Why Social Media Triggers Your FOMO (...and what to do about it)
Episode 269
Ever wonder why social media posts about food, fashion, or travel get so much love, while the deep stuff barely gets a like? In this episode, Dr. Nicole and Dr. Nick get real about what’s actually behind our scrolling habits, how moving to Italy flipped their perspective, and why living in alignment with your values—not someone else’s Instagram highlight reel—is the real flex. They dig into the difference between “should” and “want,” how to turn envy into inspiration, and why it’s time to stop waiting for “someday” to start living. #LiveYourValues #IntentionalLiving #SocialMediaTruth #FamilyLegacy #AuthenticLiving #ConsciousChoices #InspiredAction #ItalyLife #IntegrativeYou #MindfulScrolling 3 Key Takeaways: Social media is a mirror: What grabs your attention online is usually a reflection of what you crave or suppress in real life. Instead of feeling “less than,” use it as feedback to uncover what you truly want. Living in alignment beats living for the ‘gram: The most fulfilling choices come from knowing your own (and your family’s) values—not copying someone else’s journey or highlight reel. Don’t wait for permission to live: Whether it’s moving to Italy or just making time for joy, stop playing the “I can’t because…” game. Anything is possible when you decide your desires are worth acting on. Quotes: “You can sit there and say, good for them, I wish I could do that—and further that scarcity—or you can say, I’m going to make that happen because anything is possible.” “If you think you can or you think you can’t, either way, you’re right.” Find Integrative You Radio On: Website Youtube Apple Spotify 2 Doctors Committed to Innovating the Healthcare Experience. Integrative You Radio is hosted by husband-and-wife duo, Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers. With their voracious curiosity for Integrative Medicine, the Human Mind, Aligned Parenting, and Entrepreneurship, they bring a fresh perspective to the table. They aim to debunk the BS that is holding you back
Topics: social, media, integrative, living, values, because, unknown, family
Key takeaways from this episode
- ## Show Notes: Why Social Media Triggers Your FOMO (...and what to do about it)
- Social media often reflects what you crave or suppress in your own life; use it as feedback to identify your true desires.
- Prioritize living in alignment with your personal and family values over chasing an idealized online persona.
- Stop delaying your dreams and take inspired action towards your desires, rather than waiting for an elusive "someday."
- Shift your mindset from scarcity to possibility by recognizing that what you believe you can achieve directly impacts your reality.
Pull quotes
This is the place where you become limitless. **Unknown:** We are covering the latest and greatest topics, of course, in a disruptive fashion, around integrative medicine, mental health, and human behavior.
We will be sprinkling in some truth bombs for our healthpreneurs so they can join us in our mission to evolve healthcare.
If you are health curious and growth focused, you are in the right place, but buckle up because this is real, this is raw, and this is disruptive. **Unknown:** This is Integrative U Radio.
Transcript
**Unknown:** Welcome to Integrative U Radio, hosted by Dr. Nick Carruthers and yours truly, Dr. Nicole Rivera. This is the place where you become limitless.
**Unknown:** We are covering the latest and greatest topics, of course, in a disruptive fashion, around integrative medicine, mental health, and human behavior. We are also covering how those topics affect the human and family dynamics. We will be sprinkling in some truth bombs for our healthpreneurs so they can join us in our mission to evolve healthcare. If you are health curious and growth focused, you are in the right place, but buckle up because this is real, this is raw, and this is disruptive.
**Unknown:** This is Integrative U Radio. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Integrative U Radio. For those of you joining us on YouTube, you are now...
**Unknown:** Literally the, the lighting in front of me was perfect, and now I'm being blinded by the sun, so here we are. But we're gonna roll with it until it makes my eyes hurt. We have, uh, Dr. Nick here, and we're talking about, uh, a little bit about our experience in moving to Italy, but just a different perspective on it, and primarily it was stimulated by actually a social media post that I saw, and honestly, a bit of my personal experience on social media.
