Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Who Needs Some Social Media Therapy？

00:00:00.000 I have a question for everyone. What do you talk about in therapy these days? I haven't had a

00:00:07.100 one-on-one therapist in so long, mostly because they're impossible to find. It's impossible to

00:00:16.040 find a therapist who has an opening. It's impossible to find anyone who's going to take

00:00:21.180 your insurance and I don't have the disposable income to just be shelling out thousands of

00:00:27.540 a month for therapy. Nick and I did do couples counseling during the pandemic, which was awesome,

00:00:34.120 although I might only think it's awesome because the counselor always agreed with me. And he had

00:00:40.280 some really great mid-century modern furniture behind him that I always got preoccupied by.

00:00:46.380 And so he's like, well, tell me how you argue. And I'm all like, tell me where you got that lamp.

00:00:50.760 I bring this up because I was recently talking to a therapist friend and she said,

00:00:57.180 all anybody talks about anymore in therapy is social media. About how it makes them feel shitty,

00:01:04.260 about how it makes them feel FOMO, about how they feel like their brain is fried all the time.

00:01:09.880 And it's just amazing to me that social media has become such a huge part of our life and our

00:01:17.560 anxieties, and now apparently the things that we talk about with therapists. And so in continuing

00:01:24.460 our month of renewal over here, I wanted to bring on a clinical therapist to talk about

00:01:31.200 some of the things that she's hearing from her clients. And then I want to dig into some

00:01:35.880 of the strategies that can be used to make us feel better without paying for therapy.

00:01:41.340 We're just getting free therapy today. That's what we're doing. Today, we are going to talk

00:01:44.800 to Lauren Kettenbaum. She's a clinical therapist and a licensed social worker, and she mostly 0.87

00:01:50.080 works with women, a lot of postpartum women and a lot of caregivers. Lauren actually posted this

00:01:55.280 poll to her Instagram just last night. It was, hold on, I'm going to pull it up. I'm pulling it

00:02:01.040 up. And it said, social media scrolling often makes me feel, one, informed, two, entertained,

00:02:11.300 three, anxious, and four, jealous. What do you think people said? Well, all right, let's just

00:02:18.380 get Lauren on. Let's get her on right now. I'm Lauren Tettenbaum. I am a licensed social worker 1.00

00:02:25.020 in New York and Connecticut. And the bulk of my work is therapy. It's cognitive behavioral oriented

00:02:31.640 with women and couples. I also do a lot of coaching for companies, for caregivers,

00:02:38.540 especially postpartum women and returning to work as a new mom. And so all of the

00:02:44.560 themes and areas of my work really reflect a lot of the same trends regarding social media

00:02:52.880 and the way that people compare themselves to what they're seeing on the internet.

00:02:59.940 And talk to me a little bit about your background with social media and how you work with people

00:03:05.940 with social media. As I became a mom and then as I pivoted my career to focus on maternal mental

00:03:13.740 health and the mental health of young women, I noticed that for my clients and for myself that

00:03:20.860 social media kept popping up as a source of anxiety. So I have conflicted feelings about

00:03:28.580 social media, which I think many of us do. I'll bet you do. I'll bet you do. You did a poll last

00:03:34.140 night. What was that poll? So the poll was, and I am by no means an influencer, so it's not like I

00:03:41.240 had, you know, thousands of responses, but I did get a good chunk of responses. The poll was,

00:03:46.300 how does social media usually make you feel when you're scrolling? And the options were informed,

00:03:53.440 entertained, anxious, and jealous. And I thought it was so interesting that most people voted anxious.

00:04:01.040 We also got an even split between informed and entertained. No one voted for jealous. However,

00:04:08.980 I got so many messages that said all of the, and I think even that's interesting that people were reluctant to kind of admit the jealousy, but then they said, yes, it's definitely popping up for me.

00:04:24.480 Right. They didn't want to admit the jealousy publicly, but privately they did say that social media made them jealous, which, and I think those findings, however unscientific, but whatever, what is science these days?

00:04:38.980 I mean, who is it? Well, exactly. I mean, it's it's a field study. Also, it's not like Quinnipiac is out there doing this poll for us. But I thought it was so interesting because that's what I hear anecdotally from people all the time. What kinds of things are you hearing from your clients in particular? And how do you help them through various situations?

00:05:03.480 yeah so the bulk of my practice is moms and especially moms of young kids although about

00:05:12.380 a third of my practice is young women and who are not yet mothers and they're likewise navigating

00:05:18.260 career relationships etc and among both populations it's the same sense of i'm not living my life the

00:05:28.220 way I should be because I see that others have it better, right? Whether it's their baby, you know,

00:05:35.700 behaves for a photo shoot, their house is so clean, they're traveling, you know, to these exotic

00:05:41.320 places, they're shopping, they're look at what they're wearing, you know, their hair, even when

00:05:46.420 they're in their pajamas, they're put together. And so it's this source of comparison and shame

00:05:52.100 and all of these ideas that they're not measuring up.

