I’ve just ended a relationship of 19 years

I’ve broken up with social media.

It wasn’t dramatic. No injunctions… not even severing contact. Just a quiet, sad that the relationship had become… dysfunctional.

Because here’s the thing: my dopamine-addicted self was absolutely convinced I needed it. For marketing. I sell retreats, like everyone else that I seem to virtually connect with.

Let’s go back to the day I spent hours—hours—crafting a thoughtful, heartfelt video about Horse Meditation. It was beautiful. Deep. Meaningful. The kind of thing that might gently shift someone’s nervous system back into harmony.

Twenty likes.

Twenty.

And then, one cold winter’s day, Stan farted.

Fifteen thousand likes.

Fifteen. Thousand.

Stan, for clarity, is a horse. A noble creature. A spiritual being. Apparently also a viral bio hazard.

That was the moment something inside me snapped—like a rusty old bike chain falling off.

Because if my life’s work—something rooted in healing, connection, and genuine transformation—was being outperformed by equine flatulence, then perhaps I was playing the wrong game entirely.

And let’s talk about the “marketing” argument for a moment.

I can count, on one hand, the number of actual retreat bookings that have come through Instagram. And I run 40 retreats a year…

Because the truth is: people don’t stumble into this work because of a well-timed reel. They come because something in them calls for it. They start searching. They follow a thread. They feel their way there.

You don’t accidentally end up on a Silent Retreat with horses. That’s not a casual Tuesday decision.

So why was I performing for an audience that wasn’t even my audience?

At some point, I remembered something a teacher once said about relationships:

To understand whether something belongs in your life, ask yourself—how am I in this relationship?

And that stopped me.

Because in my relationship with social media, I had become… not my favourite version of myself.

I found myself scrolling through waves of outrage, quietly judging people for being angry and unpleasant… while simultaneously feeling quite angry and unpleasant myself.

I didn’t act on it—my internal moral compass is annoyingly intact—but I felt it. That low-level irritation. That subtle hardening.

So instead, I did something arguably worse: I read other people’s nasty comments for entertainment. A sort of second-hand catharsis.

Like emotional junk food.

And afterwards? I didn’t feel better. I felt slightly ill. Drained. Done in.

It all started to blur together—social media, TV, sugar, consumerism, adverts. Noise layered on noise. A constant low hum of “you need more, you are not enough, buy this, fix that.”

And then I’d go and sit with my horses.

And need absolutely nothing.

It’s obvious how complete that feeling is. And I shouldn’t have to ricochet from one feeling to its polar counterpart.

Put me in a field with them, and I’m practically the Buddha.

Put me on Oxford Street in London, and I become a sort of overstimulated, spiritually confused gremlin.

I don’t need encouragement to consume more noise. I need less.

Also—slight logistical issue—if I’m going to teach Silent Retreats, it does feel mildly hypocritical to be glued to a device the rest of the time.

Silence isn’t just the absence of talking. It’s the absence of intrusion. Of constant input. Of other people’s thoughts marching through your mind uninvited.

Because that’s what I started to notice most: my own thinking was getting… crowded.

There’s a quote by Schopenhauer that landed with me like a small, philosophical slap:

A thought can advance your life in the right direction only when it answers questions which were asked by your soul.

And I realised—I hadn’t been listening to my own questions. I’d been allowing someone else to drive my chariot.

I’d been filling the space before they even had a chance to arise.

When your mind is constantly occupied with other people’s opinions, ideas, outrage, humour, brilliance, nonsense… there’s no room left for your own original thought. Your own quiet knowing.

And that, for me, is the real loss. As soon as I look at the damned thing, my ideas stop. Not just my ideas, my insights and inspiration. If someone came along and said, “I’m now going to do something to you to halt your creativity,” you would call the police.

Instead of focusing on creating 4 pieces instagram content per week, I want, no need, to focus on a deeper and richer flow of creativity; to express myself creatively over a long period of time.

Social media is designed to distract you from this. So I still upload pictures from my retreat every so often. But I don’t have the wretched thing available on my phone.

If you gave up injecting crack into your eyeballs, you wouldn’t keep your drug dealers phone stored in your contacts, would you. And, Lordy, do I feel better.

Because what I actually want—what I’m properly, deeply interested in—is learning how to be more myself. More aligned. More honest. More connected to whatever it is I’m here to do.

You don’t find that in a scroll.

You find that in the gaps.

In the quiet.

In the slightly uncomfortable, unfilled spaces where your own thoughts start to surface again—tentatively at first, like shy woodland animals returning after a storm.

So I’ve stepped away.

Not because social media is evil or wrong or bad. But because, for me, it had become a relationship where I didn’t like who I was being.

And honestly? If people want to come and sit with horses, to reconnect, to soften, to listen—they’ll find their way.

They always do.

Stan, meanwhile, remains available for appearances.

Though I can’t promise he’ll perform on cue.

Look out for the brand new super-health retreat The Tao of Alchemy and Horses for heartfelt health and rejuvenation.