Back in January, I stared up at the snow covered rock giants in Yosemite Valley and was overwhelmed by how small I felt. I was insignificant in comparison to these beautiful monuments, yet I was humbled and reminded of what it was to just to be. Through chaotic snow blizzards and sweltering heat, there sat these rocks, unfazed and static, just being. I found myself asking:

What was it to just be?

Why was I trying to move at 10x speed towards an unknown finish line that otherwise kept moving? Why did I feel like I never had time to do anything? Why did I feel like I wasn’t doing enough? Why was I comparing myself to others? Why was I constantly striving for more, to have more? More followers, more audience reach, more exposure, more, more and more.

When returning home I decided to experiment with the idea of slow living. I realized I had information overload and the comparison trap of social media had overwhelmed my brain and I finally wanted out. With slow living, I hoped to focus less on my digital life and more around my analog one.

I deleted Instagram from my phone and started fresh. I’ve done this a few times before and it’s apparent how much of an addiction has formed over the years. Somehow I would eventually find my way back onto the platform with every lame excuse, but this time was different. This was an experiment, not an emotionally driven decision, but one fueled with determination to see what life could be like without it.

I began to feel free again. I regained more of my time back, time to do the things I’ve always said I would do but never got around to it because I would fall into disassociating doom scrolls that suddenly took 4 hours of my life away every single day. Can you imagine losing almost 28 hours every week to scrolling? For data nerds like me, based on my average spend, that’s 1456 hours a year. That’s 60 days of my whole year gone to scrolling!

With all this time back, I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was as if I had gotten a second chance at life. So many unexplored opportunities and yet I found myself bored, but a good bored. A bored where I was rearranging furniture around the house, getting messy with clay, playing with pastels, shredding up paper, knotting up threads, baking sourdough, cuddling more with my dog, spending more time with friends unplugged, writing bad poetry on a typewriter, going on solo nature walks, reading memoirs, and going to museums. Importantly, doing all these things without feeling the constant pressure to share all these experiences on social media every day. For the first time, these things were for me and I knew I was on a journey to just being.

My experiment with slow living was the first step in breaking a vicious cycle I’ve struggled with for decades. I told myself I didn’t care what people think, but I kept posting to get validation because I did care. But like a pressure valve being released, I found the strength to finally let go. By not sharing anything on Instagram for almost two months, not caring if followers left or came, I felt free, more creative and less afraid of doing the things I cared about and doing them at the pace that made sense to me.

Which brings me to this moment

I love sharing my work, my projects, and my creative process, but doing that on Instagram doesn’t align with me anymore. I’ve outgrown that platform and I want to take back control of my efforts. That is my intention with this creative blog. To share and inspire, but within my capabilities as a creative and as a human.

I’m not going to promise you a formulaic schedule of posts. It could be every day or it could be every month. But what I can promise is that the content I create moving forward will be filled with the continued exploration of my crafts, my failings, my triumphs, and my honest truths of being a creative in a landscape growing more digital by the day.

It’s a scary thing, not doing the normal thing. Am I crazy? Probably. Will anyone care? Probably not a lot. But I’m okay with that. That’s what just being is, and this is for me ✨

~Christine

Embracing Slow Living: Why I walked away from Instagram

What was it to just be?

Which brings me to this moment

Let’s Get Social ☺︎