BONUS EPI: Social Media Burnout: Choosing Authenticity Over Algorithms

This fall/winter season , I’m letting something die so something real can grow. In this raw and honest episode, I’m sharing why I’m completely done with social media and how I plan to grow The Awakened Heart Podcast without it.

If you’ve ever felt exhausted by the performance of social media, if you’ve questioned whether it aligns with your values, or if you’re tired of comparing yourself to curated perfection - this episode is for you.

In This Episode, I Talk About:
• Why social media conflicts with my work as a therapist helping women heal their relationship with themselves
• The hidden costs: spoons, authenticity, and constantly monitoring how others perceive me
• How social media is essentially professional people-pleasing (and why that’s a problem)
• The neurodivergent reality: why my brain needs processing time, not instant hot takes
• Comparison culture and why we’re measuring ourselves against fake lives and fake bodies
• The exhausting “always be selling” culture and what I’m choosing instead
• Why either path will be hard - it’s about choosing YOUR hard
• How you can help this podcast grow through real connection, not algorithms

How You Can Help:
If this episode resonates with you, here’s how you can support The Awakened Heart Podcast:
✨ Talk about this podcast in real conversations! If you know someone who’d benefit, just text them the show name
✨ Forward this episode to friends going through similar struggles with social media or authenticity
✨ Leave a review on whatever platform you use bc your kind words help with discoverability

This Episode is For You If:
• You’re exhausted by social media but feel like you “should” be on it
• You’re a helper, healer, or therapist struggling with the performance aspect of platforms
• You’re neurodivergent and social media feels completely misaligned with how your brain works
• You value authenticity over engagement metrics
• You’re ready to explore what slow, joyful, purpose-driven living looks like

About Me:

I’m Autumn Moran, a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas specializing in trauma-informed care for neurodivergent women and trauma survivors.

Therapy (Texas residents only):

I provide individual therapy in my private practice for women working through trauma, late diagnosis processing, relationship challenges, and healing from narcissistic abuse or toxic family systems. My approach is neurodivergent-affirming and focuses on helping you understand your patterns while building practical tools for nervous system regulation and authentic living.

Life Coaching (available anywhere):

For women outside Texas or those wanting support alongside therapy, I offer:

•Somatic Healing Coaching: Bridges the gap between cognitive understanding and embodied healing through nervous system work, movement practices, and practical integration tools. Perfect as a complement to talk therapy or for those ready to work directly with their body’s wisdom.

•Unmasking Journey Coaching: Specialized support for late-diagnosed neurodivergent women learning to reconnect with their authentic selves after decades of masking. We work on identifying your real needs, rebuilding your sense of self, and creating a life that fits who you actually are.

Whether you’re healing trauma, discovering yourself after late diagnosis, or both, my goal is to help you not just understand your story, but feel genuinely safe and at home in your own body.

Subscribe & Share:

New episodes drop every Wednesday and Friday. If today’s episode resonated, please share it with someone who needs to hear it or leave a comment

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Purpose
• 1:49 Naming The Season Of Letting Go
• 2:46 Quitting Social Media Entirely
• 4:20 Comparison, Ads, And Brain Rot
• 6:40 Authenticity Versus Curated Perfection
• 8:20 Spoon Theory And Energy Drain
• 10:05 Selling Culture And Intentional Sponsors
• 11:45 Pro-Intentionality, Not Anti-Tech
• 12:45 Slow Living Over Productivity
• 13:45 Trusting Good Work To Find People
• 15:20 Choosing Your Hard
• 16:30 Community Support Without Platforms
• 18:00 What Will You Release This Season
• 19:00 Final Encouragement And Resources