**Unknown:** But for those of you that know her or don't, Lori Harder, she's a, a, I don't wanna call her an influencer. She does have a, a big following, but she does a lot of business coaching with her husband, and she puts a lot of really great content out there when it comes to business development, personal development. And I sent her a DM just being like, "Hey, girl, I feel you," because she, she posted something saying, "Hey, guys, you know, I've been looking at my stats here, and the most engagement that I'm getting is when I post about my, my clothing or fashion." And I was laughing because we have a similar experience when we're looking at the statistics of our social media is, you know, we pour our so- heart and soul into this amazing content and podcast, et cetera, and it's usually when we post different things about Quentin, we post food that we eat here in Italy. I was gonna say- ...
**Unknown:** 100% food, but I mean, it's also- And the sights ... Italian food. So... And it was, uh, it was just very funny because she's just like, "Listen, I hear you.
**Unknown:** I'm gonna, I'm gonna now blend my, my fashion passion with, with amazing content so I can give you both benefits." And, you know, as content producers, we can look at this from two different perspectives. Like, we can look at this from the glass half empty and say, "Oh, gosh, people don't care about in-depth topics. They just care about, you know, fashion and, and superficial desires and beauty and glamorous events." I know, listen, I'm saying this very vulnerably because in the past that would've been my, you know, my response of like, "People don't care about their health. They just care about, you know, things." And really at the end of the day, Nick and I started having a conversation about this, and what we realized, and this is partly stems from our move to Italy, is that the things that people are engaging with on social platforms are depictions or real-life captures of people living.
**Unknown:** Just like living life. Or, or the assumption, yeah, yeah, that it's gonna give them the, the feeling of living, you know? Yeah. It's...
**Unknown:** It, it was interesting when you said that, and I, like, stopped and think. I'm like, "Well, yeah, that makes perfect sense," because people, you know, doesn't matter if you're... Any time that you're not experiencing, like, being in the moment, it's you want to experience being in the moment, and most of the time we're not in the moment 'cause we're judging the past or, you know, wanting and desiring something in the future. So when we're scrolling mindlessly through the social media, it's like unconsciously that's what we're trying to do.
**Unknown:** It's like we're trying to experience living in the moment while not being in the moment, as funny as that sounds. You know, it's funny because our very good friend Bailey was here, and you probably have no idea what direction I'm going with this right now, but Bailey loves to tell the story of how, um, I finally told her like, uh, I don't even know, maybe a month or a couple of months in to our friendship that I told her when I first met her I didn't like her. She loves to tell everyone that story. And, uh, I bring this up primarily because the reason why I didn't like, quote-unquote, "like her" when I first met her is because she came into our office, you know, we were networking, just meeting each other as entrepreneurs in the New Jersey area, and she was talking about her...
**Unknown:** She just got back from California and, you know, she talked a little bit about how she does a lot of traveling. She splits time in three different places through the year and this and that. And in that moment in, in my life, you know, we both were in it together, but we had a business, we had a brick-and-mortar, you know, there was a l- a lack of freedom de-For many different reasons, but partly because, you know, we had this business, we were growing a business, we had bills to pay and, and whatnot. And I bring this up primarily because when we scroll on social media, we need to get out...
**Unknown:** W- we need to get away from that train of thinking of, "Oh, good for you with that. I can't afford those clothes. I can't afford to travel. I don't have time to travel.
**Unknown:** I can't travel, I have four kids." We could play that game and turn in, turn the desire into a, um, a void, like a deficit, or we can look at it and say, "Wow, this is a feedback mechanism to show me the parts of me or the parts of life that I'm suppressing because I, quote unquote, have things to do and bills to pay and a job to have." Well, and I would say it's not, it's not necessarily a bad thing looking at it as everything's half truth, 'cause it shows awareness, uh, which is amazing. But the... I think the sad truth of it is, is like how many times do we have to go through getting that awareness to make a change? 'Cause we just, we're like, "Oh, you know, let's escape to this.
**Unknown:** This is gonna make my life better." You know, whether it's a true thing that, you know, I should turn that into a goal and stop putting my time on social media and actually start achieving the, the micro steps to achieve this goal. I got that awareness initially from, you know, a lack of sensation through social media, or is it just, you know, I'm escaping to get this dopamine, um, detachment. And, you know, anything that we understand through that psychosomatic model, it's like if you're detaching from your life, well, you're just telling yourself that you don't love yourself enough to be in it, so you're going to do something to detach from it. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** And that has a lot of negative side effects. Well, I think it goes back to the phrase if you think you can or you think you can't, either way you're right. And, you know, it comes down to if we're, if we're scrolling and we are attracted to the fashion, and you have to ask yourself, you know, are you attracted to the fashion because you want to, uh, you know, you, you wanna have certain clothes that, quote unquote, "make you," uh, viewed that you have a specific status? Or do you like fashion because, you know, that would get you up and get you out of your house, get you feeling confident to go out and have conversations and network and engage, and dance on a bar?
