🌿 Embodying Liberation from the Social Media Matrix — with Lauren Ash of Black Girl in Om

Amelia [00:00:02]

[Music begins to play, overlapping with the introduction to the episode] Welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients.

Amelia [00:00:08]

I'm Amelia Hruby, writer, speaker, and founder of Softer Sounds podcast studio. On this show, I share stories, strategies, and experiments for growing your business with radical generosity and energetic sovereignty.

Amelia [00:00:22]

Download your free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at softersounds.studio/byeig and join us as we do it all Off the Grid [music jams and fades out].

Amelia Hruby [00:01:15]:

Hello and welcome or welcome back to Off the Grid. I'm your host, Amelia Hruby, and on this show, I share stories, strategies, and experiments for growing your business with no or minimal social media presence. Those stories, strategies, and experiments come from my journey leaving social media and launching a successful business without it. That business is Softer Sounds Podcast Studio. I'm also the co-founder of the Lifestyle Business League, and here on this show, I interview so many creatives, artists and former influencers who are doing things differently and leaving social media behind in the process.

Amelia Hruby [00:01:59]:

Today's guest is no exception to that. I'm so excited to have her on the show and to take our conversations in new and exciting directions. Before we dive in with her, I want to make sure that you know about the Leaving Social Media Toolkit. This is the free resource that I've developed alongside this podcast that shares a five step plan for leaving any social platform, my list of 100 ways to share your work off social media and a creative marketing experiments database for planning quarterly marketing experiments that will help you reach a new audience, nurture your existing community, and sell your work with ease and fun and joy and pleasure and abundance and all of those things we want more of in our businesses. So you can head to the show notes or to softersounds.studio/byeig to get the toolkit for free today.

Amelia Hruby [00:02:54]:

Now, let me tell you more about today's guest. Lauren Ash is an artist, a writer, a wellness practitioner, teaching yoga and meditation, a community gatherer, and the founder of Black Girl in Om. She is also a former, quote unquote, influencer. And in this episode, we're going to talk about her social media journey. Starting an Instagram account to share cute pics of her and her friends, growing it to over 50,000 followers, cultivating a roster of paid partnerships that I will admit, used to make me envious, and then deciding to walk away from it all just under a year ago. This conversation is so open, so honest and like, everything Lauren does really weaves in the embodied, the spiritual, the practical, and the community oriented. So I'm really honored to be able to share it with you here today.

Amelia Hruby [00:03:51]:

If you've ever thought that you could never leave Instagram because of the type of work that you do or the goals that you have, I think I can confidently say that Lauren is here to show us that you can do things in a way that makes you feel good, that feels aligned with your purpose, that feels aligned with your spirit and brings your dreams to life. Make sure you stick around to the end of the episode where Lauren talks more about her vision for embodying liberation from the social media matrix for more black women and women of color, as well as how she's currently building algorithm free communities for black women and wellness practitioners like herself. I think that's plenty of hype for this heartfelt and full of fun conversation, so let's go ahead and dive on in. Hi, Lauren. Welcome to Off the Grid.

Lauren Ash [00:04:48]:

Hey.

Amelia Hruby [00:04:49]:

I'm so pumped that you're here. For listeners who don't know, you sent me an amazing email. Well, I guess none of them know because they don't read my emails, but.

Lauren Ash [00:04:58]:

No one knows but us.

Amelia Hruby [00:05:00]:

But you sent me an amazing email that opened this conversation all about your journey, leaving social media, your journey, stepping away from work as a, quote unquote, influencer. We're going to talk about why you don't like that term. And then also we're going to talk about this beautiful vision you have for the work that you want to do to help and empower more black women and women of color to step off this sort of social media hamster wheel that you've liberated yourself from. So we're going to get into so much in this conversation. I'm so excited. Let's just dive in.

Lauren Ash [00:05:38]:

Let's do it. You see my little shoulder dance over here?

Amelia Hruby [00:05:40]:

I know you're ready to go. I love it. So I want to start by taking it back. And this might be taking it back quite a while, but I'd love to hear about when did you get on Instagram and how did you end up there back in the very beginning.

Lauren Ash [00:05:58]:

So I got on Instagram when I was in grad school, and the first photos, at least in my mind, that I can remember posting on, there were just like, photos of me and my friends in grad school. So from now that's about a decade ago. And I used it at the time to just take cute photos and share them. It was really just like me just being regular and sharing it on this place called Instagram that very little people knew about. So it was an extension of, honestly, what I've done since I was a child and taken a lot of delight in doing, which is documenting my life and sharing it for me. So that was the origin of my relationship with Instagram.

