Love in the Time of Instagram: Breakups + Social Media

Welcome back to Comeback Class. I am so excited to have you here for this week’s episode. If you’re a
subscriber and you’ve been listening along and you’re enjoying the podcast, I just wanna say thank you
so much. I appreciate you being here. I appreciate your listenership, and I’m so glad that you are finding
this content helpful. Breakups are hard. They have always been hard. It is so painful to have to end a
relationship with someone that you deeply cared about and realize that they’re no longer going to be a
part of your life, at least not in that capacity. Now, people have been dealing with breakups for many,
many years, but I would dare to say that this particular period in time is exceptionally difficult to get
over a breakup because of the existence of social media. Back in the day, if you broke up with someone,
you would only be able to talk to them if you were to call them and they were home to answer the
phone, right?

Or if you left a message and they called you back, we didn’t have this like instant access that we have
now. You couldn’t just text someone or you know, you couldn’t follow them in order to know what they
were up to. Or in order for them to know what you were up to, they would have to hear about it
through the grapevine or through other people. Now, with cell phones, we not only have the ability to
call someone and they likely have their phone on them, call them or text them, or we have all these
social media apps like Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, and we’ve got direct messages and
Snapchat and stories and all of the things. So if you’re someone that is very active on social media and
maybe your ex is too, then you could end up knowing what each other are doing at any given time, at
any given moment.

And you may want to know what your ex is doing at all times after your breakup. But the real question
is, is that healthy? Is that the right thing that you should be doing during this time? So I want you to
consider, if you are going through a breakup and you are trying to heal and you’re trying to practice selfcare and to start feeling better, it may be necessary for you to change the way that you participate in
social media, especially if you know that you are going to do things that are going to bring you
backward. If you know that you’re going to be cyber stalking them or checking all their pages or
messaging them, you may wanna come up with some type of game plan for how you’re going to, to deal
with social media during your breakup. It might seem a little ridiculous to have to plan for this sort of
thing, but this is the way that the world is now.

And if you are on social media, which many of us are, then it’s really something that you have to take
into account. So the first thing that you could do is simply limit the time that you spend on social media.
You could say to yourself, I am going to spend, you know, 20 minutes a day on social media apps, and
that’s it. And then you set that time in your schedule, right? And there are even settings now on your
phone that will kind of remind you if you’re hitting your social media limit that you’ve given yourself. I’ve
never used these, but I know other people that have. So you could even set that up on your phone so
that you don’t even have to think about it. Another option is just to completely take a break from social
media altogether. And this is what I call a social media detox.

Now, this is something that I did after a really bad breakup that I had, and I didn’t use social media for. I
think it was about two years. And honestly, I didn’t really miss it. I mean, there were a few things here
and there, but for the most part I really, really didn’t miss it. And it actually allowed me to focus on some
other things in my life that have ki that had kind of taken a backseat at the time. So I really became
focused on some goals that I had, and I really was able to get a lot of things accomplished simply
because I wasn’t spending so much time just kind of mindlessly scrolling. And to be completely honest,
I’m really not a huge fan of social media to be begin with. I do like it to kind of get ideas about certain
things like decor, and I like self-help stuff and things like that.

But honestly, the only reason that I really use it now is for the heartbreak nurse. So it’s totally up to you.
You don’t have to do what I did and give up social media for two years, especially if you really enjoy it. If
it’s something that you have fun doing, then that’s fine. You don’t have to completely give it up, but it
might be worth it just to limit the time that you spend on it, at least for right now while you’re going
through a breakup. And this is for two reasons, one of which is, like we talked about, you don’t wanna
be spending all of your time cyber stalking your ex or trying to dig into their profile and figure out what
they’ve been up to. Not just that, but it’s also a lot of us when we are maybe not in a great place, or
we’re not where we want to be in our lives, we look at other people’s.

