Taking Back Control in the Social Media Age

Hi, Karisha.

Hi Makiko.

Welcome to the second episode of Rays of Light. Thank you so much for joining us in the lovely village of Sunnyside.

The lovely fictional village of Sunnyside, full of fictional characters with real problems.

On a windy overcast day in May, Shiori is taking a walk through the village during her lunch break when she sees Sunnyside Books up ahead. Every time she passes it, she remembers how she really must do some research. But in the evenings, she’s usually too tired and discouraged to get around to it. She decides impulsively to go into the bookstore.

Wandering around, she wonders if what she wants is more likely to be under technology or mental health. At the sound of laughter, she finds herself moving toward the front of the store. She thinks she hears Marie Lou, one of the co-owners of the bookstore, who also has a full-time job with Sunnyside Electric.

“I feel so much more relaxed now,” Marie is telling a man.

“Marie is seeing a hypnotherapist.” The man says to Shiori, who hadn’t meant for them to notice her. Shiori apologizes for interrupting and they both enthusiastically deny that she has done any such thing.

Shiori’s husband and son are very social, too social in her opinion. Neither of them has met a stranger they didn’t want to chat to. And she would not be surprised to find them joining a conversation with people they barely know. But she’s very surprised to be doing it herself. Feeling like she has to say something, she explains.

“I was looking for a book on how damaging social media can be.”

“Oh, I’ll be glad to help.” Marie offers.

“Thank you.” Shiori says.

“I’m also curious about the hypnotherapist. Do you think hypnosis can help with a social media addiction?”

“Oh, interesting question.” Marie says.

“It seems like it could help. Would you like to talk to my hypnotherapist? I can give you a number. Also, we have a lot of books on social media.”

Shiori says, “I hope to find a book that will help me convince my son that he’d be happier using social media less.”

The man asks, “Do you think he’ll read the book or do you need arguments you can toss out at him?”

“Arguments I can toss out while I taking an open book.” Shiori says, then she laughs along with the other two.

“I’m Ben.” the man says.

“My children are pretty young still and I’m already terrified at the thought of them on the internet.”

Shiori introduces herself, nodding politely. Ben bows, using his full upper body. Then, Marie apologizes for not realizing they hadn’t met before and imitates Ben’s bow. Shiori can tell they know they overdid it and she joins them when they laugh at themselves.

“Let me show you the books.” Marie says.

“I’ll be asking for advice in 10 years.” Ben adds.

“It was nice to meet you, Sherry. Good luck with your son.”

After work, Shiori leaves a short message for the hypnotherapist and then starts to read one of the books she bought. Right away, she begins to feel upset. The information is overwhelming and everything seems entirely out of her control. Her son Akimitsu is already 17 and her husband isn’t much help. He just wants to stay on their son’s good side, making Shiori the main rule enforcer.

Two days later, Shiori is finally speaking with Marie’s hypnotherapist, Reina Ibarra. Shiori tells Reina that her son is addicted to social media. Is your son interested in using social media less? Reina asks. Shiori pauses, then admits that he’s not.

“He says everyone else uses it just as much as he does.”

Reyna explains that she would need to talk to him before they could have a session.

Karisha: So, the reason for that is that Reina wants to make sure that sessions will be useful for Akimitsu since it’s his mom that wants the change, not him. Going to therapy for someone else’s goals isn’t useful. Now, there can be situations where someone wants the desire to make a change, if that makes sense? That’s different than the person who’s doing sessions to, say, quit smoking because her doctor said she needs to. If she doesn’t want to quit, then nothing’s going to make her do it.

Makiko: Right, exactly. Because the person to receive the therapy or hypnotherapy needs to be motivated to make that change. Otherwise, I mean, your subconscious is not ready for that change at all. And so the desire to make a change or desire to want certain outcome is very important.

Karisha: Yes, very important.

Reina continues, you said your son is addicted to social media. Last I checked, there wasn’t a specific diagnosis for social media addiction, but it’s well known that the apps were designed with the intention of being addictive. Are there areas of his life that are suffering?

Karisha: Here, Raina’s clarifying what she already saying, not diagnosing.

Makiko: Right, because we don’t diagnose. We’re not psychotherapists, we are hypnotherapists. But the thing is people do use these terms, very casually, the words like trauma, addiction, And so we need to clarify when a client or a potential client is using that kind of words to make sure that they’re not fully diagnosed.

Shiori tells Reina about Akimitsu not continuing with soccer which he used to love and getting antsy when he has to stay off his phone.

“He gets it taken away in class all the time. We are required to pick it up. And the school said we could wait as long as we wanted. But then he had a second phone taken away. And so we found out he and his friends have backups that they share.”

“Oh, how are his grades?”

“B’s and C’s. And he had a part-time job last summer he said he was fired from. But when I checked in later, they said he had quit.”

“Did you ask him about that?”

“I never got a straight answer. He said something like, that’s what they think.”

Reina says, “okay, so if this is all because of his social media usage, then it might be causing problems in his life. What have you tried so far?”