Amelia Hruby [00:06:45]:

So how did it go then from documenting your life and sharing it, and then you have this journey where you started sharing more wellness content, you built a community on Instagram. Take us through how it started to transform and what that was like.

Lauren Ash [00:07:02]:

You know fast forward, I guess from the beginning of my journey and my relationship with Instagram. About three or four years, right? I was living in Chicago and I, like many people I think, at all stages in life, but like many 20 something millennials trying to find my purpose, trying to find myself. And at the time I was doing that through my career, which I don't think is unusual to do. And I was in my first nine-to-five job and I really wasn't feeling it. And I decided to follow my curiosity, which is what I always invite and encourage people to do when they're feeling lost in life. And at the time I followed mine, which was my wellness practice, specifically through yoga at the time.

Lauren Ash [00:07:53]:

So I said I'm not really feeling my day job, so let me enroll in yoga teacher training so that I can find fulfillment in something that I know brings me life and that feels good for my body, my mind and my spirit outside of these 40 hours a week, right? And it was at that moment of me following my curiosity, trusting my intuition, and saying yes to that, that honestly everything started opening up for me. I just felt myself really come alive. And it was in one of those yoga classes very early on in my yoga teacher training that the phrase Black Girl in Om really just landed on my spirit. And I started writing about what it could be. And what I really started doing at the time, and I can see this clearly looking back, was I really started visioning and co creating with God what that was going to be, which was especially at the time, a community, an in person community at that really centering on the needs of black women in the wellness space at large. Because myself at that time, having been a black woman and well being and healing and intentional living, I was not at that time yet tapped into other black women who also loved those things too.

Lauren Ash [00:09:10]:

I always just found myself looking around all of my yoga studios in particular, saying, why am I the only one? And why have I rarely, if ever, had a black woman or woman of color guiding me through an experience here? So it was shortly after yoga teacher training that I ended up launching Black Girl and Om with the encouragement of so many amazing people that I had met in Chicago. And it really snowballed from there, right? And in the very beginning stages of Black Girl in Om again, it was very, very much centered on an in-person community. But because of my particular passion, like I spoke about a moment ago, of documenting my life and sharing that with other people as a means to inspire them, I also can reflect back now that that was also when I started using instagram in a more specific and deliberate way. So this was about 2013/14, right? I started using it to specifically and deliberately share myself doing things in my life and in my lifestyle that really emphasize intentional living, being well, being well with other black women, being well with other people of color. Because quite honestly, I had been trained in graduate school to really be intentional about adding to the canon of black feminist womanist individuals who were creating alternative realities for us as black women. And the powerful truth, really, of when we center the needs and the specific kind of ways that black women can be more radically taken care of and considered, then everybody benefits, period. So I was participating in adding to that tradition.

Lauren Ash [00:10:59]:

And I'd also been trained, quite honestly, I worked at Penumbra Theater Company off and on throughout my graduate studies and right after it before moving to Chicago. And Penumbra Theater is our nation's largest black theater company. August Wilson's work was shaped there as a playwright, and I really have to mention my experience there and the ways that my consciousness was sharpened there as also a black artist and black creative within the tradition of the Black Arts movement. Really powerfully, knowing how much representation matters, like on a huge, huge level. We would do things like watch documentaries that really spoke to the ways that image making over time has been used to harm and then image making over time has been used to heal. And so I say all this to say that Instagram again, at the time was a very, very powerful tool for me and my growing team and community to create images, like real images of us in a healing space, healing setting, being well and intentional in relationship with ourselves and in relationship with one another. When I also just think about what Instagram was at the time, in general, at least from my experience with it, it was a space where you could really tap in and see things that you weren't necessarily able to tap into in your local community. And so I think that I was truly creating what I didn't see in the world and perpetuating that out.

Lauren Ash [00:12:40]:

And also then what came of that was really organic and natural connections that were happening with people all over the world. Some of my closest friends, some of my strongest collaborators and partners over the years have been because we connected on Instagram, because we were both doing something that the other person was like, wait, you do this, you're into this too? In the beginning, it was a very beautiful tool, again, for connection, for representation, for image making in all the ways that I hadn't previously been tapped into or been able to have access to.

Amelia Hruby [00:13:17]:

I just feel so much, like, joy and connectedness in what you're saying. I loved the piece you brought in about how images can heal us and the ways that at that point, then, your Instagram presence can be a healing practice.

Lauren Ash [00:13:32]:

Yes

Amelia Hruby [00:13:32]:

I feel that really deeply. And then it also does make me personally sad for how Instagram has transformed and realizing how far away that feels at this stage.

