I Have 1.1 Million Followers, But I'm Deleting My Instagram
Mark Groves, founder of the Create The Love, says the decision to delete his Instagram account is truly liberating.
Kaspars Grinvalds, draganab and filadendron / Getty Images Signature via Canva This is one of those messages that one never knows how to start ... when we want to share something big, yet are a little (a lot!) cautious.
You know when you need to do something, yet it doesn’t make sense? Where you do all the research and try all the things for the answer to be anything but what you know in your soul?
But we delay. And we delay. And we delay.
The delays are important as they are about gathering information, but they’re also about collecting more and more pain — the kind that comes when we’re ignoring a truth. Sometimes we need to collect a lot of this pain to take the action we’ve been delaying. Sometimes we need to get to a place where the momentum forces us into action.
Well, instead of just listening and changing, I’ve been on a pain-collecting journey myself. I’ve been searching and trying different things, avoiding this one thing. I’m terrified, my friend. Terrified.
What sparked this decision?
Well, first, the love I have for my wife Kylie and my son. And more specifically, having written our new book "Liberated Love" together.
Writing this book and what’s in it has made it so I cannot hide from the truth anymore.
As we’ve been preparing for the book to come out, I’ve been really reflecting on what we wrote in the book, and how powerful it is. I don’t say this to sell you a book, but rather to prepare you for the potency of what it has stirred in me, and will likely stir in you.
This book is a serious call to fierce love. It’s about leaving codependency, self-abandonment, shrinking and playing small, the belief you’re broken, your addictions, your excuses — all of it, behind.
It’s about stepping into integrity with the potential of your being, what you came here to do, the love you want to create, and the legacy you want to leave. It’s a roadmap to liberation.
Photo: EpicStockMedia via Canva
I couldn’t, in good conscience, write this book, live this love, and not make the choice I’m about to share with you.
What I Had To Get Real About
This is what I had to be real with:
You will not be able to exist in relationships and circumstances that don’t nourish you in one area of your life, and allow love to flow in others.
As the saying goes, “How you do one thing is how you do everything."
The love my wife and I share is exhilarating. It’s peaceful. It’s welcoming. It’s safe. It’s trustworthy. It’s transformative. And most importantly, it’s liberating.
It demands that I (and we) step into the best version of ourselves and take responsibility for not only our own healing but also for getting our lives in alignment.
If we want to go further individually and together, I have to make sure that every area of my life embodies the things I learn through the relationship we have.
If I stay stuck in one area, I stay stuck in all of them.
And I’m not here for that. I’m here to take big leaps. Do courageous things. I’m here to see just how far one can go when living from their values and their principles, and trusting the deeper knowing and guidance from what is beyond the 3D.
I look at my son and I think to myself, “What will he learn through what I say?" And even more pivotal — "What will he learn from what I do and who I am? What did I stand for?"
I want my son to know his father as a good man. Not from a place of righteousness, but from a place of pride.
As Gandhi said, “My life is my message."
May I live with the same dedication to aligned action. A noble thing to aspire to, a terrifying thing to do.
I heard Caroline Myss say, “To trust in God is to trust in yourself. They are not different."
Well, here’s to trusting.
On June 1st I am going to delete my Instagram(s) and my Facebook page.
I am going to remove myself from these platforms as I find them to be incredibly unhealthy and very extractive from the users, especially those who share their art and creativity there.
The way they relate to their users mimics an abusive relationship dynamic, and I cannot consciously choose to participate in the relationship anymore.
I can’t, knowing what I know about relationships, continue to consent to these dynamics. I refuse to be a prisoner to any relationship that is not reciprocal, and not in the highest and best interest of all the people involved.
Mark Groves is a Human Connection Specialist, founder of Create the Love, co-author of Liberated Love, and host of the Mark Groves Podcast. Mark's work bridges the academic and the human, inviting people to explore the good, the bad, the downright ugly, and the beautiful sides of connection.