216. Taking the Plunge with Ten of Swords
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Happy Pisces season, loves! Our Anchor card for the week ahead is Ten of Swords, a strong indicator of big expansions ahead, and opportunities for foundational transformation -- in short, a very powerful teacher for the coming cycle.
Air date:
February 22, 2023
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About the Episode
Happy Pisces season, loves! Our Anchor card for the week ahead is Ten of Swords, a strong indicator of big expansions ahead, and opportunities for foundational transformation -- in short, a very powerful teacher for the coming cycle. Together, we will unpack this card, considering it as a benevolent helper, rather than a scary card to be avoided. I also answer a listener question from Sam, who wants to take their business off of social media, but is feeling frozen in fear around the decision.
Lindsay’s Links:
Tarot for the Wild Soul course is BACK and opening for enrollment soon! Learn more here!
Want to take part in the TFTWS course early bird sale? Sign up for the newsletter here!
Purchase the entire Soul Tarot 101 course (or just the Digital Book for $22!)
Download your Ultimate Soul Tarot Card Guide here!
Help Turkey and Syria:
https://www.akut.org.tr/en/donation
Defend the Atlanta Forest and Stop Cop City!
https://defendtheatlantaforest.org
LINKS TO HELP IRAN:
Thank you to Ariana (@azadi.times.three) for sharing these with us!
1. Center for Human Rights in Iran (based in NY, provides news and in-depth reports on human rights abuses in Iran)
2. How to Talk About Iran (a living document from the Iranian Diaspora Collective on Instagram)
3. Persians With Purpose (Educational content, news translated to English, and other Iran resources on Instagram)
Land Acknowledgement
Honoring and acknowledging that this podcast episode was recorded on the unceded land of The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, currently called Portland, OR, with the deepest respect to the Kalapuya Tribe, Cowlitz Tribe, and Atfalati Tribe.
Please Note
CW Tags: capitalistic structures, unpaid labor, burnout, mental health issues, systemic & economic oppression/marginalization, birth, and parenthood
The content in this episode contains references to mentions of capitalistic structures, unpaid labor, burnout, mental health issues, systemic & economic oppression/marginalization, birth, and parenthood. We have done our best to identify difficult subject matter, but the labels may not be comprehensive for your personal needs. Please honor your knowing and proceed with necessary self-awareness and care.
Transcript
[Introduction]
[0:00:00]
Hello loves, just a quick heads up the Tarot for the Wild Soul course is back and opening for enrollment very soon, for a very limited amount of time.
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It's for folks who are both at a beginner level and very, very seasoned readers. It contains in-depth audio and video lessons and teaches folks how to read the Tarot in a really nonlinear wave. So not going from The Fool to The Magician to the High Priestess, but instead framing the cards up around life experiences. So again, we take it out of the conceptual and move it into the practical, into the useful, into the deeply felt.
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[0:01:37]
So, here are the important dates to mark on your calendar so you can join us for this course, if it calls to you:
From February 28 to March 3, we will be having an early bird sale for newsletter subscribers only. That is incredible, like close to 50% off tuition. We have a sliding scale. So if you're part of the newsletter, if you really want to join this course, if you really need the early bird to be able to do it, February 28 to March 3 is your time, and you will receive that email, if you're already signed up for the newsletter. If you're not sure of what your notification preferences are, just email us at info@tarotforthewildsoul.com. If you're not signed up, and you'd like to be, you can sign up at the link in the show notes.
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So to learn all about the course, learn all about our bundles, pricing for all of the above, answers to any of your frequently asked questions about the course, just head to the direct link in the show notes to find out all of the goodness. And again, if you have any questions about any of this that you can't find on the website, or through this very, very long, top-of-the-show ad (Lindsay laughs) for my own work, you can email us again at info@tarotforthewildsoul.com. Thank you!