Lauren Ash [00:13:45]:

Yeah.

Amelia Hruby [00:13:45]:

But I don't want to jump too far ahead, so I want to still continue the story chronologically before we get to where you're at and Instagram is at now. And so you're building this community. It started in person, but it grows over Instagram. You now have connected with people all over the world, both personally, and people are connecting through Instagram, through these images, through Black Girl in Om. I think at that point, the way you talked about it, it sounds like your role was to be an artist, to be a teacher, to be a community builder. Where then does some of the more brand partnership work and things we might, quote unquote, call, like influencing? How did that start to come into play with what you were doing on Instagram?

Lauren Ash [00:14:31]:

Yeah, that's an interesting question, too. So what I can remember pretty visibly was that with the growing Instagram account, that can very easily start to signal to brand partners, especially brand partners, in my experience, that are trying to authentically and I'm using air quotes with that as well, but authentically connect with black female audiences and reach them in ways that they can't do or they can't do in an authentic way, independent of a partnership with a black creator. It signals like, oh, this person or this account, we need to do something with them, right? Yeah. So I can remember because, you know, with Black Girl in Om would collaborate with other photographers and other visual artists very early on. For example, my friend Zakia Najiba, she was our art director from day one. I knew that I wanted to align myself with other black women, other black people that were image makers, like photographers, art directors, creative directors, to create not just a pretty picture, but to create yes, beauty, but also something that really spoke on a spiritual level to us, right?

Lauren Ash [00:16:02]:

So there was also that appeal to the potential brand partners, right? They were like, oh, not only are they reaching a growing niche of black women who are interested in wellness, well being, beauty, all of these things, of course, that are connected to capital because we live in the United States, very capitalist society, we already know the value of the black consumer, if you will. And so it's all you know, money signs. But me? I'm really just like, oh, such and such brand wants to create. Cool. Yes. Send me a little gift. I love gifts. And, oh, you want to, quote unquote, work together great. So I'm kind of speaking in brash ways right now. Don't get me wrong. I have enjoyed so many of the brand partnerships that I have been blessed to be able to do over the years. And at the same time, I love the way that you kind of led us into this part of the conversation, Amelia, around identifying that first and foremost, I am an artist, a creative, a wellness practitioner, right? And so the cloudiness, I think the stickiness that I can see and that I know because I have had these conversations that other black female influencers can have around this. And again, I'm using air quotes. That's going to be the quote from this conversation. Air quotes. But “influencers,” I'm saying that because we are so many other things before we're influencers. But we can talk about that in a second.

Lauren Ash [00:17:36]:

But we can forget about our other identities because then the money can take up so much space. The need to get another check to continue to take care of all these things that you have to take care of both for yourself and for your business and for all the things I would often find myself getting lost in. It just like, oh, such and such wants to work? Great. Such and such wants to work? Great. And I ended up getting a really amazing manager, Tiffany Harden. She and I have a podcast episode together on my podcast Black Girl in Om, that people have really appreciated talking about what it means to be in conscious partnership, equitable partnership. And I ended up tapping her at the encouragement of my ex boyfriend, actually, who was like, it seems like you're juggling a lot. Like, why don't you get someone to help you both build your business as well as navigate all these partnerships? Right? Because at the time, Black Girl in Om really was the wellness space and brand and community for black women on their wellness journeys. Again, I still affirm that that is the case now. And at the time, it was really just like a pioneering energy around it, particularly for black millennial women.

Lauren Ash [00:18:52]

We come from a generation of parents who small, small percentage of them had access to conversations like healing and therapy and things like eating mindfully. We already know all the statistics about diabetes within the black community, heart disease within the black community, all the things, and so energetically and otherwise, the time that I launched Black Girl in Om and created a really strong team around it to really help us bring all the many different facets of it to life, it really was a catalyst for so many of the black centered wellness brands that are out and thriving today. And I'm really proud of that. I love that. And there are really interesting, kind of, dynamics of growing a business, a company, a community, a brand that is in the digital space and in real life because digital spaces always evolve and change in ways that might actually eventually be antithetical to what it is that you're trying to do in the world. And so when that happens, what do you do? You just keep on saying, well, I have to be here because XYZ, I used to think that. I think subconsciously I don't believe that anymore. It's been a journey, Amelia.