00:05:57.580 Right. 0.92

00:05:58.380 Feels pretty shitty. 0.68

00:05:59.560 Which feels shitty.

00:06:01.040 I mean, have you felt that personally?

00:06:02.920 I feel it all the time.

00:06:04.440 I feel it all the time.

00:06:05.720 And I actually, for the most part now,

00:06:09.820 delete Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn from my phone

00:06:14.220 unless I'm posting for work.

00:06:16.460 And that's why I have a really complicated relationship

00:06:18.980 with social media because I don't think it's all bad.

00:06:21.700 in fact I think it's incredibly it's a way of connecting um you know I was I was just saying

00:06:28.860 to you before we got on I feel like I know you I feel like you're my friend I'm always listening

00:06:33.840 to your podcast and you know certainly following you and laughing along with you and feel like we

00:06:38.400 have the same sense of humor and interest so I look at how we got here we dm'd on instagram we

00:06:44.540 connected and I feel you know I I know that of course we're best friends now yeah we're gonna

00:06:50.780 Let's let's go have margaritas after I finish dry January.

00:06:54.120 Yes, absolutely.

00:06:55.500 No, no worries.

00:06:57.020 I will wait for you patiently.

00:06:59.440 But truly, I have made genuine friends.

00:07:03.040 I have kept in touch with genuine friends.

00:07:05.600 I have made many business opportunities come to fruition from social media.

00:07:11.100 And of course, there's also the the news element.

00:07:14.300 People learn a lot.

00:07:15.900 You can fundraise, you know, beautifully on social media.

00:07:18.960 So there are so many good things. But for me personally, I noticed that I was spending, you know, way too much time on it. And at this point in my life, I don't actively have the apps on my phone.

00:07:31.900 That's great. That's great. So where do you use them? And people ask me this all the time. It's like, OK, if I take the apps off my phone, can I use them on my desktop?

00:07:39.160 You can, although the functionality of Instagram isn't as good.

00:07:44.200 You can't repost stories from your computer.

00:07:48.460 The DMing is different.

00:07:50.740 So if I am posting purposefully, I will redownload it and then delete it.

00:07:56.860 And, you know, my way is a little extreme, but I definitely do recommend, especially

00:08:00.900 for my clients who are saying that they're feeling anxious upon scrolling, I always encourage

00:08:06.240 them to check in with themselves.

00:08:07.620 How do they feel after scrolling? And if it's an icky kind of feeling, then maybe we need to implement some behavioral modifications, like putting a time limit on it or, you know, telling yourself, I won't scroll in bed or something like that, just to alleviate that addiction that we all have.

00:08:27.020 Right. I mean, and we do all have that addiction. So, you know, give me a couple case studies of your clients because our listeners are mostly moms who are anxious and nervous and just want to figure out a better way to be in the world.

00:08:41.580 And I think I genuinely believe that the reason we consume so much of the very pretty, very often very fake trad wife content, because we're all longing for a simplicity and and we're all longing for life to be simple and beautiful.

00:09:01.160 Life is never going to be simple and beautiful. This period in history for so many of our listeners and American women is probably the most beautiful in history that it has ever been. It is still shit for the majority of people in the world.

00:09:16.420 So we're longing for something that doesn't exist. 0.98

00:09:19.880 That said, you know, I'm curious, like the exact things you hear from your clients about, you know, what is hard for them and then what you prescribe to them to try to make it a little easier and a little bit better.

00:09:33.520 Absolutely. So one of the themes that I see a lot of the time is this sense of not being included, whether a group of mom friends are posting, you know, they went to dinner or their kids are together or, you know, maybe they're traveling together or things like that.

00:09:54.140 And then the let's say a client that I'm working with will say, well, you know, now every time I'm at dinner with a group of friends, I want to post a picture.

00:10:04.300 And we talk about that sort of sense of urgency she has to to capture the moment, to share, to show off, because otherwise it looks like she's not, you know, part of the group.

00:10:15.800 And with someone like this, with an example like this, I would take it slow.

