why I left social media, and why I returned

In 2023, I left Instagram, not sure if I would ever come back.

In 2024, I logged on and started posting again.

If you’ve been here for a while, you may remember my ceremonious departure (I literally did a closing ceremony on Instagram live), and you might be wondering about what happened during my break, why I returned, and what it’s been like since.

It’s time for an update!

The simplest answer to both questions (why I left, why I returned) is: God.

I followed the divine call, which I make space to hear on a daily basis.

At first, the call said: take a break. Then, the call said: your break did what it needed to, now it's time to go back.

Here’s the more nuanced answer:

In 2021, I got my first extended taste of life without any digital distraction in over a decade. My last reference point before this was my 90s childhood in New York City, and the epic backpacking trips into the mountains of Vermont that I would take as a teenager. As an adult, I've kept up my practice of a once-a-week sabbath, but those 24 hours pass quickly and were never enough to fully break the hold that I felt technology had on me.

When it was time for me to finish my first book, I took an entire month almost entirely off of screens. I would wake up around 5am, do a 4-hour stretch of deep work, take a break in nature, do another 4-hour stretch of deep work, go back out into nature, and then go to bed. I wasn't scrolling social media, watching videos, listening to podcasts, reading books, or even really checking email (I had my assistant forward me anything urgent).

Despite the inner and outer pressure I felt to make the book as good as possible, I was more relaxed than I had been in years. The vibe was: calm, quiet bliss, with a strong sense of confidence and power. My energy was mine. And it was focused only on what my soul was calling me to do.

(By the way, everyone's soul is asking them to do different things. Your version of me going into monk mode to write my book might be spending time with your kids, making a musical album, learning a language, building your online business, showing up for your community, or watching the clouds float by.)

After I finished my book, I went back to my "normal" rhythm. I was still deeply focused on my mission, but I checked social media regularly, found myself down internet rabbit holes searching things I was interested in, and filled a lot of my downtime with podcasts and audiobooks.

By early 2023, I knew something had to change.

My attention felt increasingly fragmented. The pull of short form social media felt stronger than my capacity to resist it. I would log on to post something, and then find myself hooked for at least a few minutes by whatever the algorithm placed in front of me that day. I was making progress that other people might have been fine with (a successful business, an online platform to share my message, a growing body of work) but I knew I was leaving a lot of potential on the table. And I could feel the machine of digital tech working harder and harder to keep me (and everyone else) in shallow interaction rather than in devoted creation.

My usual approaches – phone-free mornings, meditation and prayer, and relying on my love for my work to fuel my creativity – weren't cutting it anymore.

And I was questioning whether I was part of the problem – creating content that made people spend more time on social media than in their real lives.

I kept hearing the phrase "half measures availed us nothing" from 12 Step literature. Life was communicating to me that I wasn't going to get a new experience rearranging the existing chess pieces on the board. I was going to have to reset the entire game by doing something totally different.

So, I pulled the plug completely. I announced my departure, deleted Instagram off my phone, ran my business completely via email (shout out to you, my email people!), reset my brain (more on how later), and started to feel my life force, my creative power, and my spiritual sovereignty return.

The feeling of calm confidence, potent vitality, divinely guided focus, and seemingly supernatural capacity to invent, ideate, create, and build that I had accessed in 2021 was back. It was glorious.

So when, in 2024, I heard the clear inner call to return to social media, my mind resisted it at first. Honestly, I liked the story that I had left social media forever, and I also liked how peaceful my life had become.

Turns out my social media reset was less of a monk’s life-long renunciation of the world and more like a year-long retreat at an ashram that rewires you from the inside out so that you can now live in the world in a totally different way.

Here’s what changed:

I identified why my screens had power over me, and I cleared the root of the problem on every level – mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and practically.

I spent enough time away from the energy field of social media and digital distractions that I reestablished full sovereignty.

I committed to specific spiritual practices to help me maintain that sovereignty.

I restructured my business so that creating for social media had a clearer purpose within my mission.

I rewired my brain to crave non-screen time, and I trained myself to enter a creative flow state whenever I want to.

I established new routines to prioritize creativity, nature, and what matters most to me.

And, since returning to the digital realm, I've been able to not only maintain but deepen these practices. My capacity to focus continues to grow stronger.

The last two years have been the most creative, productive years of my life so far.

Since I did this reset, I've completely rebuilt my business – I recorded over a hundred hours of teachings and meditations, built a new membership (Mission Space), updated my two signature programs (God is My Boss and Holy Liberation), designed a more sustainable and long-lasting model for my work, served hundreds of more people, and created space for my beloved Kristina (who is my collaborator and often teaches in my programs, edits my writing, and mentors clients with me) to go on a creative sabbatical to focus on her Life's Work.

This productivity and momentum is not only the result of having more time because I've cut my screen time down dramatically.

It's also a result of the psychic space and the clear channel that I have strengthened – the ideas that are uniquely mine to create and share are able to reach me with greater ease, and I have the life force to act on them powerfully.

Breaking the fourth wall for a moment: I am really enjoying writing this post. This has been such a wild journey, and I am thrilled that I have something meaningful to contribute to my fellow heart-centered humans who may be feeling like their relationship with their screens is hindering their ability to be who they're truly here to be during this time of Great Change.

Distraction is the #1 dream killer (and destiny delayer), and the world is FULL of it. We have the psychological equivalent of hard drugs within arms reach at all times, in the form of our screens.

And for those of us who are here to share our soul's gifts, anchor higher frequencies, and become channels for divine co-creation during this time of humanity's awakening and rebirth... focus is extra important. God can't work as effectively through a muddy channel, and your world-changing ideas can't take root if your soil is full of the weeds of mainstream noise.

Basic mindfulness and a general intention to not get sucked into distraction isn’t enough for most people. Especially when your work requires you to be online in some way, and you love learning, taking in new information, and connecting with people beyond your local environment.

This is why I created my program REVIVAL, which I'm excited to announce that I'm leading live for the first time since 2023.

REVIVAL is a 21-day journey to reset from digital distraction, reclaim your life force from where it's been drained, and redirect it toward what matters most: your real life + your soul's work.

People enter the experience feeling overstimulated by external noise and underwhelmed by their creative output, and they leave replenished, with a clear creative channel, and the energy they need to fulfill their mission.

And we're doing it live in September! The 21-day journey runs September 1 to 21 (takes about 30 minutes a day), and we're meeting for 3 live support calls to prepare (August 27), check in (September 10), and integrate (September 24).

The last time I ran REVIVAL, participants got amazing results: massive increases in clarity, calm, and creativity, completing projects they'd been putting off, solving problems that had been weighing on them for ages, developing new business ideas, reconnecting with their loved ones, and leaving with the long-term skills to avoid distractions and devotedly birth their life's work. Major.

I actually wasn't planning to revive REVIVAL this year. My mind was already focused on God is My Boss 3.0 (coming next month).

However, in the last week, God has made it incredibly clear that I need to bring it back now.

Direct divine guidance + a deluge of synchronistic confirmation + a fire in my sacred heart for this work = it's go time.

Enrollment starts on Monday, August 18.

To be the first to know when REVIVAL opens, join the priority notification list here.

Lots of love,

Aaron

☼

This post was 100% written by me, Aaron Rose, without AI. My writing, programs, and teachings are an authentic expression from my heart to yours.