the impression diet

Every time I think I’m close to redefining my life, getting my shit together, and being more productive with my time…

I download social media to my phone again.

This sucks. I love being a social media girlie. There’s nothing I love more than sharing memes with my friends, or seeing the little red hearts float up on my screen when people like my IG stories. As a Leo, I was born for this.

But I can’t ignore the impact that consuming content has on my time.

Ironically, I feel more like a successful influencer whenever I am taking an active break from social media. I document my life with beautiful videos, create more art, and feel more relaxed and in-the-moment once I have gotten used to the lack of options my finger has to tap on my screen.

Even though I still struggle with my daily use of these reward-based apps, I came up with an idea to categorize my social media breaks as a form of cleansing my body. No 28 day juice diets for me! I would rather just delete my apps.

As an artist whose work is primarily visual, it is genuinely really difficult to stay away from social media. After all, people have been saying for years now that it’s impossible to build a business without it. But why do I feel like that advice is full of shit?

No matter how much time I spend creating content, I will still find extra time to waste, refreshing my feed to check on how my content is performing. If it’s not doing well… I tap on the garbage can.

But what if I just made art on my first take? What if I just created for my own pleasure rather than to get views? What if I redirected my energy to making real-life connections with people who could really use my skills?

That’s why I like to go on a little impression diet every once in awhile.

Impressions (samskaras in Sanskrit) are the little bits of information we take in all day, every day, from our internal as well as external worlds. This includes our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations, as well as the many sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and experiences of being alive.

There’s no practical way to stop taking in impressions, but sometimes we could really use a break. So a helpful tip for managing the overstimulation of living is to tailor our impressions to benefit our wellbeing.

An impression diet begins with cutting out harmful or negative content, online and in the real world. This can be achieved by taking breaks from social media, turning off the news, setting boundaries with pessimistic friends and family, cutting off energy vampires, removing unpleasant smells/sights/sounds from your living space, and then actively choosing to replace these things with beautiful, peaceful, relaxing, inspiring, and generally enjoyable impressions.

As you may have noticed so far, this diet has absolutely nothing to do with what you eat. While your nutrition is also important, the bottom line of this whole experience is to learn how to enjoy your life more. So, if you were hoping to lose 10 pounds by trying out this diet, you missed the vibe… unless you are absolutely enthralled by having lots of beautiful healthy food in your fridge which, in that case, hell yeah, definitely makes for good impressions! On the contrary though, if you do not enjoy eating veg and you will see it as a chore or a punishment… cut that shit out.

We out here having a good time only.

The next step is to really cleanse. This means cleaning and clearing out old habits, thought patterns, and environments. For social media, for instance, just remove the app from your phone. Your account will still be there when you want to go back. Then, the next time you find yourself reaching for that sweet little square, it won’t be there, and you will need to redirect that pleasure-seeking energy.

You can now use this energy to organize a messy drawer. Or, open YouTube and find a TED talk that might inspire you while you do the dishes. Read a few pages of an uplifting book. Put on jazz music and a bathrobe, pour yourself a glass of wine, and put on some rejuvenating under-eye masks. Go for a walk. Draw something. Anything that will get the app off your mind, do that. Rewire your brain to enjoy real pleasure.

There is no time limit for this diet, and the results vary by the individual. The only goal is to feel good in the moment, even just for a moment. The more you redirect your energy to better impressions, the more sustainable your happiness will feel.

Think of it like a living gratitude journal. Instead of focusing on the things that bring us stress, overwhelm, self-doubt, and comparison, why not try out being alive in our own real lives? The less energy we put towards consuming, the more energy we will have to create new things and live in alignment with who we want to be.

There is plenty of science to back up why social media or watching the news isn’t very good for you. We want to regulate our nervous systems and actually enjoy this very simple human life we have come here to live. I can’t be the only one… right?

Now I wonder, what might you discover about yourself throughout this process?

Let me know how it goes.

With love,