00:10:19.720 I'm not going to say, cold turkey, delete it, never worry about it again, because that's not

00:10:24.660 realistic. But I would challenge her to perhaps not post that night and reassess in the morning,

00:10:32.260 you know, do you still really want to post this picture? I'm not here to judge. It's fine if you

00:10:36.980 do. But I think it's always good to kind of slow down, especially when you're in an elevated

00:10:41.640 emotional state and really mindfully proceed with what you want to do next. And a lot of the time

00:10:49.500 that that urgent feeling dissipate. And then the women will say things like, yeah, it wasn't that 0.74

00:10:55.680 important. Or I understand that, you know, so and so posted, but I don't need to compete. It's better

00:11:01.940 for me and my mental health when I just live my life without worrying about how it appears to

00:11:07.580 others. It's so interesting that you're saying all of that, because right now I've been on Instagram

00:11:12.900 more than ever because i'm in book monster promotion mode i have to i don't have a choice

00:11:22.400 right now right i'm dying to get this book in as many people's hands we're talking about the

00:11:27.820 sicilian inheritance um as pre-order it today pretty give it a pre-order you'll get a lifetime

00:11:33.080 subscription to my sub stack um i want to get it into as many people's hands as possible but

00:11:37.660 there's fewer and fewer places where people will ever even see a book or encounter a book right

00:11:42.700 So this I'm on the Instagram doing it. But I went to bed last night feeling like shit. And there's no reason I should have felt like that. I went to the gym yesterday. I had a really good day with my kids. The baby walked for the first time, which was awesome. I had a good day and I still feel it felt like shit. 0.99

00:12:06.360 And it was Instagram hangover. It was because I was on it all day long. And I still I kept feeling that urgency to pick it up again and again. And I really now that I'm doing the dry January, I can compare that feeling, that urgency to after you have that first drink and you're like, this is great. I feel amazing. I am 19 percent prettier right now. 0.99

00:12:34.220 And then you're like, where's the next drink? I'm going to the bar to get the next drink. That is exactly how the feeling is to go back and check your messages on Instagram or to post something else. It really is an addiction. And you hear this all the time from your clients, right?

00:12:50.320 Absolutely. It is so hard to to wean off social media. And again, I'm not necessarily saying you must, but I would encourage you all, you know, you pluraled the royal you, I suppose, to check in with yourself.

00:13:06.080 How are you feeling? And if it's a negative feeling, what can we do about that? Because I used to have or I have had clients and friends who every meal, every activity, they would be asking, you know, what's the Wi-Fi here?

00:13:21.440 Because I have to post this right now. And you're so obviously not even enjoying the moment that you're in.

00:13:29.640 And I'm guilty of this, too. You know, I think of my kids' birthday parties when they were younger. Now they're seven and five. And I would be so frantic about getting, you know, one good picture of the family to post. How hard is it to get kids to smile for the camera? We all know it. I mean, it's painful. And I would really get caught up in some stupid thing.

00:13:52.400 And I wasn't enjoying, you know, the moment with my family. 0.99

00:13:56.900 And it's just, in my opinion, it's not worth it.

00:13:59.200 It doesn't make you feel good.

00:14:00.660 You know, my clients are telling me the anecdotes for a reason, right?

00:14:04.760 They're showing up because they're not feeling so great about their sense of self and how they fit into the world.

00:14:10.420 And so often just weaning a little bit makes a big difference.

00:14:16.480 Totally, totally.

00:14:18.000 A huge, huge difference.

00:14:19.180 And again, we talk about this on the all the time on the podcast, but I think it bears repeating.

00:14:23.580 It's the just like the stopping and the having a moment of mindfulness.

00:14:27.940 Yeah. Oh, how do I feel? Why? Why do I feel this way?

00:14:32.380 Is can I get rid of this ick factor? That's just nice.

00:14:36.220 It's just nice. You mentioned earlier the FOMO that social media causes.

00:14:44.220 And I want to dive into that a little bit more after we take a very quick break, okay?

00:14:51.360 That's good.

00:14:58.280 Lately, I have been totally swamped, totally buried in it.

00:15:04.360 I've got this podcast, I'm relaunching Committed, I've got the Too Much Money podcast, and I'm

00:15:11.060 trying to sell the hell out of the Sicilian inheritance.

00:15:14.220 I'm, I'm, I'm busy. I'm busier than I've been in a very long time. And one of the things that I'm

00:15:20.680 using to try to make life just a little bit easier to take something off my plate,

00:15:25.280 pun intended, is Green Chef. I'm using the meal kit delivery service Green Chef to try to make

00:15:30.940 nighttimes a little bit easier. One of the things that I cannot stand is deciding what my kids are

00:15:37.460 going to have for dinner, deciding what my whole family is going to have for dinner. My husband,

00:15:41.740 my three kids who all eat different things, a lot of times my mom and our caregiver,

00:15:47.200 all of these people in my house. I have decision fatigue and I don't like to go to the grocery

00:15:51.820 store. And Green Chef solves both of those problems. Green Chef gives me healthy options

00:15:56.840 for meals for dinner and it sends me everything I need to make them so that I do not have to go to

00:16:01.680 the grocery store. Again, which I hate. I went there the other night. The line was like around

00:16:06.720 the entire store. Like this is, it was, it was madness. It was absolutely, there was a revolt.