And of course, a lot of times on social media, it’s, it’s a high rate, high highlight reel, right? A lot of
people post the good things that are going on in their life, and that’s wonderful, but that’s not always
the whole picture. And we see all these beautiful filtered photos and these beautifully curated, you
know, videos and things, and we think that that everything is so amazing on the other side of the fence,
but really that’s not, that’s not reality most of the time, or it’s reality through a very filtered lens. I did
another episode last year called the Comparison Trap and How to Not Get Caught Up, and that talks a
little bit more about this and comparing your life to what you’re seeing on social media. So if that’s
something that you need help with, then go ahead and check out that episode as well.

Now, if you are going to keep using social media, I would highly, highly recommend that you unfollow or
mute your ex or even block them. Now, some people might think, well, do I really have to block them?
Like, that seems kind of petty. Aren’t they gonna know that I blocked them? And yes, they may know
that you block them and they may be upset about it, but you have to understand your intention behind
why you’re doing this, and you can even verbalize that to them if you feel like you need to, like, Hey,
listen, I’m just trying to focus on myself right now, and I’m just trying to get in a better mindset. So I’m
not gonna be connecting with you on social media, at least for now. But that’s entirely up to you,
depending on how your relationship was and how it ended, totally your choice.

But understand that you are not doing it to be mean, bitter, spiteful, or anything like that towards this
person. The reason that you’re doing it is so that you can focus on yourself, which is the main priority as
you go through this process. When you log into your social media accounts, your brain is going to wanna
say, check, check, check, see what they’re doing, where are they? What’s going on? Who are they
hanging out with? So it’s important that you put up this roadblock so that you cannot do that even if you
want to. I think what most people subconsciously want in this scenario is just reassurance that that
person is not doing as well without them. But to me, that’s kind of a backwards way of thinking about it.
Again, you’re switching the priority from yourself to them. Like, why are you worried so much about
how they’re feeling and what they’re doing?

And you’re just ignoring your, your own self and your own internal wellbeing. Just stay focused on
yourself and your personal growth, and do not worry so much about what they’re doing. It’s not about
them, right? It’s about you. Now, if you’re somebody that posts every single detail of your life on social
media, you are going to have to pump the brakes hard, okay? First of all, we are not going to be posting
about our breakup, okay? If you need to vent, that is when you look for friends, family members, a
therapist, someone that you can talk to. Do not air all your business on social media if the breakup or
the relationship ended badly, and you are posting all the details for everybody you went to high school
and college with to see as well as whoever else, you’re not only adding fuel to the fire, but it is super,
super tacky.

And I say this with love, okay? I’m, I’m telling you this because I want you to be able to heal and to move
on and to be happy, and to find someone that you can be in a forever loving relationship with. But
posting all about your breakup on social media is just not a good look, I promise you. And if you’re
thinking about posting a bunch of subliminal messages or song lyrics or something like that, so that your
ex will read them, then your mindset, your focus is not in the right place. Focus on yourself and keep
that information private. You do not need sympathy from random people that you don’t even talk to in
real life. The truth is that you will get over this. You will be okay, and there will come a time down the
line where you may, if you choose to do something like this, you may look back at it and think, wow,
that was really stupid.

I don’t know why I did that. So just save yourself the embarrassment now and just do not post about
your breakup on social media. Another thing to consider while you are going through this is what kind of
accounts are you following? Are you interacting with? Are you following a bunch of accounts that are
just sad relationship quotes? Or had you been following accounts related to weddings and marriage and
things like that? But now it’s upsetting you? I want you to pay attention to how these things are making
you feel. Now, something that I have started implementing in my own social media life, which I think is
really valuable, that is intentional input. And this isn’t just on social media actually. This is for any
information that I’m going to consume. I have to have a purpose for consuming it. So everything that I’m
reading or I’m watching or looking at, is it informational educational?

Is it inspiring? Is it just for fun? It’s funny, it might be a good idea to do an audit of the things that you
are consuming, the things that you’re watching and reading. And you don’t have to like sit down and
plan this out. It’s just, you know, if you’re scrolling through social media and you notice that a lot of the
accounts that you follow make you feel some type of way that isn’t good, it may be time to just go
through the list of people that you follow or accounts that you follow, and just unfollow some of them,
at least for now, I want you to understand that you do have choices, even though it can seem
overwhelming, because we have access to all of this information through the internet and our phones
and the tv, you get to decide what it is that you want to absorb.