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(Instrumental intro music)
[0:03:26]
Welcome to Tarot for the Wild Soul, a podcast that explores the Tarot through an inclusive, soul-centered, trauma-informed perspective for growth, healing, and evolution. I'm your host, Lindsay Mack.
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Hello Loves and welcome back to Tarot for the Wild Soul, wishing all of you an absolutely beautiful, blessed Pisces season. I cannot believe we're already in Pisces season and almost into March. It seems sort of unthinkable. Actually, this year is flying. I don't. It's flying and also the longest year ever (Lindsay laughs). It's just really feels very fast.
Yeah, I'm so happy to be here with all of you. We're gonna dive into our Anchor Card of the week, I'm going to answer a listener question, and then next week, we'll gather together again for our Monthly Medicine episode for the month of March. So really, really excited to dig into today's card. It's another sword card, incredibly. We are moving through Ten of Swords this week.
So last week we moved through Three of Swords, and I always appreciate when those kind of heavy-duty energies show up because it gives me the opportunity to share an alternative way of working with it, to weave it into the fabric of this moment, rather than putting it out into a fear-based, sort of conceptual point.
[0:05:07]
So we're working through our very last week in the monthly theme for February, which is uncertainty — certainly doesn't mean that uncertainty is going to go away once February is over (Lindsay laughs), but the opportunity that we've had this February is to work in the kind of uncertainty that The World card kicks up, which was a big, big card for us this month.
Essentially, World card is ruled by Saturn, and it pulls up all the things, disparate or unified, doesn't matter; all the things that we need to look at, face, acknowledge, process, and clear, in order to actually let go of The World and move into The Fool on the other side. So, in some way, even though we don't quite know what we're working with in March, March, the month, is kind of The Fool.
Like, any time we're working with The World, there's always something different on the other side, and The World is both very joyful. It's a joyful rebirth, like, finally, we get to drop this mantle, drop this experience. It can also be very challenging, because Saturn doesn't want to leave anything unticked. If we're talking about a checklist, right, it doesn't want to leave any box unchecked. So if there's anything we're taking in with us, like, you know, we're bringing with us into the next cycle of our life that doesn't need to be there, we want to clear it up.
And Saturn, because, or, you know, The World card, because it's a Major Arcana card, it's more about surrendering to the things that come up, rather than trying to weed through it all and make sense of it and pull certain things up and out of the ground and be like, “This is what I need to work on.” It's more about letting The World show us what needs to be worked on, which is, really, I think, kind of the crux of soul work to begin with: we let ourselves be led to what wants our attention, rather than us believing that we need to clear away blocks that maybe aren't ready to be cleared yet. Blocks aren't a problem. It's when they're really starting to become an impediment, when they're really in our face to be dealt with, if we ignore them, then it can create some more noise.
You know, The World card brings up uncertainty, this kind of big space, where there's a lot arising. We don't quite know what it means, what’s happening, we don't quite know where we're going with it all. Like, that's all a part of the moment that we find ourselves in right now, I think, both in a more broad, global, collective way and in sort of a minutiae sense, in a more microcosmic sense.
[0:08:09]
So last week, we talked about how Three of Swords is really showing up as an Anchor for us, in so far as, I think, linked with Saturn, linked with The World, like letting some emotional experiences coming come up for us. Notice where they guide us, notice what happens when we center the heart, and how that might or might not change a little bit of how we respond, make choices, et cetera.
This week, we're working with Ten of Swords. Despite what you may have been told about Ten of Swords, what you might believe about Ten of Swords, this is a fucking fantastic card — always, across the board, always. There are cards where — I mean, I absolutely acknowledge, like I do believe all cards bring medicine. It doesn't mean that medicine doesn't sting, isn't poisonous, isn't bitter. Like we have to be very careful sometimes with the medicine, right? We have to bring in other Anchor Cards to help us be with sometimes the things that bring up medicine. And yet, I think it all guides us to the same place, which is a place of evolution, greater self-tending, greater self-love.
