Morning tea thoughts | Turning over a new leaf

A colleague of mine posted the question as to whether social media has been beneficial or harmful to anyone’s health.

One great benefit is that it is a great platform to connect with others.

I have to be honest with myself, I’ve had such an unhealthy relationship with social media in the past 3 years. Some people do the social media cleanse/break, I think I took it to the extreme and went cold turkey for two years. It’s an oxymoron because I use my blog and social media to post new recipes and to connect with others. To add fuel to the fire, I stopped connecting with others, declined offers for doing photo shooting and food styling for other people’s work and just made excuses. Back then, I wasn’t aware that I had so much anxiety, fear and worried too much about the likes and the need to be accepted. I created a barrier and did not allow anyone to enter my space and initially, it felt comfortable, but I stopped growing. I knew this for so long but did nothing about it until I came to the point where I became fed up with myself and to do something to overcome my unhealthy relationship with social media.

I made some time in a quiet space to write down my values and my true intention for using social media for Thatsafrotastic and spent in time in devotion. Being honest with myself was like opening a can of worms. If felt very uncomfortable and I wanted to pretend that I wasn’t facing this problem. However, I tried my best to be honest with myself in a non-judgemental manner which aimed to build myself.

This made me realise how I excited I was when I was creating, and I want to return integrating joy of creating and sharing new recipes and encouraging others that there a no one size fit when it comes to having a positive relationship with food. I want to be able to create with authenticity and not have to worry about others will think or the likes as this hinder my ability to be myself. The older I get, the more I realise how precious time is. That is why have decided to start a new hashtag Turning over a new leaf. This meant being able to start again and learn to be myself, stay true to my values in life and not dulling my shine as this is something I’m still learning to do. For now, I believe I have established a healthy foundation of my purpose for using social media and am excited to connect and share with others the real me.

Music: BTOB – Friend Piano Cover by DooPiano