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Awaken Heart, a podcast for healing women, a space where your voice matters, your body is sacred, and your journey home to yourself is honored, no matter how winding the road. I'm Autumn, licensed professional counselor, life coach, life coach, I'm a life coach, I'm a life coach, a yoga instructor, but ultimately I'm here today to be your companion on this divine path of healing. If you find that you like what you hear and you want to dive deeper, please click on the link tree link in the show notes, and you can schedule a free 15-minute consultation with me. Okay. So today's bonus episode is all about releasing specifically what I'm releasing this fall winter season. What I'm letting die, if you will, this fall and winter season. Because fall and winter are about letting go, letting things die so new things can grow in spring. I don't quite know what will bloom in the spring from the seeds I'm planting this season, but I know something will, and I'm excited to find out what grows when I stop forcing myself to do things that don't align with me and my happiness. So what am I doing? I'm saying goodbye to social media. Goodbye to it on a personal scale. Goodbye to it on a business scale. That's not who I am. It's not real. It's yucky. It makes me feel yucky. I'm done. I'm tired. I just don't care anymore. It's exhausting and it wastes my valuable time. You know, I'm mainly on social media to try to get the word out about the podcast, to try to get the word out about my beach yoga teaching, to try to get the word out about my private practice, to just try to grow my career. But I find it unfulfilling. I find it lacking any rewards. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Maybe I'm not the right person, whatever. I am enough just as I am. And I don't like the fact that social media makes me feel like I'm not. Because I'm not getting all the likes, I'm not going viral, I'm not getting all the calm, all the stupid shit that does not add value to my life and does not represent this podcast or my goals for this podcast or for my life and my career. So please, if you know someone who'd enjoy my podcast, just text them the show name. Help me spread the word of healing without compromising my morals, my integrity for social media. I'm not a salesman, I'm a therapist, I'm a helper. I'm here to help women heal. But I also have to just have to have to survive. And I want to do it without social media, without major corporations that benefit and don't give back. I feel that part of my life's purpose is to help women heal their relationship with themselves. But social media has taught me to constantly monitor how others perceive me and I'm over it. I cannot say enough how much I just don't fucking care. Constantly creating, constantly being new, constantly interacting, have to be as fresh as possible, clever as possible, smart as possible, post at this time, use this type of video, blah, blah, fucking blah. I'm not a content creator. And yes, I could try to hire someone to manage a social media account for me, but that's not me. That wouldn't be my voice. It wouldn't be my energy. And ultimately, I want to remove social media platforms from my life. This is my version of buying a flip phone. I am reclaiming the intimacy of therapeutic work from the performance of social media. This season, I'm choosing healing work over algorithm work. Because the algorithm rewards controversy and hot takes. And healing requires nuance and safety, and that's my focus. I help women break free from people pleasing, yet, social media is essentially professional people pleasing. Look pretty, don't be nervous, don't say anything wrong, make everyone that views you feel welcomed and some sort of spark. Make sure you sell it correctly, make sure you word it correctly, make sure you look cool enough to be liked. And I make it a rule in my life to be authentically me. And I work on authenticity with my clients all the time. But social media rewards curated perfection, and that's not me. That's ugly fake shit. A couple of episodes back, I talked about spoon theory. Engaging in social media does not feel authentic to me. It feels fake and forced, and it takes so many spoons. Just thinking about getting ready to do social media stuff takes about three to five spoons. Like complete yuck ick gross. And being completely honest, when I open socials to do podcasting stuff, I also scroll. And scrolling is filled with so much doom and gloom, so much anxiety-inducing shit, so many things that make me stop and say, What the flying fuck is happening in this world? Why is this timeline so upside down? I see so much material that makes me compare. And fuck, what about the ads? I find myself almost buying stupid shit all the time. This is problematic for someone who has impulse control and a brain that loves novelty, newness, and reward. Like hello, neurodivergence. And you know, it's like I get roped into these cute little outfits, and I'm looking at these clothes, and some of them get so expensive. And then you look at what they're made of, and it's fucking plastic in some form. You're telling me you want to charge me$60 to$100 for a sweatshirt that is made out of plastic? No, ma'am. I'll pay for 100% cotton or some linen. But you're not catching me wasting my money on plastic, things that disrupt my endocrine system, things that are not good for my skin. I don't need any of that in my life. It is no, it is in no way helping me be a better person. It isn't helping me feel better about myself. It adds no value to my life. But it takes away, takes away time, etches away at my sense of value, my sense, my sense of self-worth, etches away at my confidence, making me think, what am I doing wrong? What's wrong with me? Why has everyone else got all this? Followers, sponsors, listeners, blah, blah, blah. And I don't, why me? No. Right? So talk about that comparison. This comes up in my sessions all the time. Social media makes us constantly compare ourselves to fake shit. Fake lives, fake bodies, fake faces, fake filters, like it's all fake. And I'm done comparing my life and my goals and my progress to someone else's highlight reel that is fucking fake. Or if you want to be conspiratal about it, it's all pretend. Hello, dead internet. And the worst part, I know it's fake. And I still catch myself doing it. It's genuine brain rot. But my brain deserves better than that. Your brain deserves better than that. My next beef with social media is that someone is always trying to sell something. Just stop it. Share what you know. I don't want to buy your package. I don't want to take your course. I don't want some fucking miracle answer. I'm so tired of scrolling, and it's like miracle this, miracle that. You can get this with just this one action. It's it's so salesman-y, it's so predatorial. Share your knowledge, share some good