**Unknown:** I don't know. That's right. Uh, you know, are you attracted to food, but you're more so attracted to food from different cultures, and it's because at the root of it you really wanna travel, you wanna experience different places and experience, you know, uh, different forms of, of dining. You know, I think that's one of the things that we were attracted to in, in Italy.
**Unknown:** It wasn't about just the food, it was about the experience of the food. And, you know, when you're, when you're navigating, you can either... It's exac- it's exactly what you're saying, I'm just saying it in a different way, is you can sit there and say, "Good for them. I wish I could do that," and, and further that scarcity.
**Unknown:** Or you can say, "I'm gonna make that happen." Because anything is possible. You know, you can, we can play the game of, "Well, it's really hard to travel with kids." There are families that that's what they do. They're g- they... There's a whole, if you, if you go in and type it into social media, there are traveling families.
**Unknown:** They're traveling, some of them are traveling with up to five kids, six kids, and like that's their lifestyle. So it's all possible, but it's really just a matter of are you going to take the action steps in order to bring it to life. And, you know, and obviously you bring it to life if, if it's a, if it's a big enough want, desire, or, or even void I guess you can say. So it's like we need to stop putting these limitations on ourselves of I can't, because what the fuck are you waiting for?
**Unknown:** You know, we did a podcast- Well, I'd say the other... ... about the people that retire that they say, "Oh, I'm gonna... I'm waiting till I retire," and then they get sick or they die.
**Unknown:** The statistics are crazy with that. I think one of the biggest things that's holds us back from the I can is, um, pertaining to social media, is going through and it's like, "Oh, I could do that, and I can do that, and I can do that." And you can doing something, but not doing something pretty much strengthens the opposite side as well of you not being able to do something. And you could, if you could do those things, the only reason you're not is because it's actually not in alignment for you, otherwise you'd be doing it. So then you look at, okay, well, I'm not doing something.
**Unknown:** I said I could be doing something, but that's actually creating the brakes on what I should be doing, but I'm not. Yes. Should and want are, are two very, very different things. But, you know, w- kind of circling this back to the, the bigger picture of what we're talking about of this idea of living, you know, th- this is piggybacking off of the should and the wants and the have tos, is m- so many of us, and us as well, we are speaking about ourselves in, in this context, is-Not only were we living a life of doing/achieving, but that's what we felt like we had to do.
**Unknown:** Like, that was the normal, you know? Y- I- I don't know about the audience, but I didn't really grow up with language or dialogue that life is about living and fun and enjoyment and pleasure and experience. Like, I grew up with the mindset that life is hard, life is a struggle, and you have to do things that you don't always wanna do because that's what life is. And I, and I- Sounds- We're millennials ...
**Unknown:** sounds like something I wanna sign up for. Yeah. Well, we- ... talked about this a little bit too, you know.
**Unknown:** I- I'll take two of those, please. Can I take... Put me down for two. Well, we were, we were talking about the divide of we're millennials, our parents were boomers, and we were talking about the Gen Z-ers in a previous podcast.
**Unknown:** And we were, we were talking about the divide because the, the hustle, work your nine to five, you know, get your pension and get your retirement. And, and w- like that, that was so polarized and it created a lot of unhappy, unhealthy people that the Gen Z-ers just watched, and they go, "I'm not fucking doing that." Like, no, I'm good. And especially- The Gen Z-ers remind me of that scene of, uh, Sandra Bullock in The Heat when she- ... flips off and all the other cops and she's like, "Jerks, you're just a bunch of..." Jerks.
**Unknown:** You shit jerks. Shit jerks. Love that movie. Um- Oh, my God.
**Unknown:** But yeah, but it's, it's just, you know, I, I'm not saying the Gen Z-ers have it figured out by any means. But I think that they're- Yeah ... they're leveraging these online platforms like YouTube and social media and TikTok. Um, you know, they wanna be influencers because they want freedom and they wanna be able to not just dedicate their whole lives to working.
