Have you ever sat in a room with someone and been so sucked into scrolling on social media that you forgot they were there? How many times a day do you pick up your phone and scroll through Facebook, Instagram, Tick Tock, or Twitter? If you’re anything like most people, it’s A LOT. We’ve become so addicted to seeing what other people are doing on social media to give us a feeling within ourselves or getting a like from other people to boost our self-esteem that we’re missing the reality that’s right in front of us.
Why we’re obsessed with social media
What if I told you that we’re obsessed with social media because we aren’t allowing ourselves to feel our own true feelings? We’re looking for validation outside of ourselves when we really can only get it from within or we’re trying to escape our own lives to avoid having to face the feelings from our past or present that haunt us.
Take a look back into your childhood and the rest of your life. I know this may not be fun, but you’ll probably see a pattern of trying to do certain things to get love from other people.
For me, I tried to get love by being perfect. I made sure I got good grades, never acted up in class, stayed quiet, and was nice to everyone (to a fault). I grew up in a family that didn’t really express love and feelings freely. So making sure I stayed out of trouble was my number one goal. As long as I was being “good” I at least didn’t have to deal with any negative stuff at home or at school.
I remember one day in fourth grade, I was talking in class and the teacher told me to be quiet and I was completely devastated. I was in tears the rest of the day. I really hated getting in trouble. I thought getting in trouble meant I was a bad kid and I wouldn’t be loved.
As I got into my teenage years, I realized that being perfect wasn’t getting me the love I wanted from other people and I started acting out. I’ve got to tell you, this didn’t get me the love I wanted at all. Quite the opposite, but at least I was getting noticed now. I was being seen and heard, but still not understood or shown the love I so desperately wanted.
In my teens and 20s, I started looking for love and attention from guys. I was getting their attention, but still no love. As you can imagine, this was not my finest time of my life. After years and years of trying to get love from other people, I was starting to get really worn down. Drinking, partying, and dating all the wrong guys became my way to try to find the love I was missing.
The problem is, the drinking just made things worse. Alcohol just made me compare myself to other women even more and if I didn’t get the attention or the guy I wanted, I would completely fly off the handle. This just made my self-confidence and self-esteem even worse.
The thing I didn’t realize was what I really wanted and needed was to love myself.But into my 30s I went down the same path. Relationships with men who were unavailable to give me love.
And then social media came on the scene. Oh great! I could now connect with all the people from my past who didn’t give me love back then to see if they would give me love now. I could scroll through and see how great their lives are and compare my life to theirs. I could post things and see how many people liked it so I can feel loved and important.
Then I would find myself looking on my computer or phone multiple times a day to check on social media if my post got liked and by how many people and which people. And the scrolling was endless. It became an addiction to see what other people were doing. I barely had time to live my own life because I couldn’t stop watching other people’s lives on social media. But that was okay because my life sucked anyway for the most part. I definitely spent more time scrolling than posting because I just loved to compare myself to other people so I could make myself feel terrible.
Two things were happening here. I was still trying to find love outside of myself and I was hiding from my own life and pain by wrapping myself up in other people’s lives through social media.
After a while I got tired of posting things and not getting enough likes to make me happy. And I realized that if I hadn’t kept in contact with these people before social media existed, I probably didn’t care that much about being in contact with them anyway. If I truly cared about the relationship, I would have been connecting with them all along.
I decided to stay off of social media and break my social media addiction. I quit posting and I quit scrolling. I didn’t delete my accounts though. At this time I still didn’t realize I had been looking for love on social media this whole time. I just knew it wasn’t making me feel good.
The first few days were difficult because I wasn’t getting social media love anymore. I wasn’t working on loving myself either because I hadn’t yet realized that’s what I needed.
It actually was freeing to not check Facebook and Instagram every two seconds and I started to realize that I didn’t need to know what people were up to all the time. I also didn’t need to post things to show how “great” my life was and get likes.
Only in the last few months did I finally understand why I was obsessed with social media. I’ve been spending a lot of time self-reflecting and understanding my feelings. I was hiding my pain from my own life by immersing myself in other people’s lives online. I didn’t have the relationship I wanted and I was bored with my job. Not to mention I didn’t even have a good relationship with myself.
When I started to feel a feeling that was uncomfortable for me, I would reach for my phone to scroll social media to make me feel better. So it’s not really that I was obsessed with social media. It’s that I was addicted to avoiding my own feelings that I wanted to keep stuffing down.
I know now that it’s okay to feel the pain and feelings of my own life. If I have a painful feeling, I allow myself a few minutes to sit quietly and feel it. Whatever comes up is perfectly fine to feel and if I need to cry it out, I’m allowed to do that and it will actually allow me to release it.