insights, share some good tips, leave your contact info in case I want more. Because these offers, it's so politician speak and it's so car sellsy that once you get started, once you get in there, you think you're having a conversation with somebody and they're just trying to sell you fucking packages to take your money. It's like, I don't think you really care. I think you're here for the money. It's gross. These are my feelings. I mean, I dream of one day having podcast sponsors, but not just to have sponsors. I have a sponsor wish list of companies I respect and of products that I use and find that help me accommodate myself in my neurodivergent life. So I get selling things in order to survive, to pay bills, to have the life that you want, but also do it intentionally. So when I do eventually have sponsors, you'll know they're companies I genuinely believe in. Not just whoever will pay me. That's the difference I want to make. I want every aspect of the Awakened Heart to be real, to be purposeful in helping women love themselves and their life. Gosh, what about the companies profiting from engagement and not investing in mental health resources, not solving world hunger, not solving homelessness, not helping this world be a happier, safer, freer place. I'm not being anti-technology. I'm just being pro-intentionality. I want to be more intentional with my time, with my thoughts, with my self-care, with my free moments. I want to be more intentional with what I see in my eyes, just like I am with what I listen to these days. I want to put that same filter with what I'm seeing these days. And this isn't about judgment of others who use platforms social media. It's about what's right for me, what's right for you. And this is where I am currently at on my journey. So, what am I focusing my energy on? Where am I choosing to divert this energy, right? So, what's next? And I want to say this: it's not that I'm trying to take one thing away in order to exchange it for doing something else. This is not my goal. This is not about being productive. This is about slow living, joyful living, and a purpose-driven living. My energy will go to what brings me joy and to actions and education that are a part of my life goals. Because being neurodivergent with delayed processing speeds means I need time, time to think, time to ponder, time to process before I respond. And social media demands instant reactions, hot takes, immediate engagement. And that's not how my brain works. And I'm done pretending that it should be. Because moving forward, I'm trusting that good work finds its way to people who need it. My good work will find who it's meant for. I trust that my time that I spend and will spend creating episodes and networking with other podcasters will get my podcast to the right women. And my favor I ask of you, my dear listeners, is to talk about this podcast in real conversations. Forward episodes to friends, going through relevant issues. And please take a moment to leave a review. This is free for you, but helps me get discovered, helps me share my purpose, my love, my knowledge, my skills with anybody that needs it. Will I lose opportunities from getting away from social media? Maybe. But this way honors my integrity. Will my podcasting growth be slower? Quite possibly. But it will be growth with people who actually want to be here. Am I making it harder on myself? In some ways, yes, but easier in the ways that matter. Because here's the thing: either path I take will be hard. Life is hard. And it's not about avoiding the hard things. It's about choosing your hard. Choosing the hard path that gets you to where you want to be. This disconnection from social media may in fact be hard to grow my podcast, but I will feel better and feel more authentic. And that's my goal. Showing up as myself, regardless of perfection judgment, or being liked, or having to fit in some certain particular prescribed box. Without social media taking my spoons, I my goal is to get deeper into these episodes, to have better episodes. My energy will go into this, into my career, into helping my clients, into conversations that actually freaking matter. This is my experiment and trust. Trusting that doing good work is enough. And if you've been feeling like social media isn't is incompatible with your values, you're not wrong. You don't have to be everywhere to matter. Saying no to platforms doesn't mean saying no to connection. You might be surprised at the things you'll get into when you're not brain rotting, scrolling. If you feel it, join me in this experiment of disconnecting. Let's find out what happens when we stop performing and start being present. Real world, rogue rules. Let's find out when we stop chasing algorithms and start trusting that good work finds good people. I honestly don't know exactly where this will lead me, but I know it's leading me to somewhere that feels right and real. And I really honestly would rather build something real and small than something fake and shitty and big. So what do you want to let go of this season? What can you let go let go away? Where can you take the pressure off to perform, to be perfect? How can you take the pressure off to honor? Like, how am I saying this? I want to say this because it's it's it's important, I think. How can you take the pressure off to honor the traditions you love and let go of the traditions that drain you? Well, that's me in a nutshell. What I'm getting rid of this winter fall season. I deleted them today. I made a choice. The only thing I have on my phone that is scrollable is Pinterest. And it may go away depending on the ads, but social media, groups, networks, influencers, all that is out of my sphere. I'm done with it. I don't know if it's a forever thing, but it's a for right now thing, and it feels freeing and good and aligned with my goals. So I encourage you, whatever's whispering at you, give it some space, give it some thought, and have the courage to go down a hard path that may result in greatness, in freedom, in self-love, in loving life. I'd love to hear from you. Message me, comment, follow me. Give me a shout. I offer virtual sessions, whether you're healing trauma, navigating a big life shift, or wanting to learn more about how to accommodate yourself rather than push through. It's my honor. It's my life. One of my life's purpose is to hold space for women just like you every week. If that's something you're curious about, you can fill out the consultation request form via my link tree in the show notes. Check out the Spotify playlist that is great for listening. Nice, good, soulful stuff in your ear. And remember, my dears, you are never too much or too late, and you don't have to figure it out all alone. Until next time, may you be happy and free. May mine and your healing ripple outward to bless the world with happiness and freedom. Take care of you, and I'll see you soon.