**Unknown:** They actually wanna live. And, and I, I'm not saying if you ask the general g- Gen Z-er that's the exact verbiage coming out of their mouth. But if you look at the big picture, the grand scheme of things, that's really what it comes down to. And, you know, since we've moved to Italy, of course, we have so many people reach out to us of like, "You're my inspiration.
**Unknown:** I've wanted to do that. It's on my list. I'm gonna make it happen in 10 years." And people are saying these things. And, and again, it goes back to that desire of I want to live.
**Unknown:** I wanna experience. I'm tired of just doing and going and never-ending to-do lists. Yeah. And that doesn't mean you have to move, you know, across the world to achieve that.
**Unknown:** But if that's in alignment with, with you as well as with the family, then yeah. Like, when you look at families, big families, any families that travel, they go through pain. We all go through pain. But the only reason they're doing it is because that pain isn't bigger than the joy they get out of traveling.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. So, and be- that joy is because that's serving the family's values and the parents' values. So if traveling isn't connected to a high value or what you get out of traveling isn't connected to a high value and you go travel with a family 'cause that's what you're supposed to do, et cetera, well, there's gonna be... It's not gonna be worth it.
**Unknown:** There's gonna be a lot of pain. So it's, it's not just scrolling through and like, "Oh, my God, that looks like it would be amazing." Reground yourself and be like, "Well, this could be," and looks like, looks like. It's just a picture. God knows what's really happening.
**Unknown:** But this looks like they're living an authentic great life. Awesome. We can ex- we can still feel that joy through them, which is also awesome. But that doesn't mean we should make that how we create our joy.
**Unknown:** And I think- Yeah ... that's a big misunderstanding for people is like, oh, that's how they receive joy. You know, I've been taught if I wanna receive joy, just do what somebody else does. Well, yeah, you can do that in a business to make money, et cetera, but that's still wrong, um, based on our philosophy, 'cause your business is just a representation of you.
**Unknown:** So if you're creating a business built off of how somebody else created it, it's probably not gonna be in alignment with your vision. Um, different story. But raising a fa- No, I think it's, I think it's relevant, for sure ... raising a family, raising a family is the same way, you know?
**Unknown:** It's just like look how maybe somebody created and achieved that authentic alignment and they're expressing themselves and they're, you know, grateful more times than not. Like, what did they do to achieve that? Don't do the same things. You're a different person.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. But there's also the, what you're talking about, you know, this idea of, uh, you know, making big, bold decisions that are aligned. You know, we, w- the, the foundation that we use is knowing our values, and then we brought it together to know our family's values. And so when you have that data point, you can, you can make big, bold decisions like we did moving to Italy, uh, because you y- you're able to n- to know, wow, okay, these are the values that I have.
**Unknown:** Y- these are the values you have. These are the values of the family. And you can evaluate different places and different environments and different cultures to see what matches up. And, and then it makes it, it, it makes a big, bold decision- And listen, listen to the universe ...
**Unknown:** more of a confident decision. 'Cause, you know, not all struggles are created the same. But usually when you're in alignment, the universe is gonna give you an easier path. Yes.
**Unknown:** And s- And- ... signs, opportunities. Yeah. But you can't go into any of thisWith the idea that it's one-sided.
**Unknown:** You know, we would've been-- we would've really been disappointed if we thought we're just gonna move to Italy... Because this is, this is definitely a theme on social media because, of course, now I'm in the algorithm, all these Italian accounts, and the accounts are showing, like, everyth- the scenery is amazing, the sea is amazing, the food is amazing, the people are amazing. They just show all of the really, really good sides of Italy. And don't get me wrong, Italy's fantastic.
**Unknown:** But if we were to think that we were gonna come here and everything was gonna be smooth, we would've set ourselves up for pretty big disappointment. You know, navigating our visas has not been easy. Navigating language has not been easy. Just navigating how to find fucking fabric softener in the grocery store was super hard in the first month.
**Unknown:** Like, you're in a grocery store, you're like, "I don't know what any of this means. Is this for the dishwasher or is this for the toilet?" Like, I don't know. Nick still messes stuff up. It w- I was washing the laundry with Pava Bende- I get, I get humbled quite often ...
