Goodbye Noise, Hello Wild

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As a therapist, I often speak to clients about boundaries – not just the kind we set with others, but the invisible ones we draw around our own attention, our own inner worlds.

The ones that say, this far, and no further.

One of the most quietly transformative boundaries I’ve drawn was leaving social media.

I grew up in a pre-digital world, where connection meant showing up. Where nobody knew what you were eating unless they were eating it with you. When social media arrived, I was in my twenties. It was fun, then. Harmless. A way to check in. But over time, something shifted. The harmless became habitual. The checking in became comparing. And somewhere along the line, the joy of my own life began to dull under the endlessness of everyone else’s.

At first, I drifted away from social media in slow, deliberate steps. But then came an uninvited message — cruel, performative, and oddly proud of its own ugliness. And that’s when I knew: I don’t belong in a place where people confuse hostility for honesty.

And here’s the strange thing — the silence in the aftermath didn’t feel like a void. It felt like air returning to a room that had been too tight for too long.

When I left, I expected to feel disconnected.

What I didn’t expect was how present I’d feel.

Not all the time — I’m still human, still distracted.

But there’s a kind of clarity that returns when you no longer invite the whole world into your head before 9am.

Life is quieter now.

Not smaller, but more mine.

I walk the dog without thinking about posting a photo of the trees.

I bake bread without anyone needing to know about it.

I spend my working days talking to people face to face, or voice to voice, in the sacred quiet of a therapeutic hour.

I hear real laughter, real heartbreak, and it never asks for likes.

Sometimes, I do miss the camaraderie — the odd message, the feeling of being seen. But I don’t miss the weight of being watchable. I don’t miss the subtle pressure to be always visible, always interesting, always "fine".

Social media didn't just distort how I saw myself — it interrupted the rhythm of my life.

Since stepping back, I've found new rituals.

Slower mornings.

Longer thoughts.

Eye contact.

Letters.

Books.

The strange joy of being unreachable.

If you’ve been feeling frayed lately, maybe this resonates. Maybe you’re not burned out — maybe you’re just too accessible. Maybe the life waiting beneath the scroll is fuller, richer, more real than you remember.

I didn’t leave to start a new chapter. I left because someone shut a door I’d been hesitating to close myself. And strangely, blessedly, I found that peace was already waiting on the other side.

So, thank you.