Amelia Hruby [00:20:14]:

I can imagine it has. So what I'm hearing you start to weave together is the ways that Black Girl in Om was doing something so innovative, so important and impactful. It was both doing something really new, but also grounded in a legacy of work that you had done and people you'd worked with and learned from had done in the black community, in the black arts community, very grounded in that legacy and inviting in presence and newness and the future and I hear that and how you're talking about it now. And I think what I witnessed was really the community grow to tens of thousands and tens and tens of thousands of followers on Instagram, millions of downloads of your podcast. You personally and Black Girl in Om I think were doing brand partnerships with global brands, big names. You had a team. It really grew from your love of documenting and sharing your life, which is such a Human Design, three/five thing, right? Just to be like the one doing the thing and putting it out there, but it grew from that into this whole enterprise ecosystem, like bigger than life almost.

Amelia Hruby [00:21:29]:

When did it start to shift for you from like, we're growing and we're growing and it's getting bigger to now? You've talked about you're in more of like a contractive moment, a pause. Where along the journey did things start to shift and change and transform? And did you realize, like, oh, maybe these tools aren't going to allow me to build the type of community with these goals that I have for us?

Lauren Ash [00:21:51]:

I mean, I think there's many different moments that I can look back on and a lot of them kind of rub up against a really big lifelong journey that I can recognize is just like a part of my path. I think it's also very like a part of the human condition, if you will. But I think it's been really present for me, which is my journey of having unconditional love for myself regardless of what I do and regardless of what I put out in the world and how I started to see the ways in which being on a platform like Instagram, which is incredibly performative, to be honest. You are in these little boxes sharing an image and sharing some words that other people are consuming in one way or another. And because of the nature of how Instagram functions as an app now, it's both intentionally and subtly creating an energy of comparison. I think you have to literally actively resist as a creator on there the very real kind of energy of always needing to prove or show something from a place of like, look at me! I say that because, again, one of my touch points in this journey is a moment where I basically realized how much is this massive thing that I have said that I'm going to undertake coming from an authentic place or coming from a place of me feeling like I have to prove myself again.

Lauren Ash [00:23:27]:

And I started to realize I actually didn't know. I didn't know how to answer that question. So in 2020, when I had moved back to Minneapolis, the same week as the pandemic and it made no logical sense, I was living my best life in LA. Like, truly, I had only moved out there a little less than a year prior from seven years in Chicago. And I had always told myself, like, I'm not moving back to Minnesota. Why would I go back? And literally the same week that I moved back, the pandemic was spreading. And I was like, oh, this is probably better for me to be back home during a very strange, scary, unknown time. And then a few months later, George Floyd was killed, you know. I'm living in the suburbs, but he was killed in the Twin Cities at large. And I was just like, wow, this is intense. And from that intensity, I propelled forward in announcing and making moves to create a physical healing space in Minneapolis and raised money. The community was and is always so supportive. I love my community. And just for context, I had signed a lease on a building. I had the space, but I was feeling like this inner resistance and angst about it at the same time. And some of that is just like normal. Of course. It's like, wow, whenever you say you're going to do something big and then you're doing it's, like, scary, right?

Lauren Ash [00:24:56]:

But I also was kind of going back to the drawing board of what I had really started to realize when I turned 30, which was, and still is, wait, how much of what you're doing right now is because of an expectation that you have put on yourself that you think is actually outside of you and you think that if you don't do this thing, you're not going to be loved, you're not going to matter, you're not going to be supported, XYZ? And I just found myself getting into a state of depression and anxiety around it. As a black woman who's a business owner, moving forward during a global pandemic, like, me, moving forward with that during that time frame was a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. And I was having meetings with my team and they were like, Lauren, it's okay if you don't do this. It's called a pivot. And people do that all the time. And I was like, no, because then people won't trust me and believe that I'm going to do what I say. I was putting so much pressure on myself to move forward by any means necessary, and I was really having a hard time to let go of that vision, like a very hard time, to say the least. And I was just so fearful of what the external kind of response would be, literally.

Lauren Ash [00:26:22]:

When I remember going to a park and writing up basically what my email was going to say to announce people that I wasn't doing it, I was so afraid. And when I finally hit send, I was still afraid. But the response that I got from people was so overwhelmingly supportive and so, how for me, this comes back to social media is, again, that was like a marker in my journey where I was wait, like, let's just imagine for a second that Instagram didn't have the follower count and you had no idea how many people followed you. How would that feel? Would you still feel, these are just hypothetical questions, I guess, for people to sit with. Would you still feel as inspired and motivated to continue to share images, continue to share your words, continue to share your presence, or not? Would you feel as much that energy of comparison and going to someone else's profile and seeing what they're doing if those numbers didn't even exist? We can't even actually really think about that because guess what? The numbers are there. And they do very real things to us psychologically.

