Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:11] Hello, this is Deep in your yoga practice, and I'm Lauren Leduc, the owner and founder of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri. Halloween's coming up, so I wanted to bring up a topic that myself and many find frightening, which is social media. So let's talk about trick or truth yoga philosophy for the algorithm age. Dun dun dun.
[00:00:34] This episode might be the scariest one yet. Not because of ghosts or goblins, but because we're shining light on something that haunts us daily. The invisible hand of social media and how it impacts our attention, our truth, and our yoga practice. So the reality of this world is there is technology everywhere. I am recording this with wonderful technology.
[00:00:56] I find it helpful in my life. But my intention really is to approach technology mindfully, not fearfully, and to get a truthful look at it to see what we're dealing with so that we can wield it skillfully. So what is social media really? It, I think, was presented as this tool for connection, and it certainly can be that. But keep in mind, it's a highly engineered attention economy where our attention is what these companies is selling. Platforms are specifically designed to hook our attention in any way possible. And keep in mind that these platforms are quote, unquote free for us to use, but we are actually the product. Our attention is the product. In yoga, we practice being present.
[00:01:48] In social media, we're often pulled away and fragmented. So it kind of does the opposite thing a lot of times is what yoga is meant to do when we are not using it mindfully and really aware of what its true purpose is. A few spooky facts and research about social media. So short form content rewires our focus.
[00:02:14] And this is from a 2024 study, and it showed that short reels correlate with decreased attention span and academic performance. And I would venture to guess workplace performance as well, maybe performance at home, because we're not able to focus. Remember that focus or concentration is dharana. It is one of the eight limbs of yoga. It is part of the path to enlightenment.
[00:02:45] So this short form content is a way of pulling us off of that path. There is also an algorithmic manipulation of truth. So different platforms might have different political agendas and they can be used to feed us more and more information that confirms our specific biases and then sways us one way or another politically. And this can happen really without us even realizing it, without our own awareness. You've maybe heard of like red pilling before or people going down different rabbit holes. It might have started innocently Enough. But the algorithm is looking for that person's attention. It's feeding them more and more outrageous and outlandish content and suddenly their whole belief system is rewired. It can also have a negative impact on our mental health, which with overexposure. In a 2025 survey, 68% of youth said that social media harms their focus and emotional well being. So those are some scary facts. I don't want to fear monger about social media because I think that it can also be a very helpful and connecting thing. But it's good to know what we're working with. So let's talk about a few yogic tools that we can use to take in our social media more mindfully. The first is vivica. Vivica means discernment. So how do we practice that with social media? That might mean pausing before scrolling. You might ask yourself before you pick up your phone and open the app, why am I doing this right now? Am I trying to fulfill some sort of need that I have with this and is there an alternative way to that I can fulfill it? I would also recommend pausing before sharing. It is so easy to see something, have an emotional reaction to it and then hit the share button right away, regardless of whether or not it's actually true, of whether or not sources are cited, of whether or not it's in full context. It's just so easy to say that like grips my heart or it makes me so mad I'm going to share it right away. So you might ask yourself, is this true? Is this necessary? Is this kind? What is your intention for sharing this? Take a moment to pause, ask yourself these questions and then share. Treat your feed like your asana. Practice with intention, with conscious awareness and this desire for truth. Another philosophical concept we can look at is Pratyahara, which is one of the eight limbs of yoga, meaning sense withdrawal. So we can use this concept to create intentional digital boundaries. So that might look like not opening your phone and looking at social media first thing in the morning. Maybe you have a one hour no screen start to your day. It might mean consciously curating your feeds, unfollowing different accounts that either spread misinformation or that just provoke negative reactions from you every time you see them. You might reactivate or engage with pages that you do like to see whose content you do want to follow because then it will come up into your feed more often. You might schedule scroll free days, so days where you do not open your apps at all. There are also a whole lot of different apps out there and tools that you can use to control your screen time from the screen time on your iPhone to other apps that let you create limits and things like that and maybe connect to this sense withdrawal, this sense of restraint, not as a as denial, but as a way to free yourself. So many of us, including myself, pick up our phones and we unconsciously scroll. Maybe it's a way to quote unquote, relax. Maybe it numbs us sometimes. But freeing ourselves from that might open us up to so many other more positive coping mechanisms and positive connecting experiences. Like instead of checking my friend's social media, I can text them and see if they're available to get together. And that's going to nourish us so much more than a screen. Another concept to think about is ahimsa or non harming the first yama of yoga, really the first rule of yoga. Maybe we don't post simply to provoke others. Maybe we avoid spirals of outrage and avoid doom scrolling. That's going to provoke this anger.
