I’d love to share about my loving limits with social media scrolling.
Loving limits is a term I devised, which can be used in parenting, in other relationships, to our own behaviour and internally in our consciousness.
Loving limits are NOT;
Coercion;
Force;
Judgment;
Punishment;
Shaming;
Implying wrongness.
So, for example, in my use of them with social media, this is what happened:
I noticed I was scrolling the newsfeed a lot for a couple of weeks;
I listened compassionately to myself around doing this. I didn’t judge myself, punish myself, or coerce myself to stop.
I listened lovingly to myself.
Then, I simply had the idea to set a loving limit around it.
I wanted to set a loving limit. It came from my willingness.
The loving limit that came was to simply read 10 posts a day on both my FB feed and IG feed.
And to be really present with each one of those 10 posts.
To connect with the person who wrote the post. To really read the words. And to respond with loving compassion.
I’ve been doing it a few days now, and I’m really enjoying it.
Here’s what I notice:
Instead of being an experience of avoiding presence, it’s now become an experience full of presence.
I feel an excitement before doing it – like opening a beautiful box of my favourite raw chocolates, or savouring some beautiful flowers.
During it, I’m present in my body and feeling connected with the person’s posts.
Afterwards, I feel relieved, knowing that if I have the desire to scroll, I can simply lovingly remind myself that I’ve done that for the day.
I’d love to add that I also respond with loving presence to the posts in the FB groups of my courses, and I may also specifically go to look at the posts from one particular person or movement, but still with the same quality of presence. For example, this week I’ve been looking at Extinction Rebellion’s FB posts.
I love loving limits and they way they combine both love and will.
And how powerful and beautiful they can be.
I talk about loving limits in parenting a lot too; you can find more here on my website and in my parenting courses.
If you’d like to develop a lovingly compassionate relationship with yourself and your social media use and any repression mechanisms you might have, such as with food, we include this in the Inner Loving Presence Process Course.
In the last live round, quite a few of the participants felt a calling to focus on their going to bed times and screen use.
Like with parenting, this approach is very loving.
For example with screens, you might have have judged yourself after scrolling FB or IG, or you might have set a harsh limit with yourself.
Self-judgment is a harsh emotional stick which leads to the painful feelings of emotional bruises, which means even more likelihood of turning to screens again to repress the feelings.
Harsh limits can also lead to wanting to repress feelings in other ways.
The antidote to repression is compassionate connection.
What would be the most compassionate response for you around social media use?
Are you willing to respond to yourself in that way?
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
I have one last live round of the Inner Loving Presence Process Course this year, and it is also a prerequisite to my Marion Method Training, starting in Jan 2020.