Lauren Ash [00:27:27]:

So I remember over the years, in the beginning years of Black Girl in Om, and when I say beginning years, I mean like year one through like, five, I was honestly just like, going, going, doing. And it was really when the pandemic hit that I was like, in my house with my thoughts and I was still doing a lot. I had a whole digital monthly membership community that served upwards of 200 women consistently for two years. But 2020 through 2022 was honestly me looking up for the first time from a bird's eye view and being like, wait, what have I been doing these past few years? How many people are in this community? Wait, what? You don't really see it. Well, I didn't really see it for a long time. I was like, oh, yeah, this is a big deal. It's very strange. I think because my nature is so go go very fast paced, I can very easily just get into the flow and not realize even how epic something is or how exciting something is or how impactful something is until way later. And then people are like, yeah, girl, you've been doing that for a minute. And I'm like, really? Who's that? Though? It was hard for me to see myself. And also, yeah, the version of me online, which was a very still real person, but it's still a version of you.

Lauren Ash [00:28:56]:

Whatever we put online is not us in our entirety. It's a piece of us. And my best friend would always say things like, I really like Lauren Ash, but I really love you to really make a point that this persona, which is me, I'm not out here being fake, right? Because some people, we don't need to talk about that, but I'm not that. But it's still not me. It's still not me when the lights are off and I'm by myself in the middle of nowhere. It's different. It's an avatar. It is, period. Which I think is why many, I would say influencers, but just a lot of people who just share online consistently can oftentimes get into mental health situations, let's call them. Like, they can have depression, they can have anxiety, and they can feel like they don't really know who they are. And that was certainly a part of what I ended up going through. It's like, who are you if you're not this?

Amelia Hruby [00:30:02]:

Especially when your income or like, you're making a living, when that is intertwined in this avatar, in this persona, and in you continuing to perform that persona. I just talked to so many people who that eventually just end up feeling fully alienated or dissociated from any sense of who they are or like a real self because all their money and so much of their time is tied up in the performance of that.

Lauren Ash [00:30:30]:

Yeah. And I would see examples of that. Really, I was like a little Instagram Girl, you know. I was sharing my IG lives. I was so excited to, everything I was doing, I was excited about. I was sharing my little runs to the ocean when I lived in California. I was sharing my morning smoothies. I was sharing reflections for people to be inspired by. Everything that I did was really to inspire people, especially black women, to live their best lives. And that's still very much a part of my ethos now. But again, because of the changing nature of the app itself, over time, doing those things felt less and less good. I was like, wait, why do I not feel like I want to do this anymore? Even though I'm still living this particular life that I want people to be able to be inspired by and I'm also just going through life like everybody is, and I want to be real in certain ways about that too. But why not? But it's because to me, inherently, the app changed and those changes no longer supported me energetically and feeling how I wanted to feel. And I eventually had to be brutally honest about that and divest from it.

Amelia Hruby [00:31:49]:

Yeah, what I'm hearing and what you're saying too, is that you were on Instagram because you wanted to help yourself and black women and women of color live their best lives. And then what switched is you started to realize, like, maybe we can't live our best lives on Instagram because of what the platform is doing, how it's changing, and all of the things that are happening here.

Lauren Ash [00:32:12]:

Yeah.

[music fading in]

Amelia Hruby [00:32:13]:

Hi, Off the Grid listeners. Amelia here interrupting our conversation today because I want to share with you one of my favorite marketing tools. When I left Instagram, I invited all of my followers to subscribe to my mailing list in order to keep in touch with me, and I promised to send them monthly-ish notes on a lot of the themes I used to talk about on social media. I've used many email service providers in my day, but my favorite of all of them is Flodesk. Flodesk is a gorgeous, easy to use email service provider. It helps you create beautiful, thoughtful emails. And even better, it's really set up to help you create easy to use landing pages so people can join your list and workflows so you can automate sending messages to folks who sign up through different pages. Flodesk is how I run all of the welcome sequences and lead magnets at Softer Sounds. It's also how I run the Leaving Social Media Toolkit that you might have downloaded after listening to this podcast. I'm surely not sending those emails out myself manually. Flodesk is doing all of that automagically.

Amelia Hruby [00:33:29]:

If you'd like to give Flodesk a try, please use my affiliate link below. In the show notes, you'll get a discount, I'll get a kickback, and we will all send more beautiful emails together. Again, check out the affiliate link in the show notes. For now, we're going to get back to this episode of Off the Grid.