Ten of Swords, though, I place where some people do the Empress, and I actually think the Empress is pretty challenging to work with, personally. But Ten of Swords, there's just a total smear campaign on this card (Lindsay laughs) and I will stand on high and speak to it. It's amazing. This card, and like all the Tens, brings a very powerful invitation for rebirth and change.
So what we've got here is Pisces season, which is just, simply, as a zodiac sign, a massive representation of the end, moving the furthest point into something that we can possibly go, taking us to the zenith, to the apex, right? Taking us into, very powerfully, void-like waters, very deep waters. So we have the Pisces of it all, we have the theme of uncertainty for the month, we're wrapping that up, we're moving into a new month, we are working with The World card this month, with the energy of Saturn, that is also about completions and rebirth, and we have a Ten, and it's in the suit of Swords.
So, put in a very contextualized way, this is a big week. Whether or not you see it in the outcome or in your day-to-day, the details. We've all had weeks that are massively impactful, but for reasons we can't necessarily describe or language or even, not that anything needs to be justified, but, you know, we've had those weeks where we say to ourselves, like, “Wow, this was huge for me.” And even the closest among us are like, “Wow, that's great,” but they can't know it the way we can know it. So it might be very subtle, very personally felt. It might be very, very tangible. Either way, the outcome of it — how it feels, what it looks like, how it presents — doesn't matter. The point is that you know, that we all know, how we can dig in and work with a card like this.
[0:11:40]
Ten of Swords lets us know that a certain way of approaching something, thinking about something, a particular way of thinking, or of relating to our thoughts or beliefs, has died. It's dead. It's done. We can't go any further with it, period, which means that it's time to clear that and try something different; something that we might not have done before, something that we might be feeling like, “Ugh, do I really have to, like, put myself out there like this? Do I really have to, like, consider this differently?” Ten of Swords says, “Yes, yes, you do.”
Because, well, we never have to do anything. But this card really brings us into a very, very strong place where it says, “You have gone, you have ridden this train as far as it will go. You're at the end of the line.” If we've been believing something about ourselves, buying into certain thoughts that are really informing the actions that we're taking, and those kind of beliefs and thoughts keep having us circling the drain, Ten of Swords is the best card you could get.
It might call up fear, normal fear, normal to feel in our nervous system upon basically preparing to jump off a very high different new diving board. The mind is a little bit wary of anything that's new. Right? Once we get dug into our thoughts, like, it's very hard to change the patterning, very hard.
With Ten of Swords, this kind of something new is always possible. Usually when it comes up, it's time to marry a different way of doing something to an actual action, to a response. So it's not doing anything irresponsible, anything that would put you in harm's way, or anyone else in harm's way, it's not putting you in financial jeopardy, but it is really sitting with the facts. And it might mean a little bit of a leap of faith, it might not. It's time to sort of take a plunge, take a leap take a… I always think this card is a mini Fool card; it just lets us know, like, you can't, where you're going, this line of thinking, this line of believing, it's not going to take you anywhere. It's dead end. Totally, it's totaled, right? So we have to try something different.
[0:14:27]
And why this weaves into the theme of uncertainty is because everything's a spiral. We get very, very caught up in like, “Oh, but is this the right, absolute, totally correct, next step for me?” Maybe not? It might be a pause in between. There might be a couple of pauses in between.
What we've been doing, Ten of Swords says, isn't working. And that's okay. So much of it — I've learned this from Michelle, the teacher that I worked with for many, many years, who I love — we get into this human experience not to kind of move above the human experience and be like, “Oh, I got something: it's perfect, it's aligned, there's no more ripples, no more bumps on my road.”
We have to try things. We've got to figure it out through personal experience. We have to get our hands dirty and think and realize, “Well, like, this wasn't for me, this doesn't actually work. But thank goodness, I had the opportunity to take it to the end of the road.” Some of us don't have to go all the way to the end of the road on something, a lot of us do. A lot of us do. We've got to go all the way to the end for some stories, some belief systems, some line of thinking.