00:16:11.900 There was a revolt at the grocery store. Green Chef really does take the work out of eating clean

00:16:16.940 with their chef-crafted, nutritionist-approved recipes that feature organic fruits and vegetables

00:16:22.040 and cage-free eggs and sustainably sourced seafood. They have all of the good things that

00:16:26.440 you would go get at the fancy grocery store without you having to go to the fancy grocery

00:16:30.100 store. It's nice. It's nice. At Green Chef, they believe people should be able to enjoy eating

00:16:34.840 and feeding their loved ones with a clean conscience and they just want to make it easy

00:16:39.220 for you. They do. And you know what? I love them for that. They also have something called the

00:16:45.220 Green Market, which makes it easy to stock up on a bunch of snacks and beverages to do things like

00:16:50.640 support your gut and brain health, which I know is good for me, but I don't always remember is

00:16:56.300 good for me. Green Chef is like a one-stop shop to make dinner easier. And their menu has something

00:17:01.920 for everybody. They've got more than 80 things to choose from, and you can customize your meals to

00:17:06.240 fit everyone's picky preferences, from keto to vegan to vegetarian to Mediterranean to gluten-free

00:17:12.400 to things I haven't even heard of. So if you want to make dinner time a little bit easier,

00:17:17.620 if you're looking for a meal kit, you really can't go wrong with Green Chef. We also have a deal for

00:17:23.480 you. Go to greenchef.com slash 60 under the influence and use the code 60 under the influence

00:17:29.740 to get 60% off, plus 20% off your next two months. That is greenchef.com slash 60 under the influence

00:17:38.420 and the code is 60 under the influence to get 60% off plus 20% off your next two months.

00:17:45.140 Green Chef, they're the number one meal kit for eating well,

00:17:47.840 and they're making my life a lot easier while I'm doing all of the things.

00:17:52.040 all right so okay we are back and i want to talk about fomo in fact i think this this whole episode

00:18:04.660 like let's focus on the fomo it's a real thing i don't think that it existed nearly as much before

00:18:12.500 instagram before we would have to physically catch someone doing something out in out in public

00:18:19.720 without us. There's that great story that Taylor Swift penned her first hit after she ran into all

00:18:26.000 of her friends at the mall without her. But now you can see pictures of people doing things without

00:18:35.380 you, of moms with their kids, of just their kids doing something where they didn't invite your kid

00:18:40.700 there. And, you know, we dismiss FOMO as just another acronym, but it's not. It's something

00:18:47.560 that causes very real anxiety. And have you seen this in your clients? All the time. I really can't

00:18:56.300 emphasize it enough. And it's sad. And I have experienced it myself. And I think it's interesting

00:19:03.720 because almost the flip side is now that I'm off social media, I sort of like don't know what's

00:19:09.060 going on, you know. And we just had winter break, for example. And people are saying like, oh,

00:19:16.060 look, you know, are you in town or out of town? I don't know where you are because you don't post.

00:19:21.020 And likewise, I'm missing out on what people are doing because I'm sort of not keeping up with.

00:19:26.500 Right. Which I do think is is a bit of a loss because I would like to be informed not only at my friends,

00:19:33.280 but also pop culture, the news, whatever it is. But when you are constantly being shown these images of

00:19:43.740 what looks like everyone having fun without you, it is not a good impact on your mental health.

00:19:50.600 And it's really a cognitive distortion because you probably are doing fun things with people.

00:19:56.640 You're just maybe not at that thing that's getting posted, right? But so it becomes this

00:20:02.500 distorted thought where I'm never included, no one likes me, I'm not invited to things,

00:20:09.680 And certainly that is not helpful for our mental health.

00:20:15.360 No, it's not.

00:20:16.520 No, it's not.

00:20:17.040 What tools do you give your clients to try to get over that FOMO?

00:20:21.580 So a lot of reframing, right?

00:20:24.140 Maybe people were out without you last night.

00:20:27.140 But if your thought is they don't like me, maybe there's a more neutral interpretation

00:20:31.960 that we can come up with.

00:20:33.880 Like maybe they made plans when they were at soccer and, you know, you and your kid don't go to soccer and it wasn't intentional to leave you out.

00:20:42.220 It was just a dinner and you happen to not be at that one. Right.

00:20:45.940 It's not necessarily even positive. It's just a neutral statement.

00:20:51.480 Behaviorally, it's well, OK, if you want to be with this group of moms, why don't you reach out and make a plan? 0.56

00:20:58.060 Right. And you'll be at the next function. 0.96

00:21:00.900 And also the behavioral tool of limiting your social media use.

