188. Motherhood & Social Media (how online communities impact your motherhood experience)

Simple on Purpose | Intentional Living and Parenting

How has social media shaped our culture and expectations around motherhood? As moms, we often turn to our phones for a sense of community. Being online can be a great way to keep in touch with old friends, make new connections, or get inspiration for your life. But not every online experience can be positive, and sometimes we find ourselves scrolling through our phones, feeling overwhelmed about our own motherhood. In my experience as a counsellor, working with moms, I see first-hand that the online culture we create has a strong impact on how we FEEL about our own motherhood. In this episode: The role of social platforms in creating a community for moms The difference between in-person friendships and online friendships How we relate differently to real-life moms vs moms online The ways our culture shapes us The impact our culture has on our roles as mom, wife, woman The responsibility we have to choose a culture that uplifts us All the fun links you might enjoy Moms30for30 wardrobe challenge When I instagrammed my own life, and not my kids #instamomclub (an OG blog post on being a mom on instagram) Emotional needs in motherhood\ (on looking for sense of connection) Why you should date your friends’ (investing in friendship) Think the best of me (on being hard and awesome) Phone habit, episodes and worksheets Your phone habits on autopilot Intentional phone habits and boundaries Sign up for the the Simple Saturdays email (a fun email, twice a month) Monthly group coaching sessions Share your thoughts with me: Instagram Facebook FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited) 0:11 Hey friends it's Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and counsellor from simple on purpose .ca 0:18 If you are new here, I'll let you know I am Shawna I'm a mom of three kids. I live in small town BC. And my simple on purpose journey really started with me many years ago decluttering my basement, and in decluttering, these boxes of stuff, I was really face to face with the notion that I was living complacent, complacently, that I was not living the life that I wanted, I was not in the driver's seat of my own life. And it launched me into this approach called intentional living, living life on purpose, which eventually led me to training in coaching and counseling. 0:53 And over the years, I've been working with women all over the world on the issues that they feel stuck in, to help them simplify declutter all of that, and live their own lives on purpose, with their own purpose, their own values, their own vision for their life. 1:09 I want to talk about our culture today, and specifically our online culture. And I'm thinking about how I started out with my own experience about 10 years ago being at home with a toddler and a newborn. And I was fortunate enough to have a best friend who I would walk with most every day. And sidenote, I look back on that now. And I see that that was one of the things that truly kept my sanity in those early years. 1:34 But other than my best friend, I didn't really have a support network, I didn't have family around, my husband would work long hours and shift work. She was my village. And that's a lot for one person, right. And so she wasn't my entire village. 1:47 So I did what many moms do and have done, and I formed an online village specifically on Instagram, I like tothink I'm an OG Instagrammer, which probably explains my personal aversion to ever making a real, I made a real by accident this week, though, I thought I was making a video. But then it got posted as a real I don't even know what I'm doing. But please don't ever expect reels from me. I will be in your stories. But please don't expect reels. 2:13 Anyways, so the original Instagram, we were just sharing photos and updates of our day. And at that time was finding a lot of other moms in the same boat.