I’ve also realized how so many small things from my past come up and make me feel unworthy and unloved. I’ve had to keep working through these things, crying and releasing. It’s a constant work in progress, but working through all of these feelings will allow you to start loving yourself and realize that you don’t need for anyone outside of you to love you and you don’t have to scroll social media to make yourself feel better.
How to stop being obsessed with social media
I challenge you to stay off of social media for 2 weeks and see how your life will change. Every time you feel the need to pick up your phone and scroll social media, take a minute to think about why you feel like you need to do that. Is there something bothering you? Is there an emotion you’re trying to stuff down? Do you think if you don’t post that people will forget about you?
Take a few minutes to close your eyes and sit with that feeling. Allow yourself to feel whatever comes up. Now tell yourself that it’s okay to feel that. Anyone who was in that situation would feel that way. Talk to yourself as if you are talking to a little child that you love who is having that feeling. If you need to cry or tear up, let it happen. When you feel it’s completed, open your eyes. You should feel a weight off your shoulders and a sense of relief.
If you do this simple thing, you’ll be able to start working through all the things that are holding you down in life, making you feel small, and fueling your need to get something from people outside of yourself. You won’t need to be obsessed with social media or anything else to make you feel good.
/>Guilt can weigh on us throughout our lives so much. We keep piling it on and piling it on throughout life until it seems like we start to feel guilty about everything. I’ve had guilt literally weighing me down for over 30 years of my life sometimes.
One of the most awesome things about a plant based diet is that you can eat frugally if you’re on a budget and still have amazing meals. I’ll admit I get caught up in all the fancy recipes with a ton of ingredients sometimes, but it is so easy to make delicious food without spending a fortune. I’ve put together some of my favorite cheap plant based dinner recipes when you’re broke or want to save money.
, you’re going to love it! It makes eating plant based affordably so easy. The thing I like most about it is that it doesn’t use a lot of unusual ingredients that you have to go searching for and spend a ton of money on. It’s mostly ingredients that you can find anywhere. The recipes are simple and easy to make. Be sure to try the vegan quesadilla!
that keeps them from drying out and they cook perfectly. I like to put on a little vegan butter (Miyoko’s is my favorite), 
, a little vegan cheese and vegan sour cream. I usually microwave some frozen mixed vegetables to make it a meal. This meal is all done in the microwave and takes about 5 minutes. And it tastes like a baked potato you’d get in a restaurant.
(if you don’t, I highly recommend getting one!) you can cook them in there for 12 to 15 minutes and they get nice and crispy. I love to make loaded hashbrowns by adding the toppings I use on nachos over my cooked hashbrowns. Yummy!
on top. I like the peanut butter on top so I can take a little bit with each bite, but you could mix it into the oatmeal if you like it better that way.
So simple!
I never in my wildest dreams imagined I’d be vegan. I always felt like I needed to eat meat or I’d feel terrible or that I’d crave meat. So it was quite a surprise when one day I decided I would try a vegan diet. But what would I eat?!
I always have a hard time finding vegan breakfast foods that aren’t boring and the tofu scramble recipe in this book is so freaking good! I make hashbrowns to go with it and put it in a burrito. Yum!
because I can’t stand mushy oatmeal. The texture of steel cut reminds me more of rice than oatmeal. I usually make enough ahead to last me at least for a few breakfasts so I don’t have to cook it every day. I add a little brown sugar to my oatmeal and mix it around. Then I put a spoonful of peanut butter on top (I don’t mix it in because I like the texture of the peanut butter in each bite) and sprinkle on some 
so it still has the crispy texture on the outside. I’m super obsessed with my air fryer. I cook so many foods and use it to reheat foods that I want to be crispy. If you don’t have one, but are thinking of getting one, my biggest piece of advice would be to not get a small one. Some of them are tiny and barely fit anything. I would go with 
Becoming vegan is a lot easier than most people think. You just have to know the foods that vegans can and can’t eat and how to incorporate veganism into your lifestyle. In this step by step guide to become vegan, I’ll show you what foods to eat and avoid, and how to transition into being a vegan as well as how to make it a healthy lifestyle where you can lose weight (if you want to) and how to save money on your grocery bill with a plant based diet.
. It’s really simple to follow and how I lost 16 pounds in the first few weeks. Basically avoiding junk food and extra fat are the keys to how vegans can lose weight.
When you’re first starting a vegan diet it can seem difficult to figure out what to take to work for lunch, especially if you don’t have a way to heat up your food. We had this same problem finding vegan lunchbox ideas for my boyfriend when we first started on a plant based diet. After a lot of searching I found some easy vegan cold packed lunch ideas for work and put them together here for you so you don’t have to search everywhere like I did.
Starting a plant based diet journey is fun and rewarding in so many ways, but when you find yourself stuck at a weight loss plateau on a plant based diet, you might start to feel frustrated with your new vegan lifestyle especially if your main reason for doing it was to lose weight. I’ll share with you the most common problems that creep up and cause your weight loss to stop.
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