Disappearing Online Won’t Save Us
I was sitting with a friend the other day as she was sitting with her phone. We all know how that feels, and we’ve probably all been on both sides of the situation.
I grew up without the internet. I learned how to pound the pavement to make connections, find out what and where to learn, and eventually get gigs. Now, we can do most of that by pressing our thumbs around, giving attention to the people we want to interact with and performing socially, all while our bodies are sedentary and our minds are distracted.
When YouTube started, I saw an interesting way to take this thing I love, yoga, and send it, almost like a letter in the mail, to my friends back home who were dealing with their first real life problems.
I made fun videos like Yoga for a Breakup, Yoga for Hangovers, Yoga for Runners, and on and on for basically everything. This hardly seems groundbreaking in 2026, but in 2006 I was met with a whole lot of “You can’t do that.” Yoga needed to be 90 minutes in a room with a teacher. There was no room for humor or friendliness.
But I was met with even more people saying, “Wow, I feel so much better. I didn’t know yoga could be for me.” So I kept going.
The internet became a highway for me to take something I loved, something I had special skills and unique life experience around, and share it with whoever was interested.
If you’re in my generation, you might remember when Instagram started. I think my first IG share was a bunch of shoes outside our studio before I led the yoga, followed by a happy pic of everyone settling in for a good Saturday Strong class.
At the time, I was leading yoga several times a day and spending lots of time on airplanes doing that around the world. I was getting to do so much more than I ever dreamed, so I used Instagram to share, and connect, not to build.
I shared group photos after yoga classes and goofy selfies in airports and random places around the world. See a cool quote on a bathroom wall? Instagram it. We didn’t need to optimize or think of algorithms. We just shared what we thought was fun or interesting.
I remember when Stories started and instantly thinking, “Oh wow, now we’re going to share moments of our lives all the time? That doesn’t make sense.” Stories felt like the beginning of a bad idea, a crash of our online sharing.
And here we are. Post-girl-boss. Post-lay-flat. Depression rates higher than ever. At the same time, we have the luxury of being able to live wherever we want and still stay connected.
I’ve taken full advantage of my “everywhereness,” living in rural Illinois now so I can be helpful to my mom, who is living with dementia, while still leading classes every day through the Strala app and sharing moments of a peaceful life on a lake.
Weirdly, a calm, peaceful life seems to be the new luxury item. But let’s not be too superficial about it, overshare everything we see (I’m sure that’s coming with the glasses), and fall into traps of jealousy and bragging. Disappearing online seems to be the next trend.
I often think that if I didn’t have our yoga community and if I wasn’t an author, I probably wouldn’t be sharing anything online. That’s probably true. But I am, and I’m grateful I can reach people around the world with my unique skills and life experience.
I’ve made friends in so many places who are now part of my life and my community, and that keeps expanding. So as shiny as disappearing can seem, I want to push back a little and encourage us to find harmony with what we share.
If you’re filming and sharing every moment of life, it probably doesn’t feel good. If you’re sharing in a way that has you constantly looking at everyone else, it probably doesn’t feel good either.
The systems, especially since Facebook introduced the Like button (anyone else remember literally that day?), are designed to hook us and often make us feel bad about who we are and what we share.
But I still believe we can find our own harmony with how we show up online while acknowledging some of the nastiness that has been working against us.
What’s the outdated saying? Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. It’s a funny one, but I need the reminder too. I often regret hasty decisions made while following trends. In the early 2000s, I took a beautiful sweater of my mom’s from the 1970s and cut the neck lower because that was the trend. I ruined it.
When I got pregnant and found out my NYC OB didn’t do deliveries, I was influenced against my intuition to go very minimal with care. That eventually led me to take the elevator from a birthing floor that looked like an abandoned Holiday Inn down to the labor and delivery floor, where my knight in shining armor, a female badass of an OB in a Flywheel hoodie at 11 p.m., checked the baby’s heartbeat, saw it dropping, and walked me into an emergency C-section.