00:21:08.000 Right. Right. Of course. Of course.

00:21:09.480 You know, there's there's a couple of really great nuggets in that, because I've I've talked to a lot of women who say I'm never invited to anything and I don't feel like I have any mom friends.

00:21:19.840 And when you dig a little deeper, you're like, oh, well, do you do you ever respond to the group texts?

00:21:25.860 And I have, we have, I'm on so many mom group texts.

00:21:29.760 I can't even keep track of them at this point.

00:21:33.000 I wish that someone would create a mom group text app so that I could just separate them

00:21:38.820 out from my other texts.

00:21:41.200 Hey, say, hey, techie people, could you do that for me?

00:21:45.080 Big business idea, Jo.

00:21:46.540 Big business idea.

00:21:48.000 And then you can sell stuff to us within it. 0.99

00:21:49.720 I don't give a shit. 0.99

00:21:50.840 You're selling stuff to us everywhere else. 0.99

00:21:53.180 But we love to consume. 1.00

00:21:54.900 we love we love to consume unfortunately but i you know some some of the women on my mom group

00:22:02.140 texts will say oh my gosh i i feel left out and there's a bunch of examples where i'm like you

00:22:08.460 haven't responded to a text in forever you haven't shown up when we've when we've had outings or made

00:22:14.580 plans you can't say you feel left out but not try to participate and not put in effort in front so

00:22:22.240 much of friendship and also making new friends is so much work. I'm making new friends with new

00:22:29.100 school moms, but I'm really putting in the effort. You know, I'm responding to those texts. I'm

00:22:35.380 showing up for dinners and drinks, even when I might be tired and don't want to,

00:22:40.560 because friendships take effort. And I think a lot of people forget that. And we just look at

00:22:45.300 the Instagram and think, oh, my gosh, I'm not there. But like, did you try? Did you put in

00:22:50.460 the effort and and also the other thing that i remind myself all the time is no one is thinking

00:22:56.720 about you the way you're thinking about you yeah like literally like no one was like oh my gosh 0.97

00:23:03.020 i mean like a very small handful of assholes are but the majority of people are not like oh my gosh 0.56

00:23:09.600 let me exclude her exactly that is so huge and i i am an optimist and so not to sound too 0.95

00:23:17.100 Pollyanna about it, but I do really like to lean into the most generous interpretation of people's

00:23:22.940 behaviors. And that's like with the example I gave. It's very unlikely, just factually,

00:23:29.260 that people said, oh, let's exclude Warren, right? It's just, it just came about. It happened. It's

00:23:35.260 no big deal. If it looks like something you're interested in, make the effort, make the plan

00:23:40.420 and go for it and move on exactly exactly but social media does make that hard to do and we

00:23:48.560 have to acknowledge that because when you see the pictures in your pocket in this thing that is

00:23:53.940 glued to your hand all the time you're you're constantly going to be reminded in a way that

00:23:58.380 you never would have at any other point in human history i know and it's hard because i feel like

00:24:05.120 as a result we actually are out and about less because we're on our phones um but that all

00:24:13.260 speaks to make the effort and you know get out of the house right get together in real life

00:24:17.800 make the effort get out of the house get together in real life i look at some of my friends

00:24:23.340 instagrams and i'm like god you're having so much more fun than i am uh but then i hang out with

00:24:31.020 them in real life. And I'm like, no, you're having an average amount of fun. It's average.

00:24:34.840 It's average.

00:24:35.300 Just showing the fun part. Like I it really occurred to me personally. I posted I'm laughing

00:24:42.300 at myself. There was a family photo shoot that we had done when we used to do them because now we

00:24:48.120 don't because I realized that it's literally torture for my children. But anyway, there was

00:24:53.160 one back back when my son was about to and we got one good picture of me, my husband and my son.

00:25:01.020 And it was only a good picture because my son was actually screaming, crying at the time.

00:25:07.280 But the face looked like he was smiling.

00:25:10.540 And I posted it as if he was feeling and everyone, what a lovely picture. 1.00

00:25:16.320 And I said to myself, they said bullshit, truly bullshit. 1.00

00:25:21.180 The kid was screaming. 1.00

00:25:23.260 I was sweating.

00:25:24.520 You know, please just let us get one good picture.

00:25:26.160 And sure, the picture itself is fine.

00:25:28.040 But it just shows you like we're not a, you know, happy family, no tears, easy breezy.

00:25:32.940 He was literally having a meltdown.

00:25:35.960 So it's just such a reflection.

00:25:37.760 It's a lot of it is smoke and mirrors and go for it.

00:25:41.960 If you like posting and sharing content and sharing your outfits and certainly sharing your, you know, your business, I think it's great.