So if you notice that the content you’re consuming is making you feel bad, figure out what makes you
feel good, and then interact and follow content or watch TV shows or movies that make you feel good.
I’ve said this before and I will keep saying it. You are in control of your feelings, even though right now
you may think that you’re not, or your emotions are really heightened right now, you are in control. The
most important thing is to recognize what triggers certain feelings for you, what evokes certain
emotions within you. And this definitely comes with practice, and it comes with having the intention of
doing it, but as you continue to practice, it will continue to get easier. So in this world where we are
inundated with all of this information that will cause us to feel different emotions, it’s important that we
learn to gauge how we’re feeling and how those things are making us feel.

Because the reality is you have the remote control to the television, right? If something you are
watching or seeing is making you feel like crap, then change the channel every single day and often,
multiple times a day, we are making a decision about the input that we are receiving. So what I’m
suggesting is that you be intentional with this input. So just to recap, if you are going through a breakup
and you are not sure how to deal with social media, you can do several things. You can limit your social
media use and just pick a certain time of day for a certain length of time that you will go on social media
and set limits for yourself. Or you can just not use social media for a little while if you still choose. Like I
mentioned, I did this for an extended period of time, and it worked out fine.

I didn’t miss anything that was super vital or important to know, and it actually allowed me to focus on some other things. So I think it’s worth trying. Even if you just wanna trial it for like a week, try it. Just delete the social media apps from your phone for a week and just see how you feel not having them, it doesn’t mean you need to turn into a hermit, but , you can. You can choose to focus on your healing and focus on other things and just put social media on the back burner for a little while. It’s totally okay to do that. If you do decide to stay on social media, I would suggest unfollowing, muting or blocking your ex. If you decide to block them and you are concerned about their feelings, first ask yourself, do you really care about their feelings?

Because you may, you may, if you know it’s gonna upset them, and that’s not what you’re trying to do,
you could give them a heads up. Or if the relationship sucked, the breakup sucked, there’s bad blood,
anything like that, you don’t need to say a word, just block and keep it moving. Now, with these first
two, there is some flexibility, but with this one, I do not want you to post about your breakup on social
media. I, there, I’m, I’m not gonna be flexible on this one. I have seen grown adults, and I’m talking like
forties, fifties, sixties, posting about their breakups on Facebook or some other social media platform.
And I, and I’m, I’m trying not to be harsh with this, but it is, it just looks so immature. Talk to your family,
talk to your friends. Go find a good therapist. Find someone that you can vent to in an appropriate way.

And just as you are managing and monitoring your output on these platforms, you also need to be
managing your input. So figure out how the content that you’re consuming makes you feel, and then
make a decision whether you want to keep it as a part of your life or you need to remove it now is doing
all of these things a little bit of a hassle. Yeah, it might be a little bit, but in the long term, it is going to
benefit you so much, and you’ll be glad that you did all of these things. Unfortunately, like I said, things
aren’t as easy as they may have been in the past, before social media and the internet and cell phones
existed. But this is where we are. This is the world that we live in today. So you need to learn how to
manage this aspect of your life when you are going through a breakup.

I really hope that these tips were helpful for you. If you are planning to stay on social media and you are
looking for some positive, intentional input, go ahead and follow me at The Heartbreak Nurse if you’re
enjoying the show. If you are finding this content helpful, I’m gonna ask a little favor of you. Would you
mind leaving a review of the show ratings and reviews? Get pushed out so that more listeners who may
need the help can find it. Again, I wanna let you know how appreciative and how grateful I am for your
time and your support. Remember, you will get through this. I’ll see you next week.

Are you ready and determined to make this next season of your life the best season of your life? I believe that any person who is willing to invest in their personal growth has the ability to accomplish anything, and I wanna give you the tools to make that happen. That’s why I created Heartbreak Hero. It’s my premier program designed to help high value people just like you heal from their breakup, discover who they truly are and find their ideal partner. Visit the heartbreaknurse.com to sign up now and get ready to make your comeback.