[00:07:34] Maybe we can consider how our consumption may harm ourselves emotionally and mentally. So I really recommend go ahead, open your phone and scroll and then take a moment afterward. Maybe close your eyes. So find some pratyahara and notice how you feel in your body. Do you feel good? Do you feel bad? Do you feel somewhere in between? That is really helpful information to know in order to make better decisions in the future. I want to also say that this practice of ahimsa and pratyahara, they're not about shutting ourselves off to what is happening in the world. There's so many ways to consume information these days. We do not need it blasted at us constantly. Is that putting your nervous system in a position where you are frozen or where you are fighting what are you doing to actually be able to engage yourself and make positive change? And I know for me, constantly taking in information and reacting to it is not putting me in the best space to be effective at my job. And my job helps people. So why would I put myself in a position where I am frozen or pissed off all the time and not able to be a good neighbor, not able to be a good mom, not able to teach my yoga students and give them skills that will help them in these situations to not be able to call my senators or whatever needs to be done activism wise in the moment? I don't think that constantly bombarding myself with information is the path to change and the path to peace. Let's also talk about Santosha, which is one of the niyamas of yoga and means contentment. It's the sense of gratitude and acceptance. We can practice gratitude for our moments off the screen. We can be aware of what's around us, be aware of the good in our lives, and really soak that in. Remember that yoga invites us to be right here, right now, not there, not in the future, not then, not 5 million miles from here, but to be here and now, to be present to our own lives, and then to be able to respond to our own lives skillfully in the moment in a way that is kind, in a way that is bold at times, that's aligned with our dharma or our swadharma, our purpose, in a way that actually creates beautiful environments, beautiful interactions, and the world that we want to see. One more concept I'll talk about is tapas, or discipline, which is one of the niyamas of yoga. It's part of the spiritual path. We need to cultivate our focus like a muscle. Our attention is a hot commodity. We need to be cultivating our own attention for our personal growth, for our dharma, for. For our communities, and not just be giving it away to these companies who are selling it not for the benefit of humanity, but for profit. Can we take small actions? Maybe we're reading long articles. Maybe we have one unbiased news source that we check in with every day. Maybe we are only watching a few funny videos every day and leaving the rest. Maybe we're checking in once a day with our cause that our heart feels drawn to and taking some sort of sacred action toward it and then compartmentalizing. Because we cannot be everywhere all the time. We cannot be immersed in every single thing that is going on in the world at all times. It just isn't possible. And maybe we can practice discipline around cultivating mindful and respectful responses that are engaging, that provoke conversation, that provoke kindness, instead of just reactive commenting. How would that change things? How would treating people like people, like we want to be treated with love, with Ahimsa, change things? If we were disciplined enough to do it, even in situations where emotions are heightened, how amazing would that be? This might all sound scary because honestly, it is. I have a four year old and we're not dealing with social media yet, but we will be.
[00:11:47] I have to make decisions that are good for her, let alone decisions that are good for me. So coming back to this philosophy over and over is what I need to feed myself. It's what I need to find these boundaries. It's. It's what I need to engage appropriately and to make the most of these tools and not just be used by them. The real monsters are not under our beds, they're inside our phones. But fear isn't the point of this. Awareness is yoga isn't about rejecting the tools that are available to us in our lives, but using using them consciously. One of the quotes in the Bhagavad Gita is yoga is skill and action. So how can we apply focus and skill to everything that we do, including social media, which will take discernment, which will take boundaries, which will take leading with kindness and inner discipline. If you're a yoga teacher, there is, you know, a lot of incentive to be on social media to post about your classes. It's how we connect with other people.
[00:12:49] So it can feel like one of the hardest part of the jobs. I. I know it is for me. So a few things we can do is lead by example. We can avoid false claims, inflammatory content that isn't backed by any kind of research or receipts.
[00:13:04] We can avoid curated perfection. We don't need to appear perfect. We can just be people or over commercialization. We don't need to be selling something with every single post or shilling for this company or that and influencing. We can just be representatives of the practice and of who we truly are. To communicate that with some vulnerability, with truth, and then hope that the algorithm, magical as it is, takes it to whoever needs to hear it and trust that. Align what you post with your dharma or swadharma, your purpose and satya, your truth. Share your struggles with authenticity and that helps others so much more than perfection. So here are a couple practices for social media clarity. One is a breath check before opening your apps. So take a couple deep breaths and pause. Maybe notice your breathing while you're in your apps and it's going to give you a lot of information if it is fast, if you're holding your breath, you might need to shut it off. Think of mantra. You might have a mantra that grounds you before posting something like let this be of service. Let this reach whoever it needs to reach. And you might think also of digital Swadhyaya or self study.
[00:14:22] Track how these apps affect your nervous system and make decisions accordingly. That is wisdom. That is Vidya. So I'll leave you with a journal prompt if you want to take some time with this information.
[00:14:34] What does my current relationship with social media look like and how might I bring more yoga into it? Obviously I'll be sharing about this episode on Instagram. So if you're scrolling through and see it, make sure to join the conversation. Let me know what your insights are if you are feeling grounded and able to handle it in the moment. And I encourage you to re listen to this episode or share with a friend who overwhelmed with social media like I am And I thank you so much for listening today. I do hope you have a beautiful and happy Halloween and let me know if you'd like more topics like this. Until next time, Om Shanti Om Peace.
