Quitting the online world to reconnect with my bliss

For the last seven years, I have been documenting my life in some way, shape, or form online.

For context, I am a Brit living in Toronto with my British husband and our three little kids. We moved to Canada nine years ago on a relative whim. I had never lived away from home and certainly didn’t plan to do so on an ongoing basis. We knew no one when we moved, so staying connected through the online world felt important at the time. Little did I know I would end up calling Toronto home.

Facetime and social media helped with the transition of starting a new life here. After a series of traumatic events to become parents, in 2016, we had our son, Bodie. At the time, Instagram was all about squares with long, blog-like captions. I enjoyed documenting my life for cathartic release, sharing pics with friends, and adding funny captions. I used it almost like a diary and a way of connecting with the world while at home with my baby. It was the perfect place to make new friends and connections in Toronto and also stay in touch with my family and friends back home.

I documented everything from my experiences of miscarriage and child loss, subsequent childbirth(s), the ups and downs of motherhood, and everything in between. In fact, I literally posted one of my birth videos in the name of sharing. I also loved documenting the day-to-day things, funny stories, quotes, shopping finds—the lot. I started businesses, grew a following to over 10k with relative ease, and it became part of my life and daily routine.

Fast-forward to 2022, the year I started openly sharing my love for my morning routine online. This excitedly led to the launch of, what was at the time my newest business, but what became my signature offering: The Rise Collective. At its core, the Rise Collective is an online community of powerful women, who are eager to live with intention and elevate their daily lives through daily mindset practices. I lead women daily on Zoom, everyday at 6:00am, where we gather to share in mindfulness activities, goal and intention setting, and meditative practices to start our day on the right foot. Alongside this, I also felt the need to stay on top of my every day, regular content creation, and as intense as it felt, this became my way of life over the last two years. I have always felt that while I immensely enjoy all of these things, I was starting to feel the impact of being constantly online and being glued to all the apps. And to be honest, for a while, this was a cost I was okay with as I was eager to grow my network in Canada and my business as well.

But, something rather unexpected happened to me in these last few weeks: I fell out of love with documenting my life—almost in an instant. At first, I kept going. I second-guessed every story, felt resistance, and for the first time, I felt obligated to show up. I heard a voice in my head over and over, nagging me to show my face, share my offerings, and show up for my business. It started to drain every ounce of my being. If I am being truly honest, the more time I was spending online the more lonely I felt in real life, draining me of my energy. I just found myself repeating this cycle over and over again.

All of a sudden, it became crystal clear that something had to give. In my case, it was Instagram. The cost of being online, and even when I wasn’t, the mental load of scrolling, thinking about content, making content, and thinking about my life through the lens of documentation—all became too high of a price, and my real life was suffering.

I realized how much I was missing out in real life. I was missing small, precious moments and conversations with my kids. I was missing the energy to text, communicate, or meet people in real life. I felt tired of living on the other side of my phone. I wanted to live my life fully again. I wanted to know what it felt like to be disconnected from my habits on the app. What would it feel like to be the version of me who isn’t online, who no longer reaches for an Instagram hit, who no longer documents her life for others?

I realized I had built such a beautiful life, yet I was not living it fully. Instead, I found myself rushing for the next thing, achievement, the next dopamine hit. But what I was failing to see was everything I had longed for was right before me.

I am reflective on the fact that I have a lot to thank Instagram for. I have, for the most part, loved it. I have long-standing friendships, clients, opportunities, and a lot of fun. So much happened in my real life due to these online connections and community.

I have just made the intentional decision to “practice what I post”, after all I like to think I am in the business of setting intentions. This summer, I set the intention to enjoy the season I am in, to live in my version of bliss, to live in the present truly, and to own my power. And for me, my intention is to live in my bliss by pressing the pause button on my social media intake, and creation as well.