[music fades out]

Amelia Hruby [00:33:50]:

And I think this takes us to your decision to leave Instagram. So could you share a little more about, I know we joked when we first spoke, you were like, Amelia, you tell people not to ghost your followers. And I totally did. I'm like that's great. People want to hear how you did it because people don't like when I tell them not to ghost their followers. So tell us, when did you leave Instagram? How did that happen? How did you tell people about it? Take us to that moment or that time period.

Lauren Ash [00:34:17]:

Well, first of all, I don't know if you know this, but I actually left Instagram once before this moment too.

Amelia Hruby [00:34:23]:

I've heard you mention it, but I'd love to hear. Tell us about that time and then this more recent time.

Lauren Ash [00:34:29]:

Yeah, so I first left Instagram for a month, and when I say left, I don't mean a social media break, like where you just leave it up and leave or don't log in or whatever people do. I just deactivated it. So for all intents and purposes, I was gone. And people either thought that I blocked them or were like, wait, what's happening with Lauren? And that was in 2021, I think. Or maybe it was. Yeah, I think it was 2021. And that was a weird experience, like leaving an app completely, especially when you're so present there. It feels very weird. Like, it does not feel good. I think that feeling good comes later. At least it did for me. I can only, I guess, speak from my own experience, but because of the addictive nature of, I think instagram in particular, it's like anything that you're withdrawing from when you leave it, you know, even if you like the thing that's the, like, there are addicts of a variety of things. When you put it down, you're going to feel some type of way in your body and your nervous system and your mind. And so I remember that month, like, for example, I went to Maui, actually, with a friend who had invited me to go with her family there. I remember feeling like, oh, this is interesting that I'm here on this beautiful trip and not sharing it, right? Because I was so used to doing that. And then fast forward to when I left left and haven't come back. That was the week leading up to Halloween of 2022. So I'm coming up on one year.

Amelia Hruby [00:36:00]:

You are.

Lauren Ash [00:36:03]:

And I left in a very emotional moment. The best way I can describe it is that life was lifeing. I had moved to New Orleans about four months prior to this moment, and I really moved there for a few reasons, but one of the reasons was me just trying to kind of force the next chapter of my life into happening because I was feeling really stuck and angsty in Minnesota, and I was just like, let me just get on with my life. And I had gone to Essence Fest because I'd been booked to do some things with a brand, actually, and I was guiding yoga and I was in community again, and it brought me a wave of life that I loved. And I said, Let me just get a change of scenery and move here. But the best way I can describe it is really just like going from one side of the pendulum swing to the other, like, I went from a very low. I felt stuck. I felt stagnant. I was stuck and I was stagnant place in my life and then swung all the way to being in the sun, being in the light, being in the beauty of New Orleans and just wanting to press next, press next chapter, please. Press play.

Lauren Ash [00:37:07]:

And I did, and I was really living a beautiful life down there. And then when a number of things just started happening, or a number of things that weren't happening that I wanted to happen, that then when they weren't happening, I was internalizing and interpreting as like, I'm not doing what I need to be doing. God doesn't love me. It was just a bunch of negative self talk and I was just, like, repeating it. And then it was a very spontaneous moment, honestly. I just picked up my phone and I archived everything on my Instagram, and then literally like, 15 minutes after that, I was like, I'm just going to deactivate it. And it wasn't like a conscious thing, right? I wasn't like, I'm going through it mentally, so I'm going to now do this. It was just like, I'm a spontaneous person. I'm very spontaneous, honestly. Yeah. So I just left it. And for context, like, that was the same year that like, did this massive campaign with Athleta and I'm pretty sure they were still promoting that on social media. A really big campaign just was launched with this luxury Italian brand, Loro Piana, that had just gone up as like, there were things to be shared on the Gram, so to speak. And I was just like, I'm leaving. And yeah, that just kind of shows the mental space that I was in, of just like, I can't I really can't.

Amelia Hruby [00:38:39]:

I find the story really refreshing because I am perhaps the opposite of a spontaneous person. I am such a strategic person. I'm so in my head about things, I have to really think through a choice. And so that's often how I talk on the podcast and I love hearing your story of it. Just kind of like, it was the time, it was a feeling, I did it. And now it's almost been a year. I am curious, you kind of touched on there at the end, like, even when you left, you were in the midst of these brand partnerships and these big things happening. How has that piece of your work evolved since leaving Instagram? Did stepping away from Instagram mean you had to stop doing brand partnerships? Did you choose to stop doing them regardless of like, how has that kind of transformed your role as like a, quote unquote, influencer? And maybe now we can also go into why you hate the term influencer and how you think of it at this stage in your work.

