Last year was my husband's 30th high school reunion. It had been on our calendar for months and I hadn't thought much about it.

But on Saturday morning, I woke up thinking... I have nothing to wear, what if no one talks to me, I can't believe I got a pimple on my chin...

And I realized that I was talking to myself like I was in high school!!! WTF?

This is classic emotional patterning, which is a habitual, often automatic, way of thinking, feeling, and reacting to life situations developed from your past experiences.

This patterning was created in my childhood to help me navigate my environment, but now it's just giving me social anxiety for no logical reason.

Thankfully, my meditation practice not only helps me realize that my anxiety is from emotional patterning and not actual fear of this event, but also helps retrain the neurons in my brain so I can feel safe in similar situations in the future.

Our brains are pretty amazing, right?

Deeper understanding of the root cause of why we react the way we do will give you the power to respond to the situation more accurately without anxiety.

If you're curious about starting a meditation practice to help you notice your emotional patterning to address anxiety, try mindful movement every Friday at 12 pm Eastern,

So what actually happened when I got to the reunion?

It was just a bunch of middle-aged people talking about their jobs, kids, aging parents, and reminiscing about old times. Nothing to have anxiety about...

... except for that one guy that had too much to drink, gave me a hug, and told me "you smell good." Haha!

Some things never change.

~Ming-Wai

I believe this had one of the largest and immediate impacts to my first few steps of my healing journey. The outside noise made it very difficult, if not impossible, for me to start to try to pinpoint my own voice. One of the ways I realized I had to get off social media was because of how I felt after using it.

Instagram was my go-to and I realized it would leave me with feelings of jealousy, confusion, hurt, and a lack of worth for where I was in my life. These were not ALL the feelings I had, I did enjoy Instagram for other reasons, however, Instagram is a tool, and I should only be using it if I’m enjoying it or find it helpful and resourceful in positive ways.

It is without doubt that my 1.5 years off social media did wonders for my mental and emotional health. I even believe I would be still off it if I wasn’t starting this business! But that’s the challenge and what we call life. I am now on a new journey discovering how I can use Instagram as a tool for business and still find balance in my life.

If you're interested in trying a social media detox, start with this article.