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Join James Petrossi in 'Leave the Feed: 30 Days of Disconnect' as he interviews creators and mental health advocates about their journeys, the digital quagmire, and tips to create a healthier relationship with social media.
[00:00:00]
Samantha: Hello and welcome to Leave the Feed 30 Days of Disconnect. I'm with your host James Petrossi. We're doing a little switcheroo where I'm interviewing him today. This is day 14. Tricks of the Mind. Hello, James.
James Petrossi: Hey, how are you?
Samantha: I'm good. How does it feel to be in the hot seat?
James Petrossi: I like to be in the hot seat. We're about halfway through this season, so it's a nice opportunistic moment to step back in. I think the last time Dylan interviewed me on Become the Observer, and we talked about the battle between consciousness and unconsciousness, and I feel like going into tricks of the mind, we're just building on that momentum.
Samantha: Mind is quite tricky, is it not. us about your passion for understanding the [00:01:00] mind. did you start it? What made you curious about the mind and where has that journey taken you?
James Petrossi: Oh wow. Yeah. This is a lot different being on this side.
Samantha: pressure's on.
James Petrossi: The pressure's on the mind is complex. It's beautiful, it's unknown, but we have so many clues into it. I think for myself, I remember being a little kid and being in the car and my dad was driving, or my mom was driving, and just seeing them there in a state of presence, just being, you know, driving a car and thinking, I wonder what's going through their mind.
Or I would stare at someone and think, I wonder what's going on inside of that inner monologue that they're having, because we all have that inner monologue. And at that point, I didn't know a lot about consciousness and unconsciousness or subconsciousness. I just knew people were having thoughts [00:02:00] and I knew.
Not all thoughts were good thoughts were challenging, and sometimes I would just sit and observe and observe what I perceive the emotional state of someone to be, and I became really fascinated with. That emotional state, what was causing it and what was going on inside of that mind. And that from a very early age always fascinated me about the human experience.
And as I got older, you know, my dad. Studied a lot about the mind. He was really interested in personal development. He developed a lot of sales training and, and marketing training programs that all focused on human behavior and the mind, and that gave me a lot of breadth of knowledge to play with, you know, everything from.
I studying astral projection at a very young age. I remember meditating for [00:03:00] hours in bed trying to leave my body to go to other places and space and time, and I don't know if I ever successfully did that, but I got into some really deep. Meditative states during that, that time, I think I must have been around like 13, 14 years old.
And from there it just became like almost like a lifelong passion and something that I always studied. I went to college for, I thought that I was gonna be a psychologist, and lo and behold, you know, I ended up, after working with my dad for years, finding my way into advertising and strategy and really understanding.
How to connect to those deeper desires that live within the mind and how to connect brands to that build community. So it's always been something I've, I've been super, super passionate about.
Samantha: What do you think makes you passionate? And curious about it, because I feel like there's some people who, when you talk about these bigger [00:04:00] topics, like I wonder what's going on in that other person's mind or astral projection, you mentioned. Some people will have the reaction of, let's let some things lie. Let's not dig into that further. What do you think it is about you that makes you curious and want to dig into that further?
James Petrossi: I think what made me curious about it was seeing the state of distress and seeing people in the state of distress and understanding that the distress that a lot of people were feeling was not a direct result of. This existence, it was their perception of this existence or their perception of their role of this existence, or how they've been unconsciously programmed and the impact it had on their existence.
And when I transitioned in 2019 out of marketing and advertising strategy [00:05:00] and sort of having this personal development passion for consciousness that I always had as like a hobby. And going full into it. And I got the chance to interview on my podcast like Peter Russell, who's written like 12 books all on unconsciousness, the Mind finding Inner Peace or meditation experts, or near-death experience experts or metaphysical experts.
You start to realize that. The material world isn't something that we can escape. You know, we can't just sit and meditate all day long and survive in this world. It's just not possible. There's an element of this world that requires our physical participation, but unless we can find that spiritual balance within ourselves and our mind and with the mind, you know, it can become so overactive.
And I think part of what I saw as a strategist was just this constant. Overactive mind with social media. That started to happen. And we all [00:06:00] know on the mindfulness side of the equation that you know, peace comes from creating space between our thoughts and what space is between your thoughts is silence.