Lauren Ash [00:39:35]:

Yeah, well, I mean, to be honest, I wasn't working for a while because I was just very depressed and anxious. So brands were reaching out, but I wasn't reading the inquiries. I wasn't there. And then I also wasn't going in my inbox for a long time. And to be honest, when I finally went in it again in like cue one of 2023, I was like, oh, dang, there were some opportunities that would have paid very well that I didn't even see. You know what I mean? There's that consequence of leaving and or of just being tapped out, but when you're going through it in terms of your mental health, there's really nothing you can do. Well, actually, no, because a lot of people push themselves forward anyway and that leads to more damage because again, the pressure to perform, the pressure to be on, the pressure to just show up by any means necessary is very prevalent, I think. And I don't just think, I know. Again, I've had so many conversations with other black female business owners, people with investors, authors, influencers, who are like, wait, what you're doing? I need to do that. And I'm like, please do. Because if you're feeling this depth of resonance with my story, there's something to that. And there's a life on the other side, and it's a lot more peaceful. But the term influencer has always rubbed me the wrong way.

Lauren Ash [00:41:02]:

But I think particularly I remember being at this, I was, like, shopping in Chicago when I still lived there. I saw this little girl wearing a shirt and it said “influencer” on it. And I was like, is this what the little kids are aspiring towards now? I was like, wait, what? And I actually found out, yes, they are. Because there have been studies where they ask little kids what they want to be when they grow up, and they say, Influencers. And I'm like, this is sick. This is sick. It really disturbs me on a number of levels. It really does. And again, for me, I think it irks me just on a logical level because I'm like, this isn't what I wanted to be when I grew up. I'm an artist, I'm a creative, I am an entrepreneur. I am a writer. I host things, I produce things, I direct things. I would never just be like, Hi, I'm Lauren, and I'm an influencer. Like that, to me, that's extremely awkward on a number of levels, and it's not even accurate of who I am. And to me, it also distills my entire essence down to something that's inherently connected to marketing and capitalism. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy money. I do enjoy money. And I do like to share things that I like to buy with other people because I'm very enthusiastic person, if you haven't noticed. And I feel like I have great tastes.

Amelia Hruby [00:42:30]:

Yes, you do.

Lauren Ash [00:42:31]:

And those who want to also be in this great taste life with me, hey, yeah, why don't you go get this skin serum? Because it worked for me and it might work for you, too, but that's not at the top of the list of things that I do or am about. So, yeah, it just feels like a fraction and the smallest fraction of who I am and just altogether not even resonant with who I am.

Amelia Hruby [00:42:58]:

Again, part of what I'm hearing is the way that the term influencer diminishes all of the things that you do and tries to just almost flatten it all into promoting other people's shit when that is only the smallest byproduct of this really rich set of practices that you have. And then when we put that within capitalism and within social media, companies use the term influencer to capitalize off of other people's communities. They also use it to pay people less because they're “just influencers” or they're “just influencing” instead of doing all those things you mentioned: art, directing, envisioning new futures, creating communities. That term is, I think, weaponized against creators and artists and community builders to flatten their work. And I'm really hearing that come out in your experience

Lauren Ash [00:43:35]:

100%.

Amelia Hruby [00:43:56]:

So after you stepped away from Instagram, you stepped away from brand work just for the sake of taking care of yourself and your mental health like, just entirely stepped away from your inbox. I agree. I can think of so many people who are going to hear that and be like, wow, I never thought that was possible for me and hearing that you just did it and you're on the other side, I think is liberating to so many people. Like knowing it's possible.

Lauren Ash [00:44:20]:

Yeah.

Amelia Hruby [00:44:21]:

So how has you leaving Instagram, has it changed the relationship between you and Black Girl in Om? Has it changed your role in the company? Black Girl in Om is still on Instagram. How do you think about the social media presence for your business and community when you've made such a clear decision? Social media is not for you.

Lauren Ash [00:44:40]:

So, yeah, I'm thinking about this a lot right now and planning a lot of things that moving forward will shift our community interaction to not be on social media. I mean, the beautiful thing is, from day one, I've always prioritized having a newsletter. Newsletter is so essential for so many reasons for when and if social media is no longer for you. Yeah, you garnered I don't know how many followers, 10,000, 10 million. But do you even have a newsletter with them so that when you leave one day, you can actually stay in touch? So I'm glad that I have, my vision definitely entails bringing the community together in really beautiful intentional ways in an algorithm free environment, which is what, again, Black Girl in Om was from its very inception, like bringing the community together in an algorithm free environment. That's what we were doing. And any social media kind of activation or posting or what have you will be from a social media manager. It won't be from me. I'm not anti social media. I'm definitely pro intentionality with it. But for me and my nervous system, I don't need to be there. Yeah, I don't need to be there. And so I have a designer that I've been working with. She's amazing. And she is going to be most likely the one also stepping into the social media manager role, which is great because she's more keen on it. There are a lot of people who are, and that's great.