“We’ve taken away his phone and so has the school. In both situations, he had to do various things to get it back, which he was doing, but… Now there are backup phones, it seems impossible to keep him away from devices.”

Since Akimitsu doesn’t seem interested in sessions based on what we’ve heard so far, and since his mom Shiori is so agitated about him, Reina could recommend that Shiori do some sessions to help herself feel calmer. As everyone who’s ever had a relationship of any kind knows, one person’s anxiety can negatively influence others, and the only person we have any hope of controlling is ourselves.

Yeah. Absolutely. that is something that we kind of know, but often we don’t fully realize that we ourselves are the only person that we can control like fully. You can’t change others, even your kids.

Right. Exactly. And it’s hard enough to control ourselves.

She is really clearly very upset about the situation, which is quite understandable, considering that it’s about her own son.

Quite understandable, I can totally relate. Yeah. It’s about her son.

And so when someone is really very emotionally disturbed, it can have ripple effect, like you were saying. And so then it kind of creates this vicious cycle, because you’re already upset. And that has a ripple effect on others and then situation gets worse. And so it really does make sense for her to have a few sessions even maybe before Akimitsu can have a session, maybe.

It does.

Shiori tells Akimitsu she’s worried about him and he rolls his eyes. She asks if he’d be willing to talk to a hypnotherapist.

“About what?” He asks.

“Wait, you want me to be hypnotized?”

Shiori says “about needing to be on social media all the time, even in school.”

“I want to be on social media all the time.”

Shiori stops herself from saying the many angry thoughts that come to her mind. She has said them before and they didn’t help. Secretly, Akimitsu is intrigued by the idea of talking to a hypnotherapist, but he’s careful to hide that from her. He says he will do the phone consultation if his mom promises not to get mad if he doesn’t want to have a session.

At the start of the conversation, Reina tells him what she spoke to Shiori about, then asks what he thinks.

“She worries too much.” he says.

“If you did a session with me, what would you like to work on?”

So this could be a risky question, but no matter what someone says they want, it can be used to help them. I mean, especially risky question with teenagers or children. For example, like if someone wants to be able to fly, we might ask questions to find out

the benefit of flying might be for them, to see if we can bring that into their lives in another way.

Or if there’s something that they don’t like, say they don’t like doing their homework before playing games. If they name a requirement outside their control, because that’s the parents have decided, you’ve got to your homework before you play the games, then we can help them so it doesn’t bother them.

So say if a child said they would like to have the power of invisibility, we can always agree with them that that would be wonderful, because it would. But then we can rephrase and ask them, “what can we help you with that is possible?”

So this is kind of tricky because we have to meld the desire of the parent, the primary caretaker, and the child because the child needs to be willing. What we usually do is to take the information, especially in this case, we’re talking about a child and whatever they say as good information. It tells us something about the child. And we can always use that to our advantage, not the therapists’ advantage, but to the child and the therapist’s advantage to be able to use it effectively in a session to get what the child and the parent want. so, finding that balance is really very important, I think.

Right. Good point. Because the more we learn about the person, what excites them, what interests them, the better the sessions are going to be, the better the relationship is going to be.

Right. And another thing is, imagination, we use a lot of imagination in hypnotherapy, because the subconscious is all about images and the associations. So imagination is very important. And that’s what the children are so good at. So, we can definitely take advantage of that.

There’s a long silence and Reina tries again.

“How do you feel when you don’t have access to your phone or let’s just say any device? How do you feel when you don’t have access to a device?”

There’s another silence and then Akimitsu says, “bored.”

“If it’s okay with your mom, would you like to work on not feeling bored when you aren’t on a device?”

“Will I clack like a chicken?”

“Do you want to clack like a chicken?”

Akimitsu laughs, “I think I could do that on my own.”

Stage hypnosis is very different than hypnotherapy. Stage hypnotists are excellent at reading people and choosing volunteers who are very suggestible and who love being the center of attention and putting on a show. Similar to hypnotherapy though, no one says or does anything they don’t want to say or do. It’s just that the goal of stage hypnosis is of course entertainment and the goal of hypnotherapy is to improve your life.

Right. But it is very typical that people have this notion that, am I going to be forced to do or say something?? But that’s not hypnotherapy. That’s more stage hypnosis for fun and entertainment.

For volunteers that want to have fun.

Akimitsu and his parents agree that he can work on feeling less bored when he’s not on a device. On the drive home from his first session, he excitedly tells his dad Hiro about how he’s going to time himself for one minute once a day before he gets on his phone. He explains, “I’ll use my phone to time myself, but during that minute, I’ll sit there with my eyes closed and use my anchor which brings up fluorescent green lightning flashes and a strong feeling.”

“A strong feeling?”

“A feeling like, like of strength, you know?”

“And what is the anchor you mentioned?”

“It’s just called that because it anchors me.”