And a lot of people don't want to be in that silence because to your point. They're afraid to come to peace with the existence that we have. Right. And I think that's like what's hard for a lot of people is that, you know, it might not be about finding the one answer of like, who is our savior? Who is our God?
What created this existence? Some of that we may never know until we cross over, but there's so many clues. There's so many things out there that point to the direction of finding inner peace, yet we're afraid of them because our mind, our brain, sometimes becomes so infatuated with the survival instincts of our past that we can't just [00:07:00] make peace with ourselves inside of this existence.
Samantha: So you mentioned social media. And I know you've been working with creators a lot talking about social media and mental health. What have you learned or what have we learned from creators so far? What's the good, the bad, and the ugly of the effect that social media has on mental health?
James Petrossi: I think one thing to consider is that social media is incredible. Like it's absolutely incredible. I think when I first started Leave the Feed. It was all about the negatives. And this was probably five, six years ago. And I think at that point in time, we were just coming to terms with all of the challenges it was putting on our youth, right?
And now you see the creators of this generation and what they're bringing into the world, and there's so much [00:08:00] positive that. I've fallen in love with social media. Does it mean that I'm using it all the time? No, but I can respect it as a beautiful thing that has been brought into this world from the universe itself, has given us the power to create these things, and we're creating them and we're figuring out how to use them.
Right. That's one of the challenges is understanding that something can be beautiful and be powerful, but can also be dangerous. Right? And something that we don't necessarily like to focus on too much in this existence, in this world is about like balance and temperance, right?
Like not having too much of something. And it's unfortunate because in these digital environments you can put out such amazing content. You can form amazing communities, you can solve world pressing challenges. Like really change the trajectory of the world, the power of voice, the power of [00:09:00] community, the power of unity.
Like that lights me up about social media. But where's the door to leave? and can someone find it? And once you leave that door and you get out of the doom, scrolling. Your mind is still affected. You're still digesting all of that content. It's still around you, right? You might not be looking at it, but the effects of it, you're constantly feeling like whatever is in your feed is giving you.
A narrow view of the world, a narrow view of reality. And sometimes what it's celebrating is complete material wants and desires. Whether that's wealth, whether that's fame, whether that's travel. You know, whether [00:10:00] that's the coolest, whatever, anything that's making you feel jealous, right? So you know what?
It has this innate. Positivity to it at the same time, like it wreaks havoc on us. And I think what's happened is sometimes you don't know how much havoc it's caused. Until a book like The Anxious Generation comes out and you realize like, oh my gosh, like this isn't right. And I think a lot of the creators on this podcast have said to us, like, I know that I shouldn't feel this way, and I know that this anxiety that my generation is feeling is 'cause of social media and digital media and feeling always connected, but they don't know a different way.
So for us to say, Hey, just go back to the way things were. You wanna meet a friend, go ride your bike over and go knock on the door and see if they're available. That's not how the world works anymore. And what I think creators have been so inspiring about [00:11:00] is. The way they choose to disconnect, you know, whether it's a creator that knows they have to be at their desk the majority of the day, but they found their own way to touch grass, whether that's literally putting their feet in the grass, or whether it's going to play tennis, or whether it's just logging off and spending time with their new fiance.
Right? Is that they're finding these ways to sort of hack the system to find. Moments of peace. 'cause they'll never have the full Monty. They'll never have the full experience. I mean, I'm the last generation to grow up without technology, so they can never know it, but they can get tastes of it. Just the same way that I used to get tastes of the sixties.
Listening to the Allman Brothers driving down the highway with my dad. I got a feeling. Of what that was like. And what we wanna make sure is that people get more of that feeling and how important disconnection journeys are. You know, sometimes it's been a 30 day disconnection journey with just [00:12:00] nothing for these creators.
Other times that disconnection journey. Is ritualistic, you know, hey, from eight at night to eight in the morning, I don't use social media, I don't use any screens. But during the day, I'm focused. I'm at work, I'm doing my thing. And I think that's what's okay to realize is there used to be this thing about, oh, you know, people are on the phone six hours a day on social media.
And I remember talking to Dylan about this when I first met him. I said, I don't mind if a creator's on the phone for. Eight hours a day on social media, that's their job. A mechanic's working on a car for eight hours a day, that's a machine. You know, like people are coding in computers for eight hours a day.