Ten of Swords is an amazing energy that, when it arises, that lets us know you've done your work here: you're complete. This isn't going to take you in the direction that you're ready to go in. So while you might not know what the “right”, most expansive decision is, that's okay. We don't need to know those things. We don't need to know the end-all-be-all, we just need to know, like tomorrow, for today, for this moment, what might pitch me a little bit closer to the orbit that I'd like to be moving in.
So we might not be certain what our next steps are this week or beyond that. What's to come, whether we're going to, ultimately, like, fail or be successful, whether it's good or bad. We're invited to sort of take things outside of those binary questions. We only know, again, that a particular way of doing something and considering something, thinking about something in a particular way, or taking action from those beliefs or thoughts, has just died away, and no more can come of it. So we want to compost that.
This week is about becoming aware of that, and about noticing when ever Ten of Swords comes up for me there's something very big percolating and brewing in the cosmic cauldron. There's some big thing, maybe not exciting or expansive or abundant, but there's something important for me. Sometimes it is exciting and expansive and abundant, but it requires me to do something differently than how I've done it.
So, becoming aware of that, following the path of this card, and letting it guide us and teach us and lead us will help us to dive into something new. And it's very scary to do this. There's a lot of risk, whether real or perceived. New things are, again, brain’s pretty wary of them.
[0:18:08]
This is the last most important aspect of our work inside of this monthly theme and with The World card. It's an excellent time for noticing and for review: what came up for us this month? What's facing us in the next, coming months? What are we needing to kind of embrace and pull into the fold, in order to move into this new time? What might we need? Those are really important questions to ask.
Just knowing, inside of the Ten of Swords-ness, that this particular way we've been going about something is like officially kicked, can sometimes be all the liberation and inspiration we need to realize like, oh, that's what's been going on, and to realize that Ten of Swords is kind of like a miniature Fool card, I think, in many ways.
And while The Fool, I think, is less about a leapand more about realizing like there's not ground underneath us to begin with, like we're not getting out of this alive. So there's kind of no way that, you know, it's more about realizing that, in the broadest, most existential way of looking at The Fool, like there's nothing to lose, you know, there's so much to lose, and yet in the really grand scheme, which is what The Fool draws us into, the expectation that there would be ground underneath us to leap off of is the first illusion to dissolve, you know.
And I think Ten of Swords is the same: just realizing that, like everything else, lines and patterns of thoughts can also die away. Like believing, like, “Oh, I can do this, but not that,” can also have an expiration date, or having a perception of what's possible or what we're capable of. We want to really notice this week, and even beyond this week, it's good medicine across the board.
We really want to notice this week: where do we find that our thoughts are perhaps limiting us? Is there, again, a belief that we have about something that is really ready to be looked at? Is there a story that, you know, if we expand past a certain person in our life or folks, like we will no longer be accepted or relatable? What, I mean, I'm literally like pulling things out of my, out of the air. But those kinds of things we really want to pay attention to, we really want to look at.
And this week, kind of is about taking the plunge and realizing like where we're going requires a little bit of a different way of considering things, a little bit, different response or action that we might usually employ. And I think that's very important to hold with us, and know that we don't need to be afraid of.
So on this really potent week, a week, that's, again, guiding us out of the month of February, it's the beginning of Pisces season, there's a lot of powerful, kind of Saturnian vibes here, working with The World card, working with Ten of Swords, we can see this entire week as almost a kind of a symbolic, full moon transit, where a lot is coming to light, a lot is being clarified. And we want to look to it, we want to open to it and really explore it, and bow to Ten of Swords, and let it show us where we're going, and the kind of different ways of working with the mind and our thoughts and what we believe is possible; bumping up our limitations, and then going beyond them, seeing how that’s showing up for us in our lives this week, and again, even beyond that. So powerful stuff, and I'm really excited to see how it's showing up in my own life.
