Before You Check Social Media, Take A Breath.

Next time you want to check Facebook, take a pause.

Breathe first.

Facebook has been carefully designed to get you coming back again and again, instinctively, all throughout the day, looking for new notifications, messages, and interesting posts.

It has been designed for addiction.

(This applies to any social media that you frequently check.)

​​The resulting instinct -- checking social media in order to resolve a momentary boredom, frustration, or sadness -- is the opposite of mindfulness.

Let's become aware of this, and let's use this challenge to practice mindful living.

This very addiction can be transformed into a beautiful strength of reconnecting with our higher self.

The next moment that you find yourself wanting to use technology as a crutch -- to look at Facebook, check your email, open Instagram -- in that moment, first take a deep breath.

Then take another 2 slow, deep breaths, and as you do, reconnect with your eternal source of support. Then remind yourself of this day's purpose. I find that holding my hands to my heart is helpful.

Then, if you still think it makes sense, you can go ahead and check that technology. But by this point, the breathing and inner reconnection may have redirected your wishes toward something else that is more productive.

Breathe first. Let that action become the habit, the instinct.

Rather than filling your momentary inner emptiness with an external thing (a shallow experience), re-connect with your eternal Source of inner support and your greater purpose.