VANISHED: The Social Media Detox That Changed My Life!

I never thought it would change me, and by change me, I mean COMPLETELY change me. From top to bottom, head to toe, internally and externally, my SOCIAL MEDIA DETOX changed my life for the better, 180 degrees.

The day I decided to delete it, it wasn’t planned. The detox was sporadic, like most things in my life. I acted on an impulse; a fed up, annoyed, sick and tired, IMPULSE. I was sick of feeling not good enough, sick of feeling like I never had enough. I was unhappy, depressed, filled with a ‘lack’ mentality and had low self-esteem.

Every time I scrolled on my phone and saw another girl with a ‘perfect’ body I wondered deep down why I couldn’t be more like her. Every post I saw with a nicer car, cooler vacation or idealistic relationship secretly made me die inside. I desired that, I desired ALL of it. All I ever dreamed of was having the ‘perfect relationship’. I desired the fancy cars and exotic trips overseas. I never realized that everything I deeply desired, I already had in front of me. In retrospect, going incognito was the only way for me to realize everything I truly had and all of the outstanding things I was about to create.

July 17th, 2019 I deleted my Instagram account indefinitely and turned my Facebook account to ‘Deactivated’. My Snapchat account was permanently deleted prior to the deletion of the other two accounts, and throughout my journey I never made a Twitter or Tik Tok. My social media detox didn’t start as a long, drawn out detox, in fact, it stated out as a 7-Week cleanse to see how I felt without it. On the exact day of my 7- Week social media cleanse I logged back into my Instagram and Facebook and went upon my posting and browsing behavior as normal. Being wrapped up, back in the social media vortex, I didn’t realize the internal changes taking place abruptly, but ever so surely.

Within 36 hours of my reintroduction to social media, I instantly felt a rush of all the negative emotions I had previously cleansed myself from. My self esteem instantly plummeted, my ‘lack’ mentality rushed back in at full force, my confidence tanked, and my self-doubt slowly snuck it’s way back in. At this point, there was nothing I could do to reverse it.

Thankfully, in this period the universe blessed me with two amazing connections whom are both very observant and tuned in. My boss and my best friend both recognized my change in behavior and self esteem and spoke to me about it openly and honestly. At this point in my life, they were also very aware how vulnerable my mental and emotional health had been. I was going through arguably one of the worst periods of my life. I was still grieving a breakup that had ended much before this period, I was going through a dry patch professionally, I was lost in who I was and what I stood for, my dating life was full of duds and my whole world had been flipped upside down. I’ve never experienced a phase like this in my life. Thankfully, they were there to help, and their open communication did just that. Within minutes of talking with my best friend, David, I logged back online and shut my social media down FOR GOOD. One day turned into one week, one week turned into one month, one month turned into one year.... until 1.5 years later, I’ve now made my return. In a BIGGER, BETTER, more REFINED way than ever before. Now this is where it gets exciting, this is where my LIFE CHANGED!

At first I had an identity crisis, you would never believe the things I went through. I lost my sense of self, internally and externally. I began feeling as if I was completely insignificant just because I didn’t have a social platform to stand on. To my surprise, you would be astonished at the amount of people who make you feel that way because you don’t have one either.

“Why’d you delete it? Thats weird!”

“I won’t date you if you aren’t online, how do you not have any social media?”

“How am I supposed to show you to my friends and family?”

These were only some of the comments I received after deleting my platforms. I felt worthless, completely like a fool. The identity crisis I experienced from my own self-doubt and low self-esteem was catapulted by the overwhelming amount of negativity dumped on my shoulders from others. Thankfully, to my saving grace, somewhere buried deep inside the sea of pessimism that surrounded me, I discovered the few souls who embraced and supported my social media escape.

“That’s so awesome of you!”

“I’m so proud of you.”

"Wow, I wish I could do that too.”

“If it wasn’t for my business, I’d do the same.”

The comments began to turn from negative to positive, from off-putting to inspirational. As I began to embrace the change I made for ME, other people recognized that and began to embrace it too. This is when I quickly began learning that our external world is a MIRROR REFLECTION of our internal world.

With all of the extra time I accumulated from no longer mindlessly scrolling on social media apps, I invested many of my mornings and evenings learning about the evolution of our consciousness.

I learned how to rewire my neurocircuit pathways to recondition my mind into perceiving a better life.

I educated myself on how to ‘learn faster’ so I could become more intelligently efficient.

I expanded my consciousness beyond our 3D physical reality.

I discovered Universal Laws and secrets of the Universe.

And last but not least, I healed my deepest childhood codependency wounds.

