandemic days, this particular illness forced me to see things differently and I am grateful for that clarity despite the uphill road it has caused. I am still trying to figure out how or if I will officially announce my resignation from Instagram, but either way, I am excited to let that version of me go, to make room for an even better version to grow.

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Summer School

As I make the transition away from Instagram once again, I am excited to build out my Substack in an even more meaningful way. I have been playing around with the idea of hosting a virtual summer school, an accountability group of sorts, designed to support women in reinventing their own lives as I continue to reinvent and rewrite my own.

For now, this offering will live here on Substack and will be available to all paid subscribers for the 10 weeks my kids are out for summer, starting on June 21 and ending on August 23. This is an opportunity to reconnect with yourself through self reflection, writing prompts, and video recordings.

This offering is for you if:

• If you are finding yourself equally burnt out on social media.

• If you are feeling stuck or unsure of what might be next for you personally.

• If you are looking to deepen your sense of self or expand something inside of you.

• Or if you are simply want to spend your summer with me!

What to expect:

10 weeks of self reflection, writing prompts, and video recordings designed to help you deepen your sense of self. I hope you will take this opportunity to commit to yourself, to carve out an hour each week, even if it means you have to put your kids in front of screens. This is your permission slip to create the life you want, to reinvent yourself right alongside me.

Topics Covered:

Week 1: Reflect (June 21)

Week 2: Envy and Comparison (June 28)

Week 3: Imagine (July 5)

Week 4: Needs (July 12)

Week 5: Values and Vision (July 19)

Week 6: Emotions and Enthusiasm (July 26)

Week 7: Notice and Listen (August 2)

Week 8: Trust (August 9)

Week 9: Engage (August 16)

Week 10: Decide (August 23)

Sign up to be a paid subscriber before June 14th to secure your spot in Summer School and receive 20% off as a thank you for your support!