I don't think it's an accident that I have a launch starting very soon. This card has never not shown up for me around launchtime, ever, whether in my own readings or on this podcast. It's really extraordinary (Lindsay laughs), in fact, like the degree to which I can almost count on it, set my watch to it. So I hope that this serves all of you.
[0:22:58]
And now we're gonna move into our listener question. And this one today is from Sam. Sam asks:
Lindsay,
I want to first say an immense thank you for all of the incredible, supportive work you do. I've been listening to you for four years now, and wow, the shifts speak for themselves.
Thanks, Sam. Thanks for seeing me.
PS. Soul Tarot 101 is absolutely incredible.
Thank you!
My question, if I can concisely phrase it, is the following:
I feel incredibly trapped. Part of me knows deeply that I cannot continue building and promoting my business on social media, specifically Instagram, but part of me cannot let go fully. I'm not in a place where I can fully support myself through my business. I'm a spiritual medium, animal communicator and feel as the leaving Instagram would be detrimental in all the ways, yet my heart keeps tugging me in the other direction.
I went to my deck for guidance and pulled the Eight of Cups, Eight of Swords, Page of Swords and the Wheel of Fortune reversed. Clearly, they are speaking and showing me my intuition is on point. However, I feel paralyzed with fear in the uncertainty of what my life could be without the access to “billions of people.”
I would love to hear your suggestion, as I know you have also somewhat left social media. I’m forever thankful to your guidance, again.
Thank you so much for trusting me with this question, Sam. And I hear you: this is a big, big pickle and one that many people that I know, I know a lot of people who are in your position. I feel like in some ways, I am, too (Lindsay laughs).
Oh my goodness, so before I move forward, I just want to really acknowledge that inside of speaking about what it is to leave one's platform for any kind of reason, related to like getting off of social media, I just, of course, want to acknowledge that I know that for so many people, especially folks of color, trans folks, queer folks, activists, people being actively suppressed by media or their government due to uprisings, social media is a lifeline. And not everybody even has the privilege to consider this.
So I just want to acknowledge, as I speak on this question, with as much care and consideration as possible. And I’ll start by my own experience of kind of drifting a bit more away from social media — at least right now — that I just really want to hold that and name that, because I think that for many this isn't even like an option. So yeah, just holding that as I feel into this because it's really valid.
[0:26:01]
What you're speaking about Sam is incredibly valid; that you do not feel that you are able to continue, for reasons that you didn't illuminate, but that you're able to continue to build your business on Instagram, but for really good reasons, probably multitudinous. There's difficulty in letting go.
I want to normalize the indecision here, and kind of really say that you're allowed to, like, not be sure, and you're allowed to change your mind. You know, you're allowed to take a break, you're allowed to move away from it, you're allowed to move closer to, you’re allowed to like, come back, and be like, “Oooh no way,” and allowed to float away. And I think that all of us want some closure, some clarity, because it helps so much to like know, okay, I've washed my hands of this space and people know what to expect from me. And so if that's what you need, I think you should take that. And if you're just not there, I think it's okay.
I mean, I would say, things to say — just like gentle things to consider — I would say that, why not try giving yourself a sabbatical? That's where I would start, I would start taking a sabbatical and take, like, consider anywhere from a month to three months, and decide before you're going to do it, and see if it feels good to take a sabbatical, like, completely off social media, like you're not even on there, you're not even logging on, you're not even scrolling. Or you get to go on and just be there, whatever feels healthiest for you. But I would say like, you know, tell people, keep it light, and just be like, “I’m taking a social media sabbatical.” Put it in your profile. And just see how it feels. See what it frees up, see what you realize, see what you don't.
