Isolation Spirals: Screens, Shows & Social Media

This is Part 3 of a series on “Isolation Spirals!” Read the full intro post for some background on the concept here →

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Here’s the big idea as a recap: life is hard. life hurts. So we seek momentary relief to avoid that pain and the bigger issues behind it. And those momentary painkillers have unintended long-term effects. They end up creating distance from the people that we need to be close to - the people that we need to help us heal.

Our coping mechanisms are unconscious protection from others getting to our vulnerable place - the place where we can be wounded. They push us away from people because people are the ones who could hurt us. 

The biggest problem with any coping mechanism isn’t the behavior or substance itself: it’s the ISOLATION that it causes.

On that note, let’s talk about the isolating effect of legalism and perfectionism.

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Alright, blah blah blah… we all know we’re screen-addicted. Not shocking news. But just for fun… let’s throw my favorite stat out there:

In 2020, viewers spent more than 57 billion minutes watching “The Office” on Netflix.

Dang.

Here’s where we’re headed with this though…

Wasted time is NOT the biggest problem with our screen addictions. Isolation is.

Let’s get into it.

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Shows are a remote and safe way to feed off of others’ relationships and allow us to be distracted from our own real needs. They make us feel relationally connected, but give us none of the real benefits.

Especially when we watch things together with a spouse or a friend - we had a shared experience, which is good. But often, we’re relationally exhausted because of the intensity of what we just watched. And that means we have nothing left for the actual person we just shared the experience with!

With social media, we can even feel artificially connected to people, when really, we're just being entertained by other people’s lives and relationships through a medium that was literally created to keep you addicted! 

But social media feels like it’s better than just passive electronics, right? Because at least there are some real people and real friends there! 

Maybe! Or not...Because between 70-93% of what we communicate is nonverbal. And so when our relationships survive primarily on text or social media, we might be only getting a mere 7% of the content.

(unless you’re awesome 😎 and use emojis 😜 like your relationships 🥳 depend on it 😳…)

Such limited content can’t light up the joy center in your brain because your unconscious brain has no idea if someone is actually glad to see you or not. 

Because all in all, social media is not leaving us room for meaningful relationships with people, it just gives us hits of neurochemicals that make us feel just normal enough to keep moving forward. 

In high school I literally walked around with my mom’s laptop playing Friends, the show. Now… I realize that’s because I didn’t have any friends. At least, not any deep and real friendships with people who knew me and loved me like I needed. 

So how does all this lead to isolation? Well, of course, they steal our time and our energy, leaving us less room for the people in our lives.

But it’s worse than that.

Our brains THRIVE on something called mimicry. You’ve probably heard of mirror neurons - it’s all part of the same circuitry in the brain.

The main point is this: we unconsciously expect that people will react and look like what we’ve repeatedly seen.

So when your thinking brain starts to shut down in moments of stress, exhaustion, fear, or pain, your unconscious mind quickly decides how to react based off of the most common images in your memory. It favors the common responses, not the wisest ones.

And guess what? That part of our brain doesn’t deal in logic and language. It deals in pictures and emotions.

What you’ve SEEN determines much of what you BELIEVE - and therefore what you’ll DO.

So think about the pictures that we’ve uploaded into our hard drives from shows and social media, and what they’ve taught us:

• it only takes 30 seconds or so to resolve conflict, as long as you say something poetic and quippy

• sex begins after one smooth line and a flash of bedroom eyes (forget about all the baggage from the rest of the episode!)

• who wastes time on sitting down to eat right, going to bed early, working out, going on slow walks, playing with their kids on the floor, or grocery shopping? the cool people are all too busy living their “best lives” and enjoying every moment of every day.

• bored is the enemy - everything is supposed to be important and epic and dramatic all the time

• we can even start to expect that others will treat us like the protagonist of the story (this even has a name! It’s called egocentric bias)

Or some other sinister ways this plays out… we expect that someone SHOULD be able to express all the nuance necessary for a loaded political or controversial topic in their social media post, and that the fact that they DIDN’T accurately express that nuance means they’re too far gone to be close to. 

Or maybe, although we “know” better, our unconscious minds expect that other people’s highlight reels are their real lives. It starts to subtly create distance between us if I believe that’s your reality, because it’s NOT AT ALL like mine.

Whether it’s the time we’ve lost, the comparison that haunts us, or the unrealistic expectations we’ve learned, unchecked shows and social media quickly become isolation spirals.

I expect something.
My expectation isn’t met.
I’m hurt.
I cope with more shows and social becuase they numb the pain.
My expectations remain high.
My expectations are even further from reality.

And on it goes.

• • • • • • • • • •

Breaking this spiral, just like any other addiction, begins with sobriety.

Sobriety is NEVER the full answer - but it is always an important starting point. Recognizing and admitting just how dangerous these glowing rectangles in our pockets really are is step 1. Breaking the chemical hold they have over your brain is step 2. It’s very important to reclaim our minds and also stop the uploading of new images and expectations.