Through the most difficult and introspective year of my life, I also discovered my purpose and what I was meant to do on this earth. As an empath, I’ve always felt the drive and desire to help other people, ever since I was a child. I’ve always offered advice, helped out any stranger, and leant a helping hand to those in-need. I knew this was something that always made me happy, however, I wasn’t sure how to turn this into my career.

At the time of this period (as well as currently to this day) I have a luxurious career that I wouldn’t change for the world, and for most people, no one would ever strive for more. I love what I do, it’s the job of a lifetime. I currently work in Orlando, Florida for a private Commercial Brokerage firm where I sell hotels, build hotels, renovate hotels, assist my clients in receiving commercial funding, prepare and revise legal contracts, work with Corporate America and Fortune 500 Companies, assist clients in franchise negotiation, and anything and everything to do with Hotels. Living in Orlando, I’m definitely in the hotel hot-spot. I’ve had such an amazing journey in the five years I’ve worked alongside my boss, however, during this introspective phase I’ve realized there was still a part of me that was missing. That part of me was THIS; sharing my story with the world and helping others along their journey to self discovery. That’s where my next journey began, the best journey of my life!

December 27th, 2019 I went on a solo trip to Hawaii to go island hopping and discover myself a little deeper. Thankfully, the second half of my trip, I was accompanied by my friend, Blake, who unconditionally supported me through this period. The first half of my trip was filled with chaos, disappointment, shock and revelation. I was bombarded with Murphy’s Law; “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” I hated this law and denied it to be true. I forced myself to change my perspective and came to the realization that even through difficulty, my trip was also filled with deep healing, rebirth, discovery and deep love.

On New Years Eve of the infamous 2020 Year, I filmed my first ever YouTube video. The video was horrendous and absolutely hilarious looking back. I created the Channel, Self-Mastery Mentor, in October of 2019, however, reluctantly waited two and a half months before having the courage to make my first video. Although this wasn’t the fist video I used on my channel, I went for a solo hike in the Waipi’o Valley on New Years Day of 2020 and filmed my first YouTube video that still to this day premieres on my Channel.

On January 11th, 2020 (dated 1/11) I coincidentally published my first YouTube Video, ‘How to Make 2020 the Best Year Yet!’ The amount of enthusiasm and excitement that rushed through me upon publishing my first video, was unlike anything I’ve felt before. I did it! I finally did it! This was my first video but I knew I couldn’t stop there. Taking my ‘extremist’ behavior to another level, like I have stated before, I decided in that moment to commit myself to recording, editing and publishing one new video a day for 100 days straight; and for 100 days straight, I did just that. After hitting my 100 day mark of the Channel, I felt exhausted, drained and completely worn out. I was juggling a very high intensity full time career, publishing my first workbook (My 3-Month Transformation Workbook - now published) investing 50+ hours a week on the channel, doing my best to manage a dating life, making time for my friends, flying back to Michigan once a month to help care for my grandparents and also made sure to spend time tending to my Cat, Ziggy. My life was in complete chaos at the time, and if we’re being honest, to this day it still is. The only difference with my current circumstantial state is that I’m a hell of a lot busier and a hell of a lot smarter.

On November 11th, 2020 (dated 11/11) I synchronistically hit my YouTube Milestone of being monetized. In order to be monetized you need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of video time watched. Depending on your selected niche, this is either an easy or difficult milestone. Of course, with my ‘extremist’ nature, I chose one of the most difficult. On the ten month anniversary of my YouTube Channel and 175+ videos later, I have now created a social platform that is financially beneficial and has become one of my six income streams. I’ve since created a second YouTube Channel based around my spirituality and assisting those in their spiritual evolution journey.

Running concurrently alongside my YouTube Channel is my high intensity, high stress career I mentioned earlier. During this phase of growing the YouTube Channel, I hit an extremely difficult dry spell in my career. We were working our asses off on many different deals, however, no deal was sticking. The 2020 pandemic caused a world-wide economic crisis causing the development of hotels to come to a screeching halt, tourism fell completely dead, the purchase and sales of hotels became extremely worrisome and untrustworthy, hotel commercial funding become obsolete and our professional self-esteem had plummeted. Not to mention, on top of it all, I was in the middle of my first development for a brand-new Brand Prototype, Wyndham Garden new construction hotel. My role on the development was acting as the Owner’s Representative. The key components of this job title was, and is, as follows; locating the site, demolishing the preexisting building, preparing the construction budget, hire the contractor, hire the engineers, preparing the hotel drawings, receive the building permits, acquire the construction funding, negotiate the franchise contracts and owner incentives, hire the interior designer, review contractor’s work, monitor the financial construction draws, and of course, make sure the owner is happy. Unfortunately, after three years of dedicated hard work, our grand opening for the Wyndham Garden was August 8th, 2020, smack-dab in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic with a world-wide travel ban and national lockdown in place. Nonetheless, I am still proud of that accomplishment, as so is our team.