My daughter was delivered healthy a few minutes later. I got lucky. Thank God.
At the time, I felt pressure from parts of the wellness community that giving birth at home in a blue tub earned you a gold star and anything else, especially giving birth in a hospital, was somehow a failure.
To be fair, some of that pressure came from the outside and some became internalized. But the consequences of following trends instead of wisdom can be very real. I was incredibly lucky. I’ll share that story anytime it can help someone trust what they know deep down instead of feeling pressured by a trend.
Following trends costs us, and we never fully know until it’s much later. Online sharing has very real consequences for how we feel and how we interact with each other.
Lately, I’ve been online more than usual on purpose.
I’m sharing softness in a meaningful way, upcoming workshops and events, and ideas leading up to my Living Softly book launch.
What being more mindful and specific has taught me is this.
The Internet Is Like a Game of Space Invaders - Get to Know the Game if You’re Going to Play
Whether you’re from the old-school Atari generation or not, we all know the feeling of opening our phones and immediately being bombarded. Freaked out about data centers? Here’s every video about them. Something in the news getting you riled up? Here’s every comment. Not sure what you’re upset about yet? No problem. Keep scrolling and your algorithm will find something within 30 seconds.
To use the internet for information and sharing, we need to grab our imaginary joystick and avoid the little bullets. In Space Invaders, you can see the ships. Online, the ships are invisible.
We have to dodge the distractions, do what we came to do, read what we want to read, and notice when we’re getting sucked in so we can escape back into the real world.
Tend to the Garden of Your Real Life - Having a Real Life Is Incredibly Valuable
I can’t believe we even have to say that, but we’re in a moment where people are forming relationships with chatbots and spending entire days confirming, performing, and arguing in comment sections.
Sharing is a tool. It can help us reach our goals, feel more connected, and learn almost anything. At the same time, it can pull us further from our goals, make us feel isolated, and convince us of almost any truth it finds useful to keep us engaged.
You are awesome.
People are awesome.
We can’t let the internet turn us against each other.
Softness Over Force Will Bring Us into Harmony
Softness teaches us to mobilize ourselves so we can be supported by our breath, our ideas, and by others. In movement and in nature, supporting and being supported are interconnected. We love to separate these actions. I am giving. I am getting. But they are part of the same relationship.
Let’s bring that lesson to how we interact online.
Notice how you feel.
Share with care.
Respond with care.
Be moveable so your breath can move you.
Be moveable so you can be moved by others.
Be moveable so you can recognize what’s real and what’s not.
Be moveable so you can stay in harmony with your whole self, the world around you, and use your gifts for good.
Disappearing online won’t save us.
Learning how to connect with less force just might.
xo
Tara
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Tuesday: Tai Chi
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Join us In Person
Effingham Illinois. Join us on Saturdays (when I’m in town) for an easy going Energize Yoga class. I’m so excited to be a part of this midwestern, artsy community. If you’re making a trip out of it, send me a note and I’ll send you all the good spots to visit! RSVP your space
Kansas City, MO. July 25-26. I’m so excited to offer our weekend intensive a little closer to home for so many in our community. Join us at Maya Yoga, July 25-26 for the Strala Weekend 20+Hour Intensive. RSVP your space here.
Amsterdam, Netherlands. September 19-20. It’s a homecoming for sure to Amsterdam. We’ve been a couple times a year for many years and this will be my first time back since the pandemic. It will be so good to see everyone. Amsterdam is a great city with great people to visit if you want to make a trip out of it! RSVP your space here.
Weekend of Softness, Metzingen, Germany, Sept 26-27. I’m joining longtime Strala Guide and partner studio owner Anna Rampf, to celebrate our community in a weekend of softness and connection. You’ll love Metzingen, it’s so nice. RSVP here.
Om Show London, October 16, 17 & 18. I’m so excited to be back leading classes and workshops at the Om Show this fall. RSVP here.
