Dear You,
I’m so glad that today became the day that it was time to write again and say hi. I’ve just taken a 4 month break from social media land. And wow! That was a good choice for me.
I noticed that I was scrolling addictively in between activities. When I was lonely, I was scrolling. When I was tired, I was scrolling. When I was sad, I was scrolling. The online world is brilliantly designed to give serotonin deposits (and then drops so we keep coming back for more) with each notification.
So I made myself stop this behavior all together in order to detox and reset. Bye, Instagram app.
There was a second reason, too, and this is one I’ve been ruminating on for about 15 years now . . .
When I was 15 years old, I had a very specific fantasy of creating a music video of myself in the shower set to Björk’s song Joga (lyrics, as you may know, include and basically repeat on loop: “state of emergency / how beautiful to be”) and somehow broadcast it specifically for my current many crushes to see and have feelings about.
Attention! Connection! Magic! Love! Creativity! Life!
Instagram and smartphones did not exist then. (To be honest, there was DeadJournal and LiveJournal, and I did try my hand at those, with mostly unsatisfying results.) I’d spend hours under hot water (I’ve always been partial to water rituals) wondering what kind of mind melding witchcraft I’d need to conjure up in order to entertain (slash maybe gently torture [?]) my beloved ones.
Now, in 2019 (and for a long lil while), those options do exist, 100% live stream and or perfect edit 24/7/365 easy access.
I literally call smart phones magic wands.
I get to ask myself each day, am I going to use these powers for love and good or for something else? These are tools to make my life better, not weapons to hurt myself with.
Besides wanting to interrupt what was going on with compulsive feed checking, I needed a reset around why I use social media / my website / an email list at all.
I tell myself: It’s for my job! It’s for artistic expression! It’s for sharing spiritual tools!
And also, I can make bizarre stuff for my crushes to see. Is that the point of my content? Um, kind of, sometimes, yeah, and that’s ok, I’m discovering.
Also, also, my family will see. How do I deal with that? With boundaries, humor, and acceptance.
Also, also, also clients will see what I share online! That one gets gentler and gentler, because people seem to want to work with me more and more as I’m increasingly vulnerable and authentically strange / real / creative in these spaces.
As I am less and less in trouble with myself and my sense of the universe for simply being who I am, I’m not so far off on a drive to create content for crushes. I do have a crush on the world. I like sharing my life with people who want to be shared with. It turns out that this is not a problem! I am not a problem.
When used mindfully, online sharing can be incredibly healing, enjoyable, prosperous, generous, and fun for me.
I’m weird, generative, and passion filled. I make mistakes, I learn, and I practice.
I’m a strong flavor. I’m learning that when I dilute my flavor to try and be palatable to more or different people . . . the folks who don’t like my flavor still don’t like my flavor, and the people who love my flavor are bummed that I’ve dulled myself down.
I’ve been learning that *actually truly* my only real job is to take care of myself. When I’m doing a good job at this one job, I go to the waterfall each day to fill myself up. When my well is tended, I have something to offer as other people cross my path. When I focus on the business of my own well-being, I leave dry wells alone, and I give up trying to chase thirsty ghosts / being a thirsty ghost trying to chase other people.
In this last period of outward online quiet, I’ve built websites, designed graphics, taught Reiki class, facilitated the most moving healing sessions, traveled near and far, rearranged the furniture at the house about 12 times, texted with my Grandma a lot, and adopted a soft toy bunny named Little London who I’m genuinely obsessed with and take around with me in a very chic large handbag everywhere I go.
As I come around and through another cycle of being a human incarnated on this planet right now, I’m happy to try out sharing with these multimedia internet tools again. I don’t know how different it will be then before. However I am taking this moment to clarify my intentions. Here and on my other feeds I’ll keep sharing:
– celebrations of clients in website, branding, and healing lands
– health! wellness! beauty! travel! food! home! altars! practice!
– comics I’ve been drawing (though probs not the sexy ones yet, but, you know, perhaps one day?)
– generally things that I think are funny + beautiful + YES
So, that’s what’s up with me today. Thanks for reading what now seems to be my semi-annual “hi I’ve been absent from the internet and now want to tell you about 100 different subjects” blog post / IG story / email update.
Let’s see what happens next!
All my love,
Leah Rose Moon
(re: “Leah Rose Moon” . . . one day [maybe soon] I’ll write the essay about all the names that have been and could be [what up lexgstein Leah Alexandra Lex Gstein etc !?])
(ok, ok, good bye for now)
Leah Moon
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