00:25:49.100 But for the recipient, I want the consumers to realize that it's very intentionally curated.

00:25:56.120 so intentionally curated and we know that now we do we just have to remind ourselves all the time

00:26:01.940 i i have this one story and this story is is the reason the number the very very first moment i had

00:26:10.800 the idea to do the podcast under the influence i back when i lived in san francisco i had no it

00:26:18.380 was so hard to make friends in san francisco i've been in i've been in new york for so long

00:26:24.180 I had my people. Also, all my people were on the East Coast, but fell in love in the Galapagos

00:26:30.360 Islands with some dude who lived in San Francisco. And, you know, living in New York for a long time

00:26:37.240 with rats in the subway and guys masturbating on the street next to you, you're like, oh, 0.97

00:26:43.080 California sounds nice. So I moved there. And I had no friends. I had the hardest time making 0.99

00:26:48.540 friends, but I was determined. So I would walk down the street when I was pregnant and when I

00:26:53.800 had a newborn. And if I saw someone that had a baby my age, be like, hey, do you like beer and

00:27:01.060 sausage? Because I got a fire pit in my backyard and we are going to have fire pit Fridays with

00:27:06.580 beer and sausage. Come on over. I did this and this is how I made my friends. I did this to

00:27:11.720 so many women. And you know what? If people said I don't like beer and sausage, we're not going to

00:27:15.300 be friends anyway so cool uh but one one one day i invited this this very fancy lady she's very 1.00

00:27:25.360 fancy and this is the beginning of the peasant dress trend uh-huh and and the big floppy hats

00:27:31.340 and she always wore those and she had a beautiful beautiful instagram like so well curated she shows 1.00

00:27:39.120 up at fire pit friday everyone else looks like a hot mess you know they're screaming drooling

00:27:45.420 babies all over the all over the place but but everyone's having a good time right and this 1.00

00:27:50.100 woman just sat on the outskirts and i kept trying to engage her right and she seemed miserable the 0.95

00:27:56.300 whole time and at one point she went up to my kitchen by herself took the one mason jar i had 0.97

00:28:05.880 in my cupboard and put and put a a paper straw in it that was striped like the pretty paper

00:28:14.340 straws and took a picture of it in front of the fire pit so it was like all glowy and lit up

00:28:20.000 and then she left and i'm like what this woman is a weirdo but the next day it was on her instagram

00:28:27.980 and it looked beautiful and the caption was had such a wonderful time making new friends and

00:28:33.900 connections at Joe Piazza's backyard fire pit. And I'm like, you had a fucking miserable time 0.99

00:28:40.760 at my house, girl. And yet you made it seem like it was the best night ever on Instagram. And that 0.99

00:28:47.700 was the moment where I'm like, oh, wow, under the influence. Like, this is something. I'm here for

00:28:53.000 this. I am here for this. So, yeah, I thought I thought about that so much, so much. And then I

00:29:00.340 had my second baby and then started the podcast but everything is smoke and mirrors man and but

00:29:06.180 I do think it's so interesting that you as a counselor are now I mean this is a thing that

00:29:12.740 people talk about in counseling people used to talk about you know I mean we always talk about

00:29:17.420 our social anxieties but the fact that this has become such a huge part of therapy and counseling

00:29:24.400 is amazing to me it's a massive part um i really i have so many clients that talk about it all the

00:29:35.360 time in various ways they can talk about it with their you know in regards to their parents or

00:29:41.540 their siblings like well you know i feel rejected because they didn't um call me but i see them

00:29:47.060 posting or they liked so-and-so's you know image but not mine mom this one's engaged and now I feel

00:29:55.680 like I'm behind in my life and you know I still haven't even spoken to this person in 20 years

00:29:59.740 and I have no idea how they their significant other but I'm going to compare myself so it pops

00:30:04.920 up all the time I also think that you know your story is funny to me because it's like maybe this

00:30:11.080 woman was a professional influencer and I I see the work it is work and she's you know an artist

00:30:16.980 in many ways the fact that she did the pretty photo but it's like who's her audience like who

00:30:21.980 cares where she was on a tuesday night or whatever but it's funny that that we now are mean to feel

00:30:29.840 like we have to share and show off and i don't think it benefits most of us i don't i don't

00:30:37.880 think it benefits most of us i really don't it's like i said earlier the baby walked for the first

00:30:43.740 time last night and we took a thousand videos of her is she she was so funny because she walked

00:30:52.140 and then she didn't want to walk and then she really liked just standing up and plopping down 1.00

00:30:56.000 on her little fat butt uh and we caught this one of her walking and i i i didn't know if if i wanted 0.80

00:31:04.260 to post it i ended up posting it mostly because and i post it on stories not the grid because 0.88