People are doing lots of things for work. And if that's your passion to create, that's great. But I think what's so inspiring is that. How social media is impacting the subconscious. They're becoming more aware of that and they're actually becoming focused on [00:13:00] making sure that the digital community of creators helps each other find that balance through in real life experiences, through real connection and making sure that, you know, the habits that were learned during COVID are starting to get like untangled and modified.
For almost a like better existence for humanity in the future.
Samantha: And we're talking about today, tricks of the mind when you think about social media. What would you say people should do if they're unconsciously just picking up their phone and scrolling? Because I know that that's something I've struggled with in the past is sometimes I'll set an intention to not be looking at my phone, and then the next thing I know I could be waiting for the elevator to come and I've have picked up my phone and it started just doing this. Not even necessarily on social media for me personally, but I can imagine that's something that a lot of people. Who are deeply embedded in social media struggle with, like, they may have the intention and awareness that wanna create those moments of [00:14:00] disconnection, but it's so automatic. Their habit and behavior. you intercept that and how do you truly new habits? Because we know that that can be really hard for people.
James Petrossi: Yeah. That's the biggest trick of the mind, right? The biggest trick of the mind with social media is reaching for the phone. And it might be because you wanna check to see if something got more likes. It might be 'cause you're bored, whatever the reason is. It's causing you distress, right? It's causing you distress.
And I think one thing that we've heard a lot working with creators is, is that. You can't really notice the positive effects from leaving social media until you've either created a new habit and really reinforced that habit, or you give yourself like a true few days off to really like, feel the impact of what it's like to be offline.
So in the first case. [00:15:00] For you, it can be very overwhelming to log into social media, like all of us. It can be very overwhelming and you know, you might not feel that it's overwhelming because it's so repetitive. You're just doing it and you don't realize the state of stress that you're putting yourself in.
And that goes back to like habits and routines. It's. What's the one thing that you can do more of that you already like doing? So maybe it's not about like, how do I use less social media, but how do I touch grass in a way that's right for me? You know, how do I get outside and take that one walk in the morning, even if it's just for like 10 minutes and instead of doing it for 10 minutes, maybe the next day I do it for 20 minutes and not have the phone with me.
And those micro occasions that you give yourself, whether it's like for now on, I'm not going to eat breakfast with my phone, maybe at lunch it's too hard because you're fielding community responses as a creator. But like [00:16:00] breakfast, you know, give yourself. Some type of sacred spaces where the phone isn't part of that, like the phone doesn't have a role there and sacred spaces are so important to that.
And you know, from the other side boundaries as a creator and as a fan, like what are the true boundaries? Like if I wanna scroll, maybe I give myself 15 minutes at night and I use an app. To track that time. You know, it's like we have to understand that we're not just consuming entertainment, right? We're not just consuming a movie, right?
We're consuming so many small pieces of information and our mind doesn't know what to do with it all. And when you're in a constant state of comparison. And you're in a constant state of judgment and you're in a constant state of listening to the [00:17:00] thoughts, ideas, and opinions of others. You're no longer the creator of your own wellbeing.
Your wellbeing and your emotional state is being dictated to you by everything in the feed and. Maybe that's why you feel overwhelmed in life. You know, it might not be life itself, but it might be the feeling of I'm not measuring up to this person's reality, or this person's so charged up about this cultural topic, I should be charged up about it.
And there's things that are very personal to people in the feed that might not really relate to you. You know, we talked last time I was on about like the observer creates the reality and to be in a state where you relinquish your device and you are the experience. And I've always loved saying that [00:18:00] in life, like you are the experience.
Like you, there's 6.5 octillion atoms, octillion, there's so many zeros. It's incredible. In your body, all of these little solar systems that are like vibrating inside of you and changing and modifying, and your energy system is so complex even on the molecular level.
And there's so much we don't understand about the human experience, like we know very little. We know very little. We know what we can perceive through our senses and the vastness of the human experience and our energy system and our field, and how sacred that field is, and how we create. These moments for ourselves on earth when we can just feel free liberated.
I'm sure we've all felt them. You go on a hike and you're at the top of a mountain or you're watching a sunset, or you're driving down the road on a road trip and you [00:19:00] just feel liberated. You can't find that liberation on social media. It's not liberating. it's there to capture you. I mean, you've worked in advertising, you still do.
I worked in advertising for years, like. Advertising. The root of that word is avert to avert your attention, to avert you away from the present moment to capture a share of your consciousness. So you know, you think about tricks of the mind, you know, our gift is consciousness. I am aware of being aware. I think therefore I am.