I know that's a really big deal, but I think it might cut through some of the terror, some of the worry about, like, having to make this enormous decision about like whether or not you're going to get off of it completely, or whether or not you're going to like, you'll know. Like, if you realize like, “Oh my God, my entire mental health has, like, returned to me. I can't go back on,” (Lindsay laughs) then, you know, you don’t go back on, you know, at least not for a little while. And I realize, like total privilege here, some people can afford to hire someone to do it for them. They make the posts, they write the content. Other people post it, other people interface with clients, and that's it, you know. So you don't have to be on that space or in that space.
[0:29:11]
In 2021, I tried that, and it was not enough for me to be able to move away. There was still — I don't have people ever write for me in any of my newsletters, or any of my content, or any of my Instagram, like nobody writes in my voice. So, if something came up, I had to speak to it. Like my person could post for me, as me, but I had to draft up what they were going to say. And sometimes, I do get, like, kind of heavy-duty questions on my Instagram, so it was still not really enough for me to justify. And then eventually, just mutually, my team member left, and I was going off to have a baby. So it just it solidified for me that I needed to just be out of there and not try and just continue to post.
So, I would say give yourself the gift of a break. It does sound like your intuition is on point. It does feel to me, absolutely, that you're pulling cards that are saying, you know, give yourself some distance and some space, I just again want to really encourage you to consider like a break rather than a full-on, closing down your account, as an option. So I'll offer some tips for best practices, some things that have helped me, and some things that I'm still working through, as a result of basically drifting away from Instagram.
The reason that I — and I know not everybody has this — but one of the reasons that I opted to move away from Instagram is because I have a very robust mailing list, and a very popular podcast. So that is part of the way that I am still able to make a living, that people are still — not so much the mailing list, I do get new subscribers on there all the time — but like the podcast is essentially a place where people can tune in, feel into whether or not they like my vibe or the work, and pop away. It's certainly not an Instagram profile, where you can just get a taste without like listening to somebody, but it is content that goes out every week, sometimes multiple times a week.
So, you don't need to have a very popular podcast or a very robust list — again, these things are now almost 10 years in the making, so it's taken time to build them. But I would ask you, like, where are you hoping to find people? Where are you hoping to have folks meet or find you? What do you offer?
Like I was, in the beginning of my time with Instagram, I loved it because it felt a lot like, just like a, for lack of a better word, like a tithing; like it was a way for me to be of service, a way for me to provide some answers to questions. For a long time I did daily pulls, back in like 2014, you know, like forever ago, so there was — I can't believe it was 10 years ago. So I liked it, and then it got to be too much, and now it's a completely different animal than it was when I joined in 2014, so obviously.
And I'm gonna say to you, because I have no problem doing that, I don't feel like it's like anything, my work has really plateaued, since not being really active on social media. Like it just has. Not as many people are finding me, there's not as much of a funnel from, like, a much larger sea to the podcast to the newsletter. My work is still like everything's great. It's just not where it was a couple of years ago when all that was happening.
Now, I'll also say that I do think that that has a little bit more to do with the changes to the algorithm than it does with me being off of that space. Because when I was really paying attention to my SEO, I did a big project with SEO and tracked it for almost a year with a team and found that like really not much was coming from Instagram — some, but not much, which is why I was like, well, it's like not great business to cut off anybody. And it's not like I'd be, you know, completely cutting off a life limb here.
But I do just want to be honest that, I mean, I'm not in a stage of my work or my business, for better or worse, where I'm really in a very active space right now. I'm in a very soft space. There were many years where I was in a much harder space, and I don't think hard is a problem. I was just… I'm an Aries, I'm a very ambitious person, I love what I do, I believe in my work. So there was like a lot of, like, hopping onto people's podcasts and doing a million different things for other people. And I've really settled in, like an old owl (Lindsay laughs).
I’ve just really been, like I like to work with my community doing my stuff, and when I branch out, I do, but I'm not going to look for it right now. If it finds me, and if it's the right thing, that's great. And I'm positive that will change, but I mean... Or like, am I where I was in, like, 2019? No, which is kind of great, and also not, you know. It's like there's wins and there's losses with everything.