Filled with frustration and stuck in a vortex of bad luck that never seemed to end, my boss and I were working on one of our larger hotel sales and renovation deals. We were working with the buyer on locating a track of land for them to purchase as a combined use for their hotel deal. After about a month of digging for the perfect piece of gold, we stumbled upon a private, small, lakefront parcel of land. The land was perfect for our client, a completely diamond in the rough. Unfortunately, to our surprise, the land was zoned in a way that would not allow for the intended use of our clients and could not be legally changed. Spouting with utter disgust and frustration for my rotten 2 years of luck, I drove myself mindlessly to my favorite coffee shop, ordered the largest latte on Earth, and sat gazing at my laptop with flames in my eyes.

“How in the world had EVERY SINGLE DEAL been nothing but a mess, difficult, chaotic, bothersome, restrictive and unattainable?”

“What was this luck?!”

“What was I dealing with?”

“I hate my fricken life!!”

I was absolutely enraged that this perfect lakefront site was going to slip between the cracks. I HAD to act, I had NO choice. From 4:00pm EST on the night of October 21st, 2020 until 4:21am EST in the morning of October 22nd, 2020 I put together a 57 page developers packet of my first ever personal development project. My project consisted of a private luxurious lakefront millennial townhome community. That very same morning at 9:00am EST, I sleepily arrived at my friend, Tony’s house for a confidential boat tour to visit the lake with one of our investor’s. A wave of good luck swung over me that morning as our investor agreed to move forward with the deal.

Fast forward to you now, December 23rd, 2020 I am now moving towards making my first development a reality, I have a monetized YouTube Channel that is growing exponentially, published my first workbook, have started a second YouTube Channel that is also growing significantly, published my own website, am in the process of writing two books that I strive to have published in 2021, have rediscovered myself and found my self-worth, fallen back in-love with who I am, disconnected from toxic relationships, built a foundation of supportive individuals, became more grateful for the world I have around me, dove deep into my spirituality, healed the wounds I used to carry, expanded my consciousness and intellectual knowledge, put my condo up for sale for a bigger and better place, and have set goals for a life I’ve always dreamed of having. I did this myself, all within the 1.5 years I left social media. I tell you this story not for the sake of boasting but for the simple stand point of the professional and personal advancements I have made since being OFFLINE.

I’ve learned so much about myself, more about myself than I ever thought I could have know. I’ve mastered my faults and healed my toxicities, I’ve advanced my skills and expanded my knowledge. I’ve learned to take advantage of my ‘0 to 100’ mentally and use it in a calculative manner verses an impulsive manner. I’ve found worth in my uniqueness and being true to who I am at the core. I no longer run from weaknesses and instead open them up to the bare wound and heal them. I’ve found happiness in simplicity and excitement in going full throttle. I’ve taken my ‘extremist’ characteristics that I once perceived as a burden and turned them into a powerhouse of creating financial, emotional and mental platforms.

If there’s anything I can recommend to all of you out there it’s to change your perspective. ZOOM OUT. Discover yourself and who you truly are within. When you know who you TRULY are at your deepest, rooted core, no one can hurt you. You become ‘unfuckwithable’ because you know all your strengths and weaknesses and where they all come from. You’re only as strong as your greatest weakness, so if you can take some time to focus solely on you and eliminate your distractions, you’ll change your life forever. You’ll master yourself and become multifaceted, and that’s the definition of Self-Mastery; that’s where my YouTube Channel came from. That’s why all of this is here for you; to help you along your journey the same way I helped myself.

My last takeaway to those of you who have committed to reading this far, seriously take a second and consider a social media detox. I know it will change your life, in the same way it change mine, if not more. You’ll dive deep inside yourself, fall back in love with yourself, rediscover yourself, develop yourself, raise your vibration and attract all of the things you’ve always been dreaming of achieving. One of my favorite quotes from an interview between Ed Mylett and JP Spears, is “In order to achieve long term happiness you must be willing to sacrifice short term gratification.” This sentence changed my life the more and more I let it sit with me. Giving up social media was the short term gratification sacrifice that I needed to make, not only for myself but for my future. I’m sharing this quote with you because I hope it helps you too. Make the sacrifice and give up short term gratification, I promise it will change your life forever. I definitely changed mine. ✨

With love,

April Kudwa

Self-Mastery Mentor

To visit my YouTube Channel Click Below!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR7P-PHbrG_GSy-ym1ev6Lw