Amelia Hruby [00:46:30]:

I think that actually takes me perfectly to where I wanted to kind of close us, which I wanted to read something that you wrote in the first email you sent me to take us back to that email conversation.

Lauren Ash [00:46:42]:

Yes.

Amelia Hruby [00:46:42]:

It was so beautiful. I just feel like everyone needs to hear it. I feel like it encapsulates so much of what you're passionate about and what you're doing right now. So here's what you said: “I feel very passionate and lit up at the vision of embodying liberation from the social media matrix for more black women and women of color who are also on the hamster wheel of social media as entrepreneurs, influencers or business owners. I want to show them that there are ways to cultivate and grow meaningful community outside of the algorithmic constraints and brand partnerships that may not feel wholly authentic to them.” I see Black Girl in Om, and your new substac newsletter, The Place to Be, as where you're stepping into this vision.

Lauren Ash [00:47:30]:

Yes.

Amelia Hruby [00:47:30]:

And I just wanted to bring it here and invite you maybe to share how can other black women and women of color step into this with you and where do you want them to meet you in this work?

Lauren Ash [00:47:43]:

I love that. So, I mean, I would just invite anyone to literally just email me, email me if they're resonating with this in any way. Lauren@blackgirlinom.com I love to connect with people about this topic. I'm very passionate about it. Like, so passionate about it. Like I've mentioned a few times, I've had several conversations with other black women that are extremely well known and extremely successful by external standards, I would say, like worldly standards, if you will, that are not happy or have gone through depression or have gone through mental health moments and they haven't shared about it for a variety of reasons. I understand also why people choose not to share. But it comes back, much like it did for me, in part, to social media, right? And I'm just like, wow, many of us are out here pretending like things are fine when they're not. And that's a problem. That's a problem. So I just want to be a resource for people. I'm not anybody's therapist, but I am someone who just likes to connect and find ways that we can support one another's lives and work in the world.

Lauren Ash [00:48:47]:

And, yeah, I created The Place to Be, which is my newest project that I'm so excited about. It is virtually hosted in Substack, but it is way more expansive than that. I've been actually hosting these private gatherings that bring together people over food and conversation. And I've just been blessed to have friends of mine who are just incredible visionaries and authors and entrepreneurs and wellness practitioners come. I hosted one in Brooklyn, I hosted one in Chicago, and I have more coming up. It's really inspired, though, by my reclamation of myself as a creative. Like, I don't need to be on Instagram, showing off these dinners and gatherings and bragging to people about who is there. I can just host them and love it and be present with the moment. And it's where I share my writing and my reflections and what I find interesting and what I find moving. And so it just feels like there's nothing for me to prove. There's no one for me to prove it to, and it allows for people to directly support my voice and my presence in the world as well. So it really just feels like a good energy exchange as well. And I'm really excited about it.

Amelia Hruby [00:50:07]:

We'll link to that in the show notes, of course, along with everything else that you're doing and places that people can find you online or connect online and then take it offline. Is there anything else you want to share before we sign off today?

Lauren Ash [00:50:25]:

Just that I love Off the Grid.

Amelia Hruby [00:50:30]:

Well Off the Grid loves you.

Lauren Ash [00:50:32]:

Yay. I've literally been, like, sharing it with everybody. I'm like, you got to listen to this. Listen to this episode and then go to that episode. It's so great.

Amelia Hruby [00:50:39]:

Well, I'm honored.

Lauren Ash [00:50:40]:

So thank you for creating the space and all the things that you're doing within the podcast and audio realm, too. It's all so important. Thank you.

Amelia Hruby [00:50:50]:

Well, thank you, Lauren. I really enjoyed stepping into this conversation together and having you on the show. And for listeners, we will see you off the grid.

Lauren Ash [00:51:01]:

We will.

Amelia Hruby [00:51:04]:

[music fades in]

Thanks for listening to Off the Grid. Find links and resources in the show notes and don't forget to grab your free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at softersounds.studio/byeig. That's softersounds dot studio slash b-y-e-i-g.

This podcast is a Softer Sounds production. Our music is by Purple Planet and our logo is by n'atelier Studio.

If you'd like to make a podcast of your own, we'd love to help. Find more about our services at softersounds.studio. Until next time, we'll see you Off the Grid.