But we have more work to do.

This isolation spiral is really all about expectations - so we have to become aware of ours and how they’ve been hijacked.

Do some investigative work anytime you feel let down, wounded, left behind, or anything like it.

Try and fill in these blank:

• I wish they were more like ________.

• I wish it had gone like ________.

• If only I was more like ________.

And make sure to run through the catalog of fictional characters or people whose highlight reels you follow.

Once you’ve identified your expectation, match it up against BOTH Scripture and reality. Is this something that’s healthy to expect of someone else? Is it even possible? Is it in line with how Jesus would live if he were me, or them?

Most importantly, as you do that work, make your way to the core issue:

Identify your real, vulnerable need behind the expectation and ask for help.

Recovery is learning to trust again - getting our needs met in relationship instead of continuing to self-gratify. So move toward someone trustworthy, be vulnerable and share what you need or what you’re struggling with, and allow them to meet that need and care for you.

And then to complete the cycle, be there for them as well.

It won’t be perfect like an Instagram filter. It won’t fit snugly into a 23-minute runtime. But it will be real.

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It’s time to expose the corrupted beliefs driving your isolation spirals.

The Bible has always said our problems always start in the heart - and modern brain science and recovery principles have helped us see that the Bible was even more right than we knew.

The Done with Stuck Roadmap gives you a reusable process for identifying the core heart issues hiding behind the emotions and behaviors that we actually see.

We’ll teach you how to start treating everything as evidence that will lead you to the “bottom of things.”

And you won’t just find those core issues; you’ll begin repairing the damage that’s been done and moving forward courageously alongside friends who are learning how to encourage and empower you.

Isolation Spirals: Legalism & Perfectionism

This is Part 2 of a series on “Isolation Spirals!” Read the full intro post for some background on the concept here →

• • • • • • • • • •

Here’s the big idea as a recap: life is hard. life hurts. So we seek momentary relief to avoid that pain and the bigger issues behind it. And those momentary painkillers have unintended long-term effects. They end up creating distance from the people that we need to be close to - the people that we need to help us heal.

Our coping mechanisms are unconscious protection from others getting to our vulnerable place - the place where we can be wounded. They push us away from people because people are the ones who could hurt us. 

The biggest problem with any coping mechanism isn’t the behavior or substance itself: it’s the ISOLATION that it causes.

On that note, let’s talk about the isolating effect of legalism and perfectionism.

• • • • • • • • • •

Perfectionism seems like a personal issue, right? An internal struggle against anxiety, insecurity, or fear that I’m not good enough for God or even for my own standards.

But right there, we start to see a deeper relational issue: perfectionism is a desperate battle for acceptance. And acceptance comes from others.

The problem behind perfectionism and legalism is actually judgments.

Judgments are an assumption about your character, based on your behavior. They don’t say you did something bad; they say you are something bad. Judgments are one of the most powerful unconscious things that we avoid - they are a fast track to lasting heart wounds. We’ve all been judged at some point in our lives, and our hearts don’t let us forget those moments.

One protective response to that unconscious fear of judgment is to never be too vulnerable in certain areas. Never give someone evidence that might lead to an assumption about who I really am.

Words like these wound us to the core:

• if you tried a bit harder… 

• if you weren’t such a screw-up… 

• if you didn’t have that long, dark past… 

• if you REALLY loved the people in your life that you’re hurting… 

Judgments lead to instant relational barriers. And PAST judgments leave us with corrupted beliefs about who we are, how God sees us, and how safe it is to trust other people.

But that wall of perfectionism or religious legalism is a TOUGH facade to keep up - and it’s all based on this insecure fear. So anxious energy - which is real energy in the body - is produced all the time to keep the shield powered up. And as damaging as the energy is… it feels good and helpful moment. It helps us avoid the fear of judgment and the pain of shallow relationships.

If no one knows my struggles, then no one knows me.

In his fantastic book The Cure, John Lynch says “When I wear a mask, only the mask receives love.” Legalism creates distance between me and God - if I don’t let Him behind the mask, I don’t get the grace I need. And perfectionism creates distance between me and others - if I don’t show them what’s really going on, then I don’t get the support I need.

Unfortunately, the next stop on the spiral is where it gets rough.

My personal legalism or perfectionism comes naturally paired with a judgmental attitude toward others.

There is an intense connection between my fear of judgment and how I judge others. 

Listen to Jesus talk about this in Matthew 7:

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” 

He isn’t just posing an interesting idea… he’s asking a question! And we need to answer it!

WHY do we do it?

WHY do we turn our attention to sawdust in someone else’s eye? Notice, he said LOOK and not TAKE OUT… he knows we’re not doing it to be helpful. If we were helpful… we’d take it out and provide our friend some relief from a perpetually itchy eye!

The reality is that I’m using the dust in your eye to block my view of the plank in mine. 

