Clearing the Field

On Leaving Meta and Making Room

Maybe it’s the luteal phase or the phase of the moon. Whatever it is, the feminine urge to disappear into the woods has become impossible to ignore, and today I deactivated all of my Meta accounts.

It may seem abrupt, but this is really a long time coming. The one thing holding me back was, to put it simply, fear.

Fear that I would lose connections, fear my business would suffer, fear that I wouldn’t be successful without staying in the feed.

What a crock, huh? As if I couldn’t just rebuild it again when I choose to.

I’ve recently come across the Japanese word Ma. There isn’t an exact English equivalent, but it speaks to the meaningful space between things. It’s the pause in music, the silence in a conversation that gives words time to settle, the emptiness in a room that somehow makes it feel more peaceful.

It reminded me of another word that has stayed with me over the years: Selah. Though scholars debate its exact meaning, they have often understood it as an invitation to pause and reflect. I love that two entirely different cultures seemed to recognize the same thing—that life isn’t only found in movement. Sometimes, we find life in the pause.

I’m finding myself longing for the space between things. Like most humans right now, I’m also paradoxically finding myself allowing that space to be filled in with all the thoughts, opinions, podcasts, ideas, etc.

Creations are calling to me, waiting for me to bring form to them. Programs I’ve dreamed up long ago are begging for my attention, a mentorship that I have wanted to launch waits for me to listen to it, and I have real-life clients whom I love showing up for with my whole presence.

Even in the space, there are plenty of beautiful, soulful, worthy places for my attention to land.

I’ve come to realize there are worlds upon worlds to discover—entire landscapes exist within the human soul. I want to spend more time exploring those than endlessly visiting a feed designed to distract me from the very work I’m being called to create.

You may be wondering how people will find me if I’m not on these platforms and my website continues its long-standing commitment of not doing much of the heavy lifting.

That, my friend, is also something I wonder. (The website situation is, admittedly, a real problem. But I seem to break out in hives every time I open a website template. I would much rather spend 3 hours writing an essay than moving fonts and pictures around.)

And yet, when I look back over the last few years, I realize that almost every meaningful connection in my work has come through a relationship. A friend who shares my name, or a therapist making a referral. Someone else forwards an email or a podcast conversation. The old-school way—word of mouth.

People have always found me somehow, against all odds and despite my complete inability to master the algorithm, because trust has a way of traveling. And now I’m trusting in that as I lay down the platforms I have spent five years sowing into, at least for now.

This departure from the meta-verse is about more than social media.

It’s an invitation—for me, and maybe for you too—to clear the field.

Farmers know that before a new season of growth, the field often needs to be cleared. Not necessarily because something has gone wrong, but because something new needs room to grow.

I’ve changed a lot since I first started writing online. (I’m sure you’ve noticed. Some of you have celebrated it, some of you have been wonderfully confused, and a few of you are probably still holding an intervention for my soul.)

That’s okay. Growth has a way of confounding people who only knew an earlier version of us.

What felt deeply aligned five years ago doesn’t necessarily feel aligned today. Rather than trying to force myself back into an old shape, I’m learning to trust the season I’m growing into.

So let this be an invitation to you, too.

It may be time for you to clear the field, because something beautiful may be waiting for room to grow.

That might look like letting go of a commitment you’ve outgrown, or turning off the noise for a while.

Or maybe it simply means recognizing that you’ve outgrown me.

If these emails no longer resonate, if they’ve become another thing to skim, another voice in an already crowded inbox, I want to give you wholehearted permission to unsubscribe.

There doesn’t need to be guilt or hard feelings.

I want those who stay to do so because these words feel like coming home, not because they’ve forgotten they were free to leave.

And if you choose to stay, know that this exit from social media isn’t an exit from my work. Quite the opposite.

The last nine months have been a season of deep integration for me. I’ve been sitting with ideas, testing them in my own life, watching them unfold in my work with clients, and allowing them to mature before sharing them. I’m looking forward to bringing you into those conversations as they’re ready, beginning with a complete reimagining of my nervous system course.

I’ll still be here on Substack because it rewards long-form writing. In a world that keeps asking us to go faster, where our attention spans seem to be shrinking by the day, writing in a place like this feels deeply aligned with the kind of work I want to create.

This next season isn’t about simply producing more, but creating what matters. I have a feeling the spaciousness is going to be good for both of us.

Thank you for making room with me. I can’t wait to show you what’s growing here.

Always in your corner,
Heidi