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.

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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.

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.