An anchor connects us to the state we desire. And it can be physical, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s unique to each person, so there’s endless options available. And it might not even be called an anchor. It has different names,

Right, it’s just one of the tools that we often use to really anchor yourself. And by using anchor, you can always remind yourself to bring back that particular state in everyday life. It’s quite useful.

Exactly. Very useful.

Later that night, Shiori and Hiro discuss how excited Akimitsu is. Both feel hopeful, even though pausing for one minute seems extremely minimal.

His parents are so supportive, I like them. And it’s true that a minute is very short, but like one of our instructors often said, every small change changes everything.

That’s true. And, especially I think the first step is very important because often it requires courage and strong motivation to take that first step because the first step is so new. And the first step doesn’t have to be a big step. It can be a small step or even a tiny step.

What’s really important is to take that initial step and then another and then another because that’s how we can build momentum.

After his next session, Akimitsu’s goal is to pause for one minute two times a day and to see if he can think of an activity to do with his friends outside. He goes beyond just thinking about it and arranges a casual game of soccer in the park.

Hypnosis is very successful with teenagers and even more so with children. It’s also helpful that this is a situation where the change to more time playing outside is enjoyable and it’s surely making him feel better in so many ways.

Absolutely. And so, you just said it, something, like playing outside is already enjoyable. I mean, he already knows that. And so it’s really not surprising that here Akimitsu went beyond just thinking about it, thinking of an activity and already made an arrangement with his friends.

And especially children up to the age of eight or nine, they’re basically like walking subconscious. So it is said that there is a filter between subconscious and conscious you know consciousness but that filter is not formed until about the age of eight or nine so that’s why they’re basically walking subconscious and that’s the reason children absorb everything like a sponge. And at the same time, trauma can also be created very easily for the very reason.

Right, so that’s why something that can seem very minor to an adult can be very serious to a child.

The soccer game is so much fun that he and his friends decide that whoever is available will meet every Sunday evening and they’ll either play soccer again or use the volleyball net if it’s free or maybe play flag football sometimes. The mood in the house is very high until Akimitsu gets his phone taken away again on a Thursday at school. He’s angry, expecting he won’t be allowed to go to the park Sunday and sits glowering at the table during dinner.

“Maybe you can talk to Ibara-san about how hard it is in school.” Hiro says quietly in Japanese.

“Who? Oh, Reina.” Akimitsu says back in English. His tone rude.

“Whatever.”

No one speaks for the rest of the meal.

Since Akimitsu doesn’t ask for his phone, they don’t pick it up. And on Saturday, when he requests an extra chore in exchange for being allowed to go to the park the next day, his parents agree, hiding their delight.

After his appointment with Reina on Monday, Akimitsu tells his dad, “I’m gonna try using the pause and my anchor at school. Although I still have to sit through the whole class after that. And dad, have you heard of the window of tolerance?”

Hiro says he hasn’t. Akimitsu proudly explains.

“So imagine a square, like a window shape. And if you’re inside that, then you’re doing good. And the more discomfort you can handle, like being bored or nervous about a test or something, then you’re kind of hanging out on the edges of your window of tolerance. And you don’t need as many defense mechanisms to be able to handle stuff like overusing social media or whatever. Well, that’s basically it. Cool, huh?”

Hiro agrees that it’s very cool.

“Reina has been helping me widen my window of tolerance and I’m getting really good at it. She’s very impressed.”

Hiro says that he’s also very impressed. Later, Akimitsu excitedly explains it all to his mom.

After school the next day, he tells his parents that using the pause in his anchor at school worked well. He says, “I think I can have my phone back and not use it in class. I also took notes on paper all day and my hand hurts. In some classes, I have to use my laptop, which makes it harder to focus on schoolwork.”

Akimitsu continues. “I finished my homework and turned it in online. Can I go to play basketball at the center?”

So the less comfortable we are with discomfort, the more we’ll rely on defense mechanisms. And defense mechanisms regularly involve an overuse of anything to the point where it negatively influences our life. And there’s some that are admired in many societies, including mine, like constantly going, going, going, because one feels uncomfortable stopping.

So basically, we’re talking about coping mechanism. So when we are facing stress or discomfort, then we try to cope with it. And so, how we cope with it is the defense mechanism, which we don’t want to overuse because it’s way too taxing on our systems.

Right. And there can be positive coping mechanisms, like, like the anchor that he’s using, you know, that’s a positive or breathing. And when we call them defense mechanisms, we’re usually talking about the negative side, the overuse of something like entertainment or alcohol or recreational drugs, things that, maybe are fine in moderation for us, but we’re using them to the point where they are negatively affecting our lives.

Thank you so much for joining us in Sunnyside. If you enjoyed your time with us, please click follow.

And if you’d like to contact us, our website link is included in the show notes. We welcome questions, compliments, and concerns.

You can also suggest topics and character types and we will consider including those in our future shows.

Yeah. We’d like to thank High Street Jack for providing our theme song. You can check out the band at highstreetjack.com.

The stories for A Raise of Light are written by Karisha.

And Makiko is the master of post-production, process management, and our website.