00:31:08.880 I feel like no judgment no judgment yeah well in my head in my head I'm convinced that stories are

00:31:14.040 harder for pedophiles to take but whatever uh and but the re I asked myself before I posted I'm

00:31:19.900 like why am I posting this and and mostly it was because the video was so joyous because she's so

00:31:26.560 happy and then her siblings are so happy that the video brought so much joy that I thought it might

00:31:32.120 bring other people joy and that's why I posted it but I did ask myself the question I think it's

00:31:37.640 important before you post or before you scroll to just stop and ask why you're doing this and

00:31:45.940 that's something else that i had learned once when i was doing a story with uh someone who worked

00:31:52.140 with people going through sobriety it's before you go out to drink or before you pick up that drink

00:31:56.860 just have a moment of mindfulness and ask yourself why am i doing this a hundred percent mindfulness

00:32:04.260 is such an important tool. And the whole idea of social media, it takes you out of the present

00:32:09.720 movement, right? And in some ways, that's a beautiful thing because you have this record

00:32:14.460 of memories. You know, if you have family who lives far away or friends, it is beautiful. I

00:32:20.420 don't want to completely, you know, knock it, even though I know that I'm probably sounding

00:32:25.740 negative about it. I just want to encourage everyone to really check in with themselves.

00:32:30.680 is this making me feel good and if not what should i do about it exactly exactly and if not what can

00:32:40.820 you do about it you could put your phone down i've also started despite the fact that i'm a social

00:32:45.100 media monster right now because of the book again if you pre-order the book i'll give you a free

00:32:51.860 subscription forever to our newsletter which is really which is really great i'm working on one

00:32:56.280 right now about what the division of labor looks like in our household. One of my favorite topics.

00:33:02.280 I know. I know. Also something we all need to talk about more and be more mindful about and

00:33:07.240 that we don't see on social media. But what I've also been doing is I just leave my phone somewhere.

00:33:15.640 So when I wake up in the morning and go downstairs to get the baby and then go to breakfast with the

00:33:21.020 big kids, I've been leaving the phone upstairs and I'm on the third floor. So my lazy ass doesn't 0.99

00:33:26.020 want to go back up there to get it until I have to come up to go to work. So that's a nice way to 0.98

00:33:31.780 just be like, I'm at breakfast with the kids. I can't have the phone around. Or when I leave my

00:33:36.720 office, which is also on the third floor, and go downstairs to relieve our caregiver around 430,

00:33:44.200 I leave it up here again, which means it's work to go get it, right? So I'm just like making it

00:33:48.840 harder for myself. And the fact that we have to trick ourselves like this is crazy, but it works

00:33:52.840 for me. I think that's a really important and beautiful thing to model for your children as

00:33:59.180 well. You know, our kids see us, they see us on our phone all the time, even if we're using the

00:34:05.280 phone to check the weather, check the schedule, check email, you know, not necessarily scrolling

00:34:09.600 on social media, but they they're seeing us with our eyes and our hands glued to our phone. And

00:34:15.300 you know, do you do we want our kids to be like that? I can't speak for everyone.

00:34:20.380 But for my own household, I have thought a lot about this and I am trying to just be more conscious and intentional about when my phone is out.

00:34:30.920 Some of my friends have started to buy, you know, actual books again versus reading on the Kindle app on their phone, for example, because it looks like they're just on their phone.

00:34:43.060 So not everything is for everyone, and that's fine.

00:34:46.340 But again, this mindful intentionality for everything, I think, is something that we could all benefit from.

00:34:54.540 Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think about that a lot.

00:34:57.340 I think about what we're modeling for our kids.

00:35:00.240 My husband exclusively reads things on his phone.

00:35:03.840 I still try to get the hard newspaper when I can and actual magazines to model what news and media is,

00:35:12.120 even though that may be a losing battle. But it's, yeah, all of these things. Do you

00:35:16.780 talk to teenage girls at all about how they're feeling about social media consumption?

00:35:24.260 I work primarily with 18 and up. So, you know, 18, 19 teenagers. So my youngest demographic,

00:35:32.640 they're pretty much in college. And they are, you know, what's called digital natives. They

00:35:39.300 have had social media their entire lives they're much more on snap and tiktok you know than i ever

00:35:45.400 was ever will be um it's a constant feeling of connection which again can be good but then also

00:35:55.200 can be bad it's of course right it's well they're hanging out without me or i want to go out with

00:36:00.980 so-and-so or go here but you know now so-and-so is going to know and it's going to be a whole

00:36:05.500 problem um or of course the the body image issues that we know impact women and girls and it again

00:36:15.060 you know not it's not good i'll put it that way it is not good it's not good no no i mean i just