[0:35:27]
I will say, and I don't know if this helps you, I think because of a million different factors, because I was off for many months, having a baby changed around, like, literally dissolved my most popular offering, like rebirthed it, and created a lot of other, I think, much stronger offerings to sort of help people have a little bit more of a clearer pathway to their learning, rather than just like one big giant course that happens every year. And I think, like the economy, like my numbers, like financially are not what they were several years ago. I still do great, it's just not what it was.
People are still finding me, but I have these platforms and these sources that took many years to create, and social media was a part of that. However, I will say, even with numbers being less than what they used to be, I have infinitely more peace, infinitely more peace. I am, legitimately, a happier person off of social media. I don't think I understood how much harm it was causing. And again, it's a very important tool, I think in the ways in which it just was not serving me. And that might change. You might see me on there in like six months, who knows, you know. And there might be a whole different way that I navigate and approach it.
But I think you will shift some of your feelings of paralysis, the fear, the frozen feelings, and fear, if you give yourself the permission to take a break rather than get off of it. You don't need to get off of it. It might be that you change the way you approach it, it might mean you need a little bit of a break. It might mean that you bring someone on that is maybe in whatever way it might be financially, if that's even an ability or something that's accessible to you, and you could look at it as a long term thing. Like, if you take what you do on social media, because I agree with you, it's very, very hard to build a business on social media that doesn't feel like it's on very shifting sand. Nothing that we post on there really belongs to us anymore, and it's very challenging, and yet, also very challenging to build something without it. So, I would say, give yourself a break.
[0:38:19]
And if you're thinking about the long term of it all, think about— it might not be a podcast — but think about how my list, my mailing list, is very precious to me. I love them. And they're also the folks who are most, I think, passionate about what I do.
So I invite you to think about, like, how can you nourish a list? How can you take care of them? How can you give them, you know, special things that you might not offer to the general public? How can you really, like, lift them up and thank them for being there?
And a lot of my list was grown by gently funneling that from Instagram to the list. So I would say build your list, because those people are — even if you have a very small list — those people are going to be pretty excited about being there. I don't join a mailing list unless I'm really excited about, at least I don’t stay on mailing lists, unless I'm excited about them.
The other thing that I would say is there another kind of platform that feels really good, so that it's not a cold turkey cutting off from Instagram, but more like, if you love to write and if you like, just write these long, gorgeous posts, what would it be to create like a SubStack? What would it be to reach out to your community and hop on some podcasts? I think if you can, like I got myself to a point where I could move away from Instagram because I had other ways of reaching out to people.
For many years, I wanted to move away from Instagram and, like, couldn't, you know. Because my business and I'm my family's breadwinner, so like, I just couldn't afford to do that, you know. So I had to take a little time before, and I can't say I made the decision with, like, a tremendous amount of confidence, like, I'm so good, I never need to, like, you know. It's probably not great, but it's really working for me right now.
So I would say build, you know, and give yourself the permission to take a little sabbatical, like, cool your nervous system down, research some options, and see if it might work to post, to automate your posts. I know that an acquaintance of mine for a really long time turned off comments. I know somebody else who I really respect who turn off comments, not because they're trying to silence anybody or, you know, anything. But their clarity is like, this is not actually a community. This is a parasocial idea that like we're close, because you follow me on Instagram, and we're not, you know. And so I work. I do things like, I can't hold space for your comments, you know, not because I'm trying to silence you, just because I'm honoring my own boundaries. So maybe that's you, too. Like, maybe that's you, too.
[0:41:31]
So there comes a time — I was here, too, Sam, and it's really tough — where you realize, and by the way, I know I don't speak for everybody, but I do think I know so many people who are going through this. There does come a time with one's business, especially in this line of work where you you just get burned out on it, and where you build and build and build a platform, and then you think, okay, like, where's this? Okay. It's a lot of tending, it's a lot of keeping of the energetic space, it's just a lot of fucking labor. And a lot of it is free. A lot of it is unpaid labor.
