I write a lot about how we feed our bodies on Just to Claireify… but what about how we feed our minds?
Do you ever find yourself in a funk and you’re not sure why? The days just sort of blend together and it feels like there’s nothing to look forward to? I’m not talking about a clinical mental health problem, although I certainly have experienced those when I was younger. It’s more of a mental rut–sometimes you don’t know how you got there, but you need to turn things around to start enjoying life again.
For me, during these periods, I often realize that the content I’m consuming–whether it’s books, blogs, videos, social media, or even conversations I’m having in real life–is feeding my funk. The tone of this content isn’t inspiring, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s cynical, pessismistic, perfectionistic or extreme. It normalizes a negative attitude towards the world and I end up feeling frustrated and low, too.
What I Feed My Mind
At the moment I’m still nursing my almost-11-month-old several times a day, so I have plenty of opportunities for scrolling. People call it “mindless scrolling” but that’s a bit of a misnomer, in my opinion. Anything you feed your mind affects it–there’s no such thing as truly neutral content. Sometimes I think what I’m scrolling through is benign, but over time it’s slowly making me sadder, more frustrated, fearful, etc.
So here’s what I’m reaching for lately that feels restorative.
1. The Bible: in my own life at the moment, I’m choosing to redefine Christianity. For the past few years I’ve wrestled with how God and faith are defined and utilized in American culture and politics. I remember being a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked college student and being saved by faith after experiencing some incredibly difficult moments in my personal life. I felt inspired and encouraged to be a better person. Quite the contrast to the rigid, commanding, culturally backwards readings of the Bible I see on social media and in the news cycle these days. I choose a loving God who makes me a better human.
If you’re not Christian, don’t think I’m about to get all preachy on the blog! Just sharing a personal struggle and choice I’ve made recently.
2. Inspiring newsletters: My favorites at the moment are the Daily Connoisseur’s monthly newsletter (you can sign up here), Fiona Ferris’ weekly newsletter on Substack, and Scandi Class which is also on Substack.
Hack: If you don’t want the temptation of scrolling Substack’s Twitter-like social feed, you can download the app, sign up for the newsletters you want to (they’ll be sent to your email if they’re free ones), and then delete the app from your phone!
3. Old blog content: Doesn’t matter that it was written 10-15 years ago–I love old Southern In-Law and Oh She Glows posts. We’re talking way back in the archives… circa 2010. The Internet before everyone was overexposed is definitely a vibe that I’m here for. Ignorance was bliss and sometimes I just prefer to live in that hot pink, leopard print, sometimes-weird-but-always-delicious healthy recipes world. Give me chevron print, protein brownies and a sepia filter and I’m off to live my best life!
4. Daily Connoisseur YouTube videos: So relaxing and appropriate to watch with my kids! They especially love to watch her prepare meals or baking. There’s something so zen about it.
Content I Avoid
I.e. what not to feed your mind. Your list might be different–it can be helpful to reflect on how you feel after consuming different types of content, and limit or eliminate the ones that negatively affect you.
1. Social media. I utilize Facebook for the groups and occasionally sharing our lives with close family and friends. I don’t have TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter/X or even Instagram anymore (you can read all about that here). I loved the spontaneity and fun that was the early days of social media. Now everyone is either trying to sell me something or posting for the shock value, and neither of those helps fill my cup in my down time. I don’t even use the social feed on Substack… It’s like regular social media except everyone thinks they’re very, very smart with very hot takes (read: insufferable).
2. Reddit. Is this social media? Maybe. It is SO politically polarized and depressing lately that I just never visit. You would think the US is a third world country from what people write on there. We definitely have our problems but Reddit is hyperbolic and makes me feel panicky and sad.
3. Family vloggers. I used to loveee family content–until I had my own kids and realized how exploitative many of them are. Don’t get me wrong, I share the occasional photo of my little guys (and my 6-year-old who’s actually not so little anymore) on my private Facebook. But if I feel like I “know” someone’s child from their social media/videos–like where they go to school, their personality, likes/dislikes, daily schedule etc.–that’s too much and I can’t support it.
4. Tradwife/”pro-family”/holistic or alternative health content on any website or in any book. Yikes. I majorly went down the this rabbit hole during Covid and it still colors my perspective a little bit today. That’s a whole post on its own–I somewhat covered it here–but when I consume this type of content, I feel this legalistic, self-righteous, perfectionist mindset creeping in that I hate. It’s like a little sign to myself to unsubscribe, touch grass, and order takeout for dinner.
As someone who struggled with an eating disorder in the past, I can say that alternative health content feeds similar behaviors. Not necessarily creating a desire to lose weight but to strictly control everything we put in our mouths or feel incredibly guilty about enjoying a nutritionally-less-than-perfect meal. Like, I love smoothies with desiccated liver and eating fresh veggies from my garden–and we also enjoyed a takeout pizza and ice cream night with extended family this week. Guilt isn’t an ingredient, as they say.
5. Parenting content. Sometimes, we get into parenting ruts or deal with problems that we don’t know how to solve. I certainly have been there. In these situations, parenting content is helpful to deal with a specific issue. In general, I feel that there is WAYYY too much information out there these days though, and it’s overwhelming. Our parents never had this much input on the way they parent and I think they were better, happier parents for it. Everyone is suddenly an “expert” and they’re all saying different, contradictory things!
I am a chronic overthinker and the guilt that I might not be doing the best job for my kids causes immense stress. It actually makes me a worse parent because I’m burnt out and snippy due to the stress. Eek! It’s not good. I have to limit my consumption of parenting content these days as a result.
This post is getting lengthy but I’d love to hear from you, too. What do you feed your mind that’s filling your cup recently? Or what isn’t?
xx Claire