But then there's the subconscious. But like, who am I? What is this? You know? And when it comes to self-inquiry, and yeah, you mentioned it earlier in the, in this episode, you know, some people are afraid to go there, right? Afraid to maybe ask the deeper questions. But that's where truth is found. That's where [00:20:00] meaning is found.
And I think that's for all of us, how we can start to make more peace with the digital paradox that we're in. Because it is an epic tool. It is an awesome tool, I can actually say I love social media. I love what the creators on this podcast are putting out there, and I think everyone in this world has a story to tell.
Everyone has a story to tell, right? We all want someone to hear what we've been going through and, and something to share, but. To find that true meaning to find that true peace and to come to terms with that thought that you have, that consciousness is to let your mind rest. And sometimes I think we're afraid of that 'cause we're like, I got all these ideas.
I'm thinking about all this stuff. I have all these dreams and the mind's beautiful like that. The mind will help you achieve what you want. It will look for solutions [00:21:00] for your problem. If you have a goal, it will find a way to get to that goal. That's why the mind is so epic. It's gonna take everything that you've ever learned, formulate that, figure out what you don't know, and guide you down a journey, and it will take you there.
It's how we all are where we are today. It's because of that function. You know that consciousness, but. If we lose that awareness and we're just subconsciously, unconsciously, you know, like driven by what other people are thinking and doing and expressing, we lose a piece of our creativity and we can just truly like lose ourselves.
In the process, and that's, I think some of the symptoms that we see about digital dependence is we see the phone as an extension of one's bean [00:22:00] instead of seeing the bean itself. And the phone is a tool that helps 'em connect. And that's where we find this balance between is social media, my tool or my reality?
And maybe it can be both, and I think that's okay to say it can be both, but it takes a lot of self work to make sure that you're not letting your mind trick you into believing things that aren't true. Like one of those tricks is for creators. Oh, I'm scrolling because I'm doing research. I'm seeing what other people are posting.
I'm checking out the trends and I'm gonna do something with all of this information. Well, that's a trick of the mind. I mean, you're not scrolling for that. You're scrolling because you're addicted to scrolling. You're just in denial of it. And that's what we just need to make sure of. We're spending more of our time creating and less time consuming.
And it's okay to wanna create through media, but you know, when we consume too much of [00:23:00] anything, we consume too much water. It will make you sick and throw up and possibly die and we're made of water, you know, so like we're not made of digital content, so we just have to be very conscious of that all of the time.
Samantha: And also I think the intent that you go into social media with is important. I think a lot of us use social media as almost a pacifying tool. You mentioned before being bored or anxious. I'm willing to bet that that's at least a good half of why people reach for social media and it's. the other half is to get inspired to create, but that's a very different reason for reaching for that tool. And what other habits can we create inside of those moments we are feeling uncomfortable, where normally we just wanna zone out and scroll, can we replace that action with? That is a healthier habit. like going outside. Are there any other [00:24:00] things that you'd recommend that can do in place of that? Habit.
James Petrossi: I think you know the best thing to do is just to start feeling more comfortable being with yourself and your own thoughts. And that could mean that you spend just a couple minutes to start without any media around you, and you just bring your attention to your breath and your energy system and relax and feel what it's like to be in your own presence.
To be in the presence of the world. You know, one of the most beautiful things about self-awareness is we can monitor our thoughts, our feelings, and our emotions. You know, we can't. Control the emotions that we have all the time, but we can monitor them, like we can have that awareness of them. [00:25:00] And being able to be at peace with yourself doesn't mean you shut yourself off from society.
It just means you start to tune out all of that negative chatter. And if you can start instead of scrolling in the morning, if you can have that time for yourself in the morning. And maybe say, Hey, I'm gonna wait till after breakfast. After breakfast, I can start using social media, but I want to use this as a time to monitor how I feel in the morning before I start letting someone else's opinion stress me out.
Like how do I feel? And I think within that, when you start to tune your attention to yourself, slowly but surely, you're not thinking about what happened in these other people's lives. And how ridiculous it is, or you can't believe it, or like whatever you're feeding yourself and you can start to think about how do I feel?[00:26:00]
You know, like what's going on in my world? And being alone with yourself when you're used to that feed can be an unsettling experience and this journey. Isn't all just glory. A disconnection journey, a disconnection journey when you've been connected, as long as many of us have, should be unsettling. And I think finding some peace in that and then realizing that, hey, once I can have a couple minutes to myself, I can have a couple more.
