Social Media After A Break-Up
RLR x Mark Groves
We asked Mark Groves,
“I know you answer questions about social media all the time, but I am wondering if in a few steps you can give some advice on how to move forward digitally after a breakup. I am hurt. Should I unfollow? Should I block? Should I unfollow his friends? What if we can be friends in the future?”
He answered,
Remember, when we set a boundary the other person doesn’t have to love our boundary. That doesn’t validate the boundary; we validate the boundary by choosing what we want to do and expressing it and standing in it. So, this is about boundaries. For me, when people are going through break-ups I always ask them, “What is it that you need for healing?” So, what do you need for healing? And so what I have people do - I have a Break-up Course. There’s an exercise in there where you draw a circle around you and you write everything that is currently in your life and you put everything you need for healing in the circle and everything that takes your energy and triggers you and hurts you and you put it outside the circle. And then what you decide is, what does that look like? How do you make your life look like that? Because boundaries just preserve wholeness. They don’t make us whole. We are whole. So, boundaries just draw a circle around who we are and what we need and what we don’t want. And so they’re also about containing ourselves. So, like when we share too much, we blow up, we express. It’s about containing and it’s also about protecting. Most people think boundaries are just about protection, but they’re also about containment. So, in the context of this, I would recommend, What do you need for healing? You just write down everything you need for healing and it sounds to me like what this person needs for healing is to actually block this person or mute them or unfollow them. That’s our own choice. And there’s no right choice. There’s no wrong choice.
“Do the thing that preserves you, that is intentional for your healing.”
Those are just constructs that we’ve created and if I told you what to do I’d be just projecting my own thoughts on to you. But I would say, choose the thing that feels best. If you want to unfollow them do that. And also check in: Is what I’m doing coming from hurt? Like, do I want to unfollow them so they can see that I unfollowed them? Do I want to block them so they can see that I blocked them? Those are coming from pain. That’s not coming from wholeness. That’s not coming from a desire to heal. That’s from a desire to be noticed; your pain to be noticed, to be validated. For them to experience the pain you’re feeling. Those don’t come from loving whole places.
“Boundaries just preserve wholeness. They don’t make us whole. We are whole. Most people
think boundaries are just about protection, but they’re also about containment.”
Don’t get me wrong, the younger version of me would be like, “Yeah, block em.” But, now I would say, “Do the thing that preserves you, that is intentional for your healing.” Should you unfollow his friends? If seeing his friends’ posts trigger you. Otherwise, mute them, you know? And you can say to them, “I just need to unfollow you for a while because just seeing your pictures triggers me. Sending you lots of love.” You know, you can do this in a beautiful way.
Audio of our conversation with Mark is available on our Instagram or Facebook !