Hey folks!

It’s been a little over two months since I deleted my personal and business accounts on Instagram. There were a variety of reasons for doing so:

• The commodification of yoga

• I had enough of producing for rich yt men

• I was sucked deep into over-consumption

• I was comparing myself to others and felt as if I couldn’t keep up with marketing

• Folks were sending me reels and memes and I stopped caring to respond, or even watch them

It was all too much.

A few years ago when TikTok first came about, a friend mentioned it to me and so I got the app to check it out. I told them, “It’s too fast for me,” which they laughed at, but it was so true. I love living slow. I have lived in big cities before (Vancouver and Toronto) and the fast paced life is not for me. We get plummeted by all sorts of information through social media and my brain can’t keep up. I have delayed processing. Sometimes, it takes days for me to cognitively catch up to what someone has verbalized to me and I end up trying to circle back to the conversation only to have to come to terms that the person has already moved on and doesn’t want to re-hash. It can be frustrating at times, but I’ve learned to advocate for myself if it’s something that is important to me.

So, what the what does that have to do with yoga and social media?!

When I searched “yoga” on Instagram, I was inundated with images of people who do not resonate with me and my understanding of yoga. The app was trying to sell me people and experiences who I didn’t care about. I curated my feed to only show what I wanted to see, but eventually, those filters didn’t seem to matter. Then there were the emails about growing engagement. I saw how many people viewed posts. How many people exited or skipped stories. How many people ‘liked’ things I was posting. I was closing the app on my phone only to re-open it seconds later. Folks I followed were asking for more engagement on their posts because they weren’t being noticed by the algorithm.

I was not consuming or engaging mindfully.

It got to the point where I felt I wasn’t even absorbing meaningful content from creators that I appreciated. And, I didn’t want to keep selling myself or commodifying yoga. There are enough businesses profiting off of that. Being trauma-informed means knowing I have a choice and I am choosing differently.

I do extend gratitude to the community I met through the app, though. Shortly after I moved to Nogo-Ptbo, I went to the Farmer’s Market and saw a sign for a yoga guide. I followed her on Instagram and sent a message. This being, Katrina Behr, has become a good friend of mine. It began with discussing yoga and me vetting her, because, let’s be real, I gotta vet every new white person that comes into my life. Our friendship has turned into having each other over for dinner, going to the Saturday Buddhist meditations once in a while, meeting each others friends, going to shows, collaborating on yoga offerings…I may not have met Katrina if it wasn’t for Instagram.

Katrina recently pointed out that after I deleted my account, the posts we collaborated on were deleted on her account as well, even if she was the one who originally posted them. We talked about how it seemed like a punitive tactic and how based on Instagram’s model of consumption, it made sense, but was still unfortunate. Katrina mentioned that it seemed they may be trying to “use peer pressure to keep everyone in the game.”

Y’all - I am not a fan of games! Once again, my delayed processing makes it tough for me to understand certain rules in games, so I can only pleasurably play something simple like Connect Four, or Battleship. I didn’t want to play the Instagram game any longer.

Here’s a fun game I would like to play, how does this all connect to yoga?

According to one of the Eight Limbs of Yoga from Sage Patanjali, Pratyahara, the fifth limb is defined as “withdrawal of senses.”

When we practice pratyahara, we tune inward and away from external influences. Pratyahara allows us to connect with our inner landscape. If you have practiced with me, you may have noticed one way I guide pratyahara is by cuing folks to notice the sensation of sound in the room, then to wide that aperture of awareness to outside the space we occupy, then even further to outside the building…then we slowly drift back until we may notice the sound of our breath and perhaps the sound of our own heartbeat, then perhaps silence, and then the silence between each sound.

By divesting from Instagram, I invest more into yoga. It’s been a practice.

What have you been investing in and divesting from? What have you been consuming and producing? I would love to hear from you! You may respond to this and it comes straight to me. If you know a being or two who may appreciate this newsletter, please refer them here.

Thanks for being here and thanks to Instagram for connecting me with you, if we happened to ‘meet’ on that app. I hope you remain authentic to yourself and what feels right and good for you in your body, mind, and spirit.

Offerings

• The Arrival Retreat:

  • My dear friend, Celeste Alcena invited me and another facilitator, Jas to help co-facilitate a retreat in Nassau, Bahamas from Feb 15-21, 2026. Please click on the link above for more info! We are all super excited to hold space for you!

• Lots of (free) Wednesday evening yoga at Sadleir coming up! Click on the link above for the dates.

• & I am available for sliding scale/trade yoga + grief care. Would love to hear from you if you want more info.

• I have free meditations on Insight Timer. Meditations include Anti-Carceral Affirmations, Metta/Loving Kindness and even a Screaming Meditation to honour sacred rage.

Community Offerings

• A fellow Yoga-Therapist-in-Training, Celeste Price is guiding Therapy Bookclub, beginning January 5. “Therapy book club is a shared space for reflection, dialogue, and growth. Together, we’ll explore the themes and teachings within each book, noticing how they resonate with our lived experiences and personal healing journeys…”

• Curious about yoga therapy? One of the amazing facilitators and co-founder, Dr. Melissa Jay, at Canmore Counselling, where I have been taking my Yoga Therapy program has a free mini-course. “Discover how your own nervous system care can ripple outward, shaping the way you support and serve your community. This course introduces trauma-informed yoga therapy through a Two-Eyed Seeing approach, weaving together Indigenous wisdom and Western psychology to guide your growth from intention to meaningful service.”