**Unknown:** which is for the floor. I get humbled quite often here. So, you know, there are things, like, things that you don't think about in your native culture because, like because you know the language, because you know the customs, because you know what a grocery store has to offer. You go to other places in the world, and it's completely different.
**Unknown:** You know? The, like, you don't-- there are n- no superstores. There's no, there's no Walmart. There's nothing like that.
**Unknown:** So anyway, the, the point that we're making here is that, you know, sometimes if you feel unsettled, it, it's-- and you're looking through social media, and you, you start to feel kinda like shit because you're just like, "Oh, that would be nice. I wish I could afford those clothes. Oh, I wish I could travel. Oh, that would be nice.
**Unknown:** I've never been o- overseas in my life." Like, if you're playing that game, like, take the step back. What do you-- how do you always say it? Um, like, get the subjectivity- Well- ... out.
**Unknown:** Be objective. Like, look at it as a scientist. Ask, ask a question first because that's, that's, A, what all scientists do is just ask questions. But asking a question takes you out of the limbic system of being reactive into the forebrain where you process answering questions.
**Unknown:** So I always say-- Actually, I say, "Well, this is interesting." Um, and that's just a pause. It's not really a question, but that gives me a moment to set up a, a very healthy question. Um, so you can just ask a question. I usually just say, "This is interesting," 'cause that creates a pause for me to ask a specific question.
**Unknown:** Yeah. And, and it allows you to ask the questions to get better insight, you know? This isn't just, "Oh, this isn't for you. You're not meant to have this." You're being, you're being attracted to something, and you're telling yourself that you can't have it because you have too much shit to do.
**Unknown:** You're too busy. You have too much on your plate. You have a job. You have kids.
**Unknown:** You have a family. You have this and that. You know, and, and going back to this idea of the values, this can sound horrible to some people, but I'm gonna just go there anyway because this is real, raw, and vulnerable. But, you know, N- Nick and I looked at our values, and, and we looked at also, on the flip side, like, some of the things that-- I, I probably did this more than Nick, but some of the things that stressed me out in the US, like, I, I was so sick of having to overthink about food.
**Unknown:** I was so sick of feeling stressed by... Like, I love going out to dinner, but it was, like, stressful because I knew I was gonna be swollen. I knew my stomach was gonna hurt. I knew I was gonna feel like crap.
**Unknown:** And but I did it anyway because I wanted the experience, and I wanted to have quality conversations with friends. And so there were, there were certain things that were taking my energy, and then there were certain things that I desired. When I was looking on social media, when I-- when we talk about these, like, triggers or where you find yourself playing that guilt, shame, or comparison game, I was looking at people that were traveling and thinking, like-- getting mad. Like, "Why am I doing that?
**Unknown:** I don't have that freedom right now." And so looking at my, my values, my values, some of them include experience. Um, it includes quality conversations. It includes fun in nature, expansive experiences, e- or expansive adventures. And I started realizing after visiting Italy that there was a lot of my values that would be fulfilled.
**Unknown:** And as much as I value family, I left behind family, m- mom, dad, sister, brother. And you know, it-- for those that go ahead and, and do their values, if your highest value or one of your highest i- is not just your immediate family but your extended family, picking up and moving to another country might not feel good, even though it checks off other boxes. And, you know, when we came here, our, our-- it's still in progress, but our thought is, how can we set our lives up here so that it's an open door for family to come, you know? So we're not-- it's not that we're abandoning that part.
**Unknown:** It's important to us. But we knew that we could be the best versions of ourselves and do the best for our kids if we were living in our values. Yeah, you just try to constantly look at what's gonna create the best environment for you. And, you know, I think nothing is just bad or just good.
**Unknown:** It's how you use it, you know? I always say, like, guns don't kill people. It's the user behind it. You know, social media can provide great things.
**Unknown:** It can provide, uh, a lot of awareness of what's going on in the world that we don't see, both the good and the bad, based on what platform and what algorithm's creating that platform. Um, but yeah. I would say, you know, it's always a higher level of awareness, a higher level of living, um, to create your transitions. And I think this might be the last part of this little conