Toxic Mindset of Happiness Self-sabotaging

"I don't deserve to be happy because it's unnatural"; waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s as if I’m expecting bad things to happen after having my happy moments.

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Anyway, this post covers a new topic, which is the toxic mindset that sabotages our happiness. As part of the feminine leadership series, I want to address this, mainly for my reminder, and many of us as well. So, what is self-sabotaging and how can we stop the toxicity from wreaking havoc in our system?

Every now and then, I deleted my Instagram app. Part of it was because I recognised its grip over me that made me spend over ten minutes doom-scrolling. That’s how the app is designed. And similar to how I beat the sugar addiction that I covered in this post, I knew something’s gotta give for my internet browsing habit. Otherwise, I wouldn’t reach my true potential if the currency I’m being paid for by God, which is my time on earth, were spent on consuming instead of creating. So, I view Instagram as a tool to spread awareness about my content and business, and to interact occasionally with friends and acquaintances who knew me first from social media. It’s a business tool, similar to LinkedIn. So, I treat it as such.

By the way, as I’m writing this post, I just realised that the reason LinkedIn isn’t addictive for me is because the type of content must be tailored towards specific professional settings, whereas Instagram welcomes all humdrum of everyday life, silly and sometimes our stripped down personality out of office settings. We can show what we cook, the state of our homes, our innocent thoughts, and tons of pictures only for aesthetic purposes. That’s why with my lifestyle, I’m more attracted towards Instagram than LinkedIn. Alas, my coaching business intersects with my product management expertise, which has garnered more exposure on LinkedIn with my PM content. So, yeah, I prefer to grow my business on LinkedIn and keep Instagram as a platform to share my jovial thoughts. My vehicle of preference is the Instagram story, but I find it less enjoyable. My thoughts, as you have been reading in my Substack or Medium here, are not even remotely short. I tried to get on the bandwagon of condensing the message into a carousel post, so the readers could swipe left to read the points. But I don’t like the format. It’s one thing to condense the ideas into multiple bullet points spreading on five or ten business deck slides, but for more personal stories, my thought process and internal work, information condensation for the sake of the next post to scroll down doesn’t fulfil my joy of sharing.

I’m a wordy person in regards to talking about personal and inner work. Full stop.

I love making business decks and I sometimes scroll for too long for my liking to get a cute yet professional pitch template and build something on there. But long posts like on Substack, or shorter yet more technical ones on Medium, are my jam.

Precursor: Doomscrolling social media behaviour doesn’t promote healthy engagement with the content

Back to the question, what is it about self-sabotaging our happiness? Because I found out that the behaviour promoted on Instagram is never about natural engagement. I get that being on any public platform where you put your content out there for people to respond to is rarely about pure organic engagement. That’s been like that since the era of snake oil, isn’t it? But with 2 billion users on Instagram and a 0.6% average engagement rate, you compete with others to get your messages across so that the users interact with you or buy your products and services. Users spend ~30 minutes on average on Instagram every day, and with the 15-second length of a reel, calculate how many reels someone views daily. Yes, 120 reels, or it can be more if one decides to just scroll down to the next reel. The same goes for posts.

Posts like these highlight the shortening of our attention span due to social media. Substack became my haven when I could write elaborate pieces of my thoughts. I don’t want to be shunned into a 15-second personality.

And that’s exactly my problem with the Instagram story. People can swipe and not interact with my thoughts at all. I can post visually aesthetic images as the background, and then the long text on the foreground. And then people would not interact with it. Why wouldn’t they, I pondered. Granted, my thoughts are not the most thought-provoking. But at least I want it to spark some ideas for people to think about, say, productivity, food choices, or the importance of managing your health. I wonder what my story readers had in their minds after reading my thoughts. Did they store the idea to change their lifestyle somewhere, because my piece ignited their curiosity to research more? Or they were just, like, swiping to the next story, yawning.

It’s completely different with the comments and engagement that are encouraged in a longer writing platform. As I’m writing this on a Saturday morning out of habit, 7 am when it’s still dark outside, -1 degree Celcius this winter, I didn’t plan that much, but the flow state helped me pour word after word on the screen. And I’m content. Writing has been cathartic for me. That’s why I don’t mince my words or limit myself on the topics I want to post on social media. Writing has become my expression method of choice. Sadly, Instagram doesn’t provide ample feedback or interaction which I’m seeking.

The self-sabotaging behaviour

Apart from the lack of engagement that I wanted, this is where the self-sabotaging occurs. I’m afraid by posting my thoughts on Instagram stories, I invite negative energy through the responses expressed silently in the reader’s mind.

There, I said it out loud. I’m afraid putting myself out there invites jealousy and resentfulness from the readers on Instagram, a sentiment that I rarely garner on long-post writing platforms. 