00:36:23.060 i just did a sub stack about how i feel about my tummy and i posted pictures of my tummy from

00:36:30.800 different angles because if you were to look at my like my i've i have a squishy squishy squishy

00:36:35.800 tummy and gain i gained mom life yeah i gained 50 pounds uh like 40 50 pounds with each pregnancy

00:36:42.520 immediately lose 30 of it and then 20 pounds never goes away and it's squishy but front and from the

00:36:49.280 front you might not be able to tell so i could i could post a picture of it but like from the side

00:36:53.580 it's it's squishy and sticky outy and so i wanted to post pictures from all the angles and it was

00:36:58.960 just a good reminder to me that we just don't see other angles this is just we're you're seeing

00:37:05.880 every time you look at an instagram post you're looking at one angle and that's it one angle

00:37:10.820 that's so beautifully put yeah and again for the person who's posting i think you go girl you do

00:37:18.340 you truly but i just want to remind the recipient to remind themselves that just because you know 0.99

00:37:26.520 someone looks good in a photo doesn't mean that they are always confident and have their shit

00:37:32.000 together and everything is perfect. You know, it's just one angle, one snapshot, literally.

00:37:38.320 One angle. Exactly. Exactly. I think I think that's, you know, we covered so much. We covered

00:37:45.060 everything. Is there anything that I'm missing? No, I mean, I think that let's see what the future

00:37:51.360 holds, because certainly social media isn't going anywhere. Right. And again, I don't want to be

00:37:55.980 If you're mongering inside, delete, delete, delete.

00:37:57.960 It's the only way to improve our mental health.

00:38:00.260 I just think that we all have to be more mindful and kind to ourselves and each other when we're posting, when we're scrolling.

00:38:10.960 Also, the effects of scrolling on sleep is important, I think.

00:38:16.300 And we all know how important sleep is.

00:38:18.560 So I would suggest even if you love a scroll, maybe try not to do it before bedtime.

00:38:23.560 Just it doesn't lead to great sleep hygiene. And also when you find yourself in a more vulnerable kind of period of life, whether you're postpartum or perhaps going through a breakup, it might be it might feel easy to spend a lot of time on social media.

00:38:41.500 But like we said earlier, I actually think that getting up and going and being in the real world with people is much more of a healthy solution.

00:38:53.000 So I would encourage that.

00:38:54.640 And of course, to reach out if you feel like you're just feeling too bad about this.

00:38:59.300 You're not alone.

00:39:00.940 You're not alone.

00:39:01.740 You are not alone.

00:39:02.820 That is a great note to end on.

00:39:04.240 Where can people find you?

00:39:06.180 So I'm on Instagram.

00:39:08.160 I know.

00:39:08.640 I know.

00:39:08.920 that's yeah that's that's what i although interestingly when i was we were designing

00:39:13.580 my book cover the final cover uh this week and inside it's like where can where can someone

00:39:20.640 find you and it had my instagram it had my website and it had my twitter with the with the little

00:39:25.800 bird on it they haven't switched it to x and i'm not on twitter that much anymore and who knows

00:39:32.460 what's going to happen to twitter through the lifespan of this book so i asked them to put the

00:39:36.520 substack on which which they didn't they had no idea how to do it they're like well how should we

00:39:41.300 format this because it's so new but it just shows how quickly these platforms turn over and change

00:39:46.360 they really do and also how quickly our kid pick it up um my son is only seven but he he's heard

00:39:54.860 you know oh are you is this on instagram are you posting on instagram and again that personally

00:39:59.400 that makes me feel a little icky so i've kind of stopped posting him but anyway i am i mean

00:40:05.420 um and again i'm not you know i was trying to be sanctimonious of don't use it just use it

00:40:12.420 mindfully that's that's exactly you just be happy like do what make do what makes you happy

00:40:20.000 yes and get support if you're not so you can reach out to me for that support um so my both

00:40:26.540 my instagram handle and my website is the counselor so counselor but laur for lauren because both

00:40:33.000 therapists and lawyers provide counsel and they're really impassionate about supporting women in all

00:40:39.900 phases of life and building community like like we do on social media sometimes and also we need

00:40:46.300 to do in real life yeah absolutely absolutely i loved having you here thank you so much i appreciate

00:40:51.280 you thank you and that's all we've got for today do you feel better i feel better i feel like i

00:40:58.860 just had therapy. That was nice. Now I'm going to go eat some cheese. Thank you for listening.

00:41:04.520 Thank you for being here. As always, if you love the show, leave us a review. Tell a friend. Order

00:41:11.160 the Sicilian inheritance. You're all the best. I love you. Go have a great day. 0.67

00:41:28.860 Thank you.

00:41:58.860 You

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - January 14, 2024

Who Needs Some Social Media Therapy？

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