So what I would say, again, if you can, if you're able, and if you do want to get off Instagram, I just want to be very clear, again: I am not advocating that we should all get off social media. Some people do not have the option. Some people don't want to, some people do, but they can't, and I bow to you. And I am fully acknowledging that my business is in a little bit more of a comfortable plateau right now, I think, in part, because of my decision to move away from social media.
So I don't want to tell you like, “Oh, my God, like everything is like bursting forth!” because it's not bursting forth. It's doing great, it's doing fine, and I feel really, really comfortable with that right now because I really trust that it will change, you know, and because I also know, when things were wildly successful for me, I felt out of my mind, and I refuse to do that again (Lindsay laughs). You know, it's just a lot of pressure. And like a lot of, you know.
So anyway, consider a break, consider someone to help you manage it, and consider it a long term project to see how you can, like, how might it feel better for you to be in that space, if you want to remain there? And how can you use it, as it's meant to be used, as a literal tool for marketing, and invite people into a different place of deeper work with you, like a newsletter, or like a SubStack, or like a Patreon, or like a podcast? Those things also take a lot of work. This podcast is a tremendous amount of work, and it is free. So like, I pay to do it (Lindsay laughs), like I pay money to get these episodes transcribed and edited and everything. But it's free for the audience because I believe in that. And maybe one day I'll do a membership or something, but there's plenty of other things I do that are paid, you know. So, for right now this feels right. And if it ever doesn't really feel right, I won't do it.
[0:44:26]
So, gosh, this was so long. I feel like I've been talking forever. I probably have been. Apologies, but I do think it's like it's a big question, and I want to be really be honest in the face of it. I would say, like feel into whatever inside of this really resonates for you. Obviously, if like your mental health is on the line, just move away from it because people understand. Just come back, tell them that you needed to leave, be really clear.
My husband, Chase, was just telling me the other day than an artist that they follow, that they have a very high follower account, posted something, and said, “I have to get off of this platform for my mental health. The last few posts that I've put forward got, like, absolutely no views or likes,” and it was because of paintings that were for sale, “I can't, I'm not able to reach anybody.”
So if it's a matter of like, you got to get out of there, then you just get out of there. And you can come back anytime you want to, you know. It's okay. It's okay to do those things. And if you give yourself the permission to take a break, then, again, you can strategize a little bit more about what, how, and how that space might be useful to you, to nourish or to help to grow other parts of your work and service, that maybe aren't being attended to right now.
And I do think that that is something I definitely resonate with, and I know a couple of different people in this field that are very dear to me, who kind of woke up one day and thought like, “Oh, my gosh, I, like, have not paid any attention to my mailing list, and I think I'd like to, you know, because that's really something that's mine, you know, and that people are really excited to be on there, and they'll actually like, get my emails,” you know.
So hopefully, this helps, Sam. I'm thinking about you. Please write me and tell me how this lands and give me your follow up thoughts because I'd be happy to chat with you more about it. And yeah, just want to say that I'm really grateful for this space.
And I want to, again, totally acknowledge my privilege as being someone who who got started in this field at a time when, ,like, the algorithm didn't completely choke small business owners and artists, and again, the idea that I can move away from social media, even if it is for my own mental health, and because I'm just in a season of my work and life right now where I must have peace over like profit and enormous expansion. And I'm really not able to cultivate that peace with Instagram in my life. I do acknowledge the privilege of that, and at the same time, I think that if there's merit or value in my sharing, just very transparently, about my business structure, and where I am with it is of value to anyone, then I'm glad for that.
—
[Conclusion]
[0:47:42]
So thanks for being here with me in the space and really witnessing all of you and whatever you happen to be going through right now. I really look forward to touching in with all of you for March Monthly Medicine in just a little under a week. And until that time comes, please take exquisite care of yourselves.