I’m afraid by posting my thoughts on Instagram stories, I invite negative energy through the responses expressed silently in the reader’s mind.

Perhaps, it’s caused by the nature of the short reels or story where the information condensation must happen, so something that was thought richly in nuance could be minced into something else, misunderstood and the real meaning butchered. So, something as harmless as saying “I’m on a keto diet because it works for me” could attract negative responses like “this lass is promoting unhealthy self-restriction or body image.”

Well . . .

Condensed message: “I’m on a majority plant-based diet as this is what I’m attuned to, out of ethical, environmental, and health reasons.”

Response: “Well, here’s to another keyboard warrior. I’m munching on a large piece of steak tonight.”

And so on. You see my point. Internet, as the meme goes, is the only place where you can say “I love oranges” and people misinterpret it as “So, you hate strawberries?”

In my case, this is so unconfirmed. There are no negative messages (yet) I received on my direct messages about my posts. Besides, my story viewers are mostly friends I know from different engagements. Oh, wait, that must mean they also hold back from expressing discontent, doesn’t it, out of courtesy knowing me in real life.

No idea.

The Downward Spiral

From the example above, you know how a self-sabotaging idea works. It starts as prejudice, a malady that slowly plants its gnarly root in my heart and mind. Every time I want to post on Instagram, the content goes through several layers of filters:

• Whether this would invite a negative response, albeit unexpressed

• Whether this would stir resentment

• Whether the negative energy, being unexpressed by the reader, would reach me and wish me a difficult life

So there it goes. I don’t want to post on Instagram stories as much, other than the nature pictures on my feed, fearing negative energy backlash out of envy.

But it doesn’t stop there. The toxicity continues with the thought that it means I must not spread happiness on social media. Here’s an example.

I went out for a hike at Loch Lomond for Boxing Day. I captured so many nature’s beautiful pics, but not all are worth the feed’s aesthetics, so there are some that I can post on my Instagram story. But I thought twice before posting.

Loch Lomond from Conic Hill.

What if I posted this expression of happiness and people would dislike it?

Does it mean I can’t look happy online, otherwise it would invite curses or negative sentiments towards my life.

Does it mean I need to stay private all the time?

But I want to spread that happiness is attainable in daily mundane life, connecting with nature. I want to promote that we humans were not made to stay in a cubicle, 9 hours a day hunching over our screens, or working dangerous hours. 

I want to spread that slow and gentle living, occasional trips to hug the trees and bask in forest bathing, amid the wintertime, is possible and nourishing for your souls.

That’s all that I wanted to share.

However, due to my chronic self-sabotaging mind, I paced back and forth on whether the sharing was worth it.

I ended up posting a few stories anyway.

Self-sabotaging Anxiety after Posting on Social Media

You name it. I woke up the next morning checking how many people had viewed it. Oh, the funnel showed the drop. Say, there were over 100 users who viewed my first story, and there were only less than 50 on the last story about this hike.

That’s one, the anxiety-inducer fact.

Without me being aware of it, this toxic mindset makes me a shoe-dropper (from “waiting for another shoe to drop”). It’s as if I’m expecting bad things to happen after having my happy moments. Sucks, doesn’t it?

Another one was whether out of those 100 who viewed my story, how many understood my good intent to spread the joyful, simple living. Maybe some of them became envious of my posts (oh, she posted a short vacation trip in this recession, wars, cost of living crisis, and stuff. Or from my friends back in my home country: Oh, she’s still in Scotland, looks happy, eh? Wait until . . .)

That downward spiral ate me up inside, that’s why I stopped checking my Instagram every so often after I posted. I couldn’t cope with the thoughts.

As a content creator and aspiring coach, I can’t be like this forever. I must put my thoughts outside and engage in healthy conversations. But Instagram might be my least favourite vehicle of choice. I’m not sure.

I’ve allocated this year, 2024, to immerse fully in this career path. I’d soon know how I can enjoy the different offers each platform has without feeling less than or constantly anxious that someone on the internet wishes me ill.

I’m actively working on myself on how to enjoy my happy moments without waiting for another shoe to drop.

Final Thought

This entire problem in my head probably came from a history of trauma or living in less ideal conditions without a proper coping mechanism. Nobody taught me about mental resilience, anyway.

This morning (I edited this before posting a day ago as of reading this), my vocab expanded with the word “equanimity”. It’s the state of being in control of your emotions, maintaining composure and calmness of your mind.

I’m a work in progress, and so is my healing. How can I detach my mind from the (potential) negative comments as I post on social media, that’s a topic I should focus on. But for now, I’m still enjoying the benefits of laying low, under the radar. My time and energy feel constant throughout the day, so I accomplish more in my productivity without feeling rushed.

Until next time,