And when I have a couple more, it allows me to go even deeper. And when you start having thoughts about things like, why am I having that thought? Why am I feeling that way and what makes us so powerful? Our superpower of self-awareness that we talk about in this book, it's so underdeveloped is that tool of self-awareness.
It's that strength that we all have, that [00:27:00] we all are fine. Just giving away to media, you know media is great for entertainment, it's great for a lot of purposes, but you know, there's a feeling. You can only get through disconnection and you have to work to get there. Just as you've had to work to build a following, just as, as you've had to work to learn the algorithms, to find the people.
You have to put that much work into finding yourself and you know, if you do have those moments of quiet journaling about how you're feeling making sure that you're taking note of. What are the sensations that are happening when I'm off social media? How are those making me feel? Just by being aware of that tension, the tension that you have between wanting to be online or offline, if you start to acknowledge that tension and to acknowledge how important it is for you to get to terms with [00:28:00] yourself.
You know, you start to relieve those subconscious desires of having to be inside of the feed. And, you know, I wish that you could just give someone, you know, a, a magic pill and say like, here you go. Now you're in, you're in tune with yourself. And, and I think that it is like going in tune. We talked about vibration.
Like everything that you consume is affecting your vibrational energy. Inside this giant field of energy that we're in, we're just in one vast field of energy. And you're a droplet of energy, right? So like where do you wanna resonate and how do you wanna resonate? How can social media help you find that resonance?
Might be through mindfulness practices, might be through an influencer that you follow, and then how do you take that? And be able to live it offline. Right. And I think like that offline to online and that flux back and forth. Social media strengthened me as a thought leader. It strengthened my [00:29:00] abilities in a lot of ways, you know?
But eventually, like we need to make sure. We find peace within ourselves and for each of us, it's gonna be different, you know? And I think that's the hard part about this. There's no regulation, there's no anything that's gonna solve it. Like for us to solve, it has to come from within ourselves. That's why this journey is so important for everyone that's taking it.
Samantha: It is interesting because when you disconnect, there's no one necessarily applauding you for that I guess you share it publicly on social media that you're disconnecting, which is cool to do too. As long as you can resist the temptation to engage and, and check the likes or the comments. Of course. I think that's the hard part too, that people might struggle with is you get a lot of attention and validation for being in social media if you're posting or commenting or just engaging, but you don't really get that same validation from being off of it [00:30:00] unless you make it a public announcement. how do you get that sense of validation? In the world when you're not engaging with it, does it come back to that feeling of self-awareness? How do you feel your own self-worth if you're not receiving that from the external world?
James Petrossi: Well, I do believe that people will get it from logging off. I think they'll get the validation in a different way. I know Beau in an earlier episode, he went on a disconnection journey. It was something at college that one of his professors offered as a substitute for taking a test. He disconnected for five days and he had never had more people come into his room, curious about what he was doing, talking in ways they would've never talked before, and a level of depth, a level of curiosity.
So I do believe that when people decide to Leave the Feed And let other people know, not just digitally, which is fine. If you want the social [00:31:00] currency from saying you're logging off, that's great and it can help inspire others. But you start to realize when you are in a disconnection journey, how much conversation opens up around it, and how the people that are around you.
Actually become closer to you because the interactions aren't surface level. It's not, look what's happening on my phone. It's actually the innate curiosity about the human experience and our role within that. So it can be quite fascinating and can really help empower everyone around you when you do make the decision to Leave the Feed
Samantha: I love that as a final question. Any other words of encouragement for people that might be embarking on this 30 day journey?
James Petrossi: Yeah, my encouragement would be, keep going, go through all of the lessons. Some of them might be more relevant to you than others. If there's an area that you think, Hey, I'm totally cool here, [00:32:00] focus on areas that are important to you. If you have to check social media for some reason, if you log in and you're, you end up scrolling for a couple hours, no one's gonna judge you for that.
You know, Leave the Feed isn't about lock it away in a box. It's about finding peace. With our relationship with social media and the power is inside of your hands, so enjoy the journey. You are the experience.
Samantha: Thank you, James. You've been a wonderful guest and host this season. We look forward to talking to you again soon.