My plank scares me. But your sawdust relieves me of that fear for a moment. It diverts my attention away from my inadequacy and toward yours. 

And right BEFORE that statement, Jesus describes how this destroys our relationships and continues the spiral:

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

And this is not a fear-mongering statement about God raining down judgment on my head because I judged someone else. God is not petty like that. 

But we humans ARE. And we’re defensive.

I throw my judgment at you, you throw it back on me, and we continue “protecting ourselves” by further isolating from each each other so we never have to face the reality of our fears. The spiral continues, until someone decides to break out.

Intentional vulnerability is the only way to break the spiral of perfectionism and legalism.

We don’t start with doing things less perfectly. We don’t throw out the guardrails and try some new bad behavior on for size. Everything we attempt on our own just furthers our isolation and buries us deeper in the hole that we dug.

And we have to remember that the problem isn’t perfectionism or legalism - they’re just symptoms of fear.

Fear of shame.
Fear of betrayal.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of being known.

That kind of fear is not unfounded, either. It comes from real experiences, wounds, and messages from throughout life.

So the next right thing to do is face that fear and choose to be vulnerable. It doesn’t even have to be the whole story yet - just choose something.

A mistake. Something that made you mad. A fleeting moment of envy.

Intentionally share that something with someone you trust. Don’t ask for advice or a fix. And stop someone before they give it to you! The point is to be seen, known, and still loved.

Test the waters of vulnerability, record the new experience, and take the next brave step toward wholeness.

• • • • • • • • • •

What are your Isolation Spirals?

“Triggers” don’t seem to go away, do they? No matter what you seem to do, they just keep coming back.

The same kinds of things hurt you, frustrate you, annoy you, worry you, or stress you over and over again.

And even when you learn to manage them, it almost seems like they keep getting worse at the same exact rate that you get better at managing them “effectively”.

Spoiler alert: you’re on an Isolation Spiral.

To be fair… everyone is on an isolation spiral of some kind. Let’s back up to the real problem first.

Isolation is our default setting in the broken world we inhabit. Pain is everywhere - and worst of all, relational pain is everywhere. We are completely interdependent in this world, and we need safe and intimate relationships to function - people we trust to love us completely and help us become the best versions of ourselves.

But that kind of relationship is NOT the default setting. Even our relationships are fraught with conflict, tension, miscommunication, and sometimes betrayal. We have all trusted and been hurt in return - and that pain doesn’t just go away. We remember it in the deepest corners of our hearts.

Because we live with this painful reality our whole lives, we become experts at protecting ourselves from pain and vulnerability. We find unconscious ways to keep people from hurting us in the ways we fear they could. They help us feel momentarily normal. 

That’s why our brains have created ongoing cravings and pathways for them - that’s why they become easier and easier, stronger and stronger. That’s how they become our go-to coping mechanisms. We never do anything that doesn’t do something FOR us - and avoiding pain is one of the primary goals our brains are trying to accomplish in most settings.

(the foundation for these ideas is part of the Done with Stuck Roadmap - how we achieve real and lasting change with the help of the bible, brain science, and practical recovery tools)

Every one of our coping mechanisms, each and every way that we protect ourselves from the threat of relational pain, eventually becomes an isolation spiral. 

Our coping mechanisms are unconscious protection from others getting to our vulnerable place - the place where we can be wounded. They push us away from people because people are the ones who could hurt us. 

They make us feel momentary relief, a little artificial hit of dopamine to ease the pain. But they have unintended long-term effects. They create distance from the people that we need to be close to - the people that we need to help us heal.

And then that pain of loneliness catches up, and my heart is even more tender than before. So I numb more pain.

Then I’m more isolated.
Then more pain.
More numbing.
More isolation. 

Isolation Spirals pick up more and more steam, moving faster and faster, until we choose to break them.

Here’s where we often go wrong - because usually, we try to stop coping in unhealthy ways. We try to ease our pain in an acceptable way instead of with anger, porn, binge-eating, overworking, or whatever else. We instead choose arts and crafts, working out, cutting loose someone who annoys me, or something else “acceptable”.

But swapping out the coping mechanism will never break the isolation spiral. It will just isolate you in a new way. And the behavior isn’t the real problem: the isolation is the problem.

We only break free when we accept vulnerability and move toward the people who could hurt us. 

• • • • • • • • • •

In this series of posts, we’re going to talk through some of the most commonly misunderstood Isolation Spirals and think about the unexpected ways they isolate us and actually make our issues worse.

For each one, and for all of our behaviors, we’ll ask the same questions: 

1. What am I GETTING from this behavior? What pain am I killing, memory or thought am I avoiding, or fear am I running from? 
   

2. How exactly does this isolate me, creating distance between me and the people I should be close to? What effect does this have on other people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors?
   

3. What would breaking the spiral look like? What is the courageous, vulnerable risk that could break my isolation?

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