Creating Positive Distance - Where Life Comes Rushing Back In

Written by Lindy Cox, September 22, 2020

One morning several weeks ago, I woke up feeling REALLY good: happy, well-rested, ready to take on the day. Then I picked up my phone, opened the Facebook app...and fifteen minutes later got out of bed feeling dejected, hurt, and downright angry at the state of the world. Halfway through my morning routine, I realized this had become a predictable daily cycle: wake up happy, open social media, scroll for a while, develop an overwhelming desire to crawl into a hole and hide until the world regains its humanity. So I finally followed through on what had been a nagging idea in the back of my mind for a while now: I deleted both FB and Instagram apps. 

While my goal in putting fingers to keyboard today wasn’t to specifically criticize the evils of social media, deleting those apps has become a concrete symbol of all the different ways I’ve been creating what I refer to as positive distance over the past few months. 

Here I was, at 36 years of age, spending almost every free moment of my life peeking into other peoples’ lives instead of focusing on my own. I would see the carefully curated snapshots of their apparently perfect lives/bodies/careers/marriages/kids...and the inevitable drive to compare those snapshots to my own life would kick in. It didn’t matter how much I told myself that those perfect snapshots never showed the messy truth contained in every single life. I’m a smart cookie, I know these people all have their own brand of human disaster. But I still wondered why my life/body/career/marriage/kids weren’t as perfect as theirs.

Then there was the blatant nastiness I constantly witnessed being thrown around, and sometimes had aimed directly at me. Case in point: I had my roommate from my junior year of college, someone who had always respected (if not agreed with) my differing beliefs before, comment on a post and call me an elitist racist asshole who apparently can’t form her own opinions. She used a lot more words, but that’s what it boiled down to. While I had counted her as a friend, we had only spent time together a grand total of two or three times in the last 14 years...this is not a person who had earned the right to speak into my life, especially in such a harmful, damaging way. Let’s be real: at no other time in history could you say things like that to another person without the expectation of being punched in the teeth. Social media has somehow created an environment where you have the “right” to share your thoughts and opinions in the most harsh and hurtful way possible, free of consequences.

So I walked away. And you know what has happened since? My real, raw, beautifully flawed, honest to goodness life came rushing in to fill the void.

Instead of spending hours scrolling, I researched and planned two camping trips in the last three weeks: the first one just for my little family to the top of a mountain far away from the rest of the world, and the second to a remote rustic campground with friends. Because evidently I’m truly never happier than when I’m out in the woods “roughing it”. Last weekend, we spent two sweet days lazing in hammocks reading or paddle boarding on the river that horseshoe’d around the campground. I set an expectation at the beginning of the trip that electronics would be kept to a minimum; as a result, those days spent focusing on each other instead of our phones were a balm to my soul. We laughed and snorted, we spoke of heavy things happening in the world, we shed tears in mourning for a mother battling cancer, we lamented the trials of rogue chin hairs...we drank wine and loved on each other well. And while I used my phone to take a few pictures, I wasn’t constantly looking for the next Instagram-worthy shot. Without my hands occupied with my phone, my children snuggled into my lap in front of the fire. I came away from that long weekend actually feeling refreshed, because for the first time in years I truly EXPERIENCED rest and the company of those around me.

Without a constant influx of photos of women with rockin’ bodies, I’ve stopped completely hating my own. Social media has inundated us with an unrealistic ratio of women with “perfect” bodies, so much so that we have come to view those women as the norm and OUR bodies as the exception to the rule. But having lifted my eyes from my phone, I look around at the women surrounding me every day and I see REAL women of every size and shape. In their example, I find comfort. Instead of judging them as harshly as I’ve been judging myself, I see their individual beauty. And while I’m still on a journey to become a healthier version of myself, I no longer assign my worth according to my weight or how my body looks. I’m not holding back from amazing experiences out of a misplaced belief that I need to wait until I’m skinnier; at the time I’m writing this, I’m nine short days away from a delicious backpacking trip with my 11 year old twins and my parents into a beautiful lake in the mountains situated behind my childhood home. Because if not now...then when?

After moving to a new dispatch agency, I lost friends who I had counted as sisters, but gained a deeper appreciation for the friendships that have remained constant and the effort it takes to nurture those relationships. Instead of being content to witness their lives through the platform of Facebook, I have created more opportunities than ever to be in their presence, face-to-face. I don’t hold back from initiating time together out of worry that maybe they’re too busy for me, because I truly believe that they are just as desperate for in-person interaction as I am. And those who aren’t willing to put in the effort to nurture a friendship with me? Maybe it sounds harsh, but I don’t have the time to put into a one-sided or unhealthy relationship, and I deserve better.

I feel like I’m emerging from a fog of unrealistic expectations built on the shaky foundation of examples I was feeding myself every single day. Instead of looking inside of myself to discover and love who I truly am, I’ve spent years trying to fit myself into the mold of who I thought I “should” be. Average was public enemy #1. I honestly had come to believe that I was a needless waste of space if I wasn’t building a world-changing business, wasn’t rocking an amazing body, didn’t have a massive social media presence, if my marriage wasn’t absolutely perfect...basically if I wasn’t the Rachel Hollis of the dispatch world. But come on...there’s ONE Rachel Hollis out of millions of women, and even HER life is way messier than we were led to believe. “Waaaiiiiit, you mean those snapshots shared publicly didn’t completely reveal the struggle happening behind the scenes?! Shocking!” (Sarcasm is my love language and sometimes I have to let it slip out. Just ask my husband, he’s also fluent. Sorry, not sorry.)

While I still have Facebook on my iPad in order to check in with certain groups if needed, I find myself using that less and less. I’m overcoming my social media FOMO (fear of missing out). And this positive distance I’ve created from the noise of the world? It’s giving me space. Space to breathe, to deeply love myself and those around me, to create experiences that feed my soul, to slowly re-examine and redefine my faith, and to let my passions unfurl naturally. Space where life comes rushing back in.

Maybe for you, the thing bringing the greatest amount of negativity and time-suck into your life isn’t social media. Maybe it’s a relationship that isn’t healthy anymore or a work place environment that just tears you down every day. Perhaps the solution isn’t a removal of those things from your life, the way it was for me; instead, it might require a new approach, a willingness to seek help outside of yourself, or the strength to stand your ground. Regardless of the form it takes, I have come to believe that it is more important than ever to find places to give ourself the positive distance needed to create a life we love.

Thank you, Lindy for sharing your valuable perspective! If you are interested in writing a blog, please email 911derWomen@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter on our homepage to stay up to date with 911der Women programming, exclusive content and blog updates. Click here and scroll to the bottom!