Much to my chagrin, I’ve been experimenting with Instagram. I wanted to find my voice in the medium to see if I can build a wider client base.

One of the reasons I have avoided IG is that I have a very difficult time relating to its short form. I get easily overwhelmed scrolling through images. Even with posts from trusted colleagues and friends, it’s hard to stay attuned to three dimensional relationships. It feels dehumanizing to reduce interactions to a series of visual hits. I want to linger and I want to learn, but there isn’t enough time.

There’s also the curious phenomenon of body positivity or is it body positive pornography? It’s hard to distinguish between intimacy and exposure. Scrolling and swiping have a similar quality. Every type of interaction is subject to the same mercenary whim. How much of one’s experience becomes consumable and compostable? How much do we assume we know about each other because we’ve seen a photo or post on Instagram? Does a daily and highly curated dose of someone’s life change our impressions of that person? Like Aladdin’s lamp I want my friends to materialize without the filters and personas I know to be false.

When I hit a wall of frustration, I started looking at cats. I soon noticed that felines with large followings were odd looking, disabled, or strange. If we did the same thing to children, it would be considered exploitation. I wondered if these animals were adopted just to be used in this way. It made me question whether I should be posting images of LB at all. He hates getting his picture taken, which is probably my answer.

Instagram is great for many people. My design friends love it because they share work and ideas. My fitness friends love it because, for some of them, it fills their classes. My creator friends love it because it gets the word out about their craft. My photographer friends love it for obvious reasons. There is much creativity and beauty to share. HOWEVER, the thing that I do with my clients and students is the thousand words an image doesn’t capture. There is no photo that can express the depth of a craniosacral/IMT session. Even the hand-feel of my business card communicates more than a staged photo of me holding the head of a model on a massage table. To try and speak to the experience of my professional life, I’m in Mary Oliver or Annie Dillard territory. That doesn’t flow so easily on Instagram.

As a yoga practitioner, what’s depicted on Instagram is so far from the practice I love. It’s the difference between seeing floating and feeling floating. The postures are a physical metaphor that leads the body into new territory. To see a perfect human in a gymnastic posture is beautiful but it has almost no relevance to the very personal experience of prana/lifeforce. Though I haven’t given up on the conversation, I am still trying to find my way without reducing life to a list of hashtags.
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And anyways, the work is not about me: it's about you. YOU are the purpose and the reason.
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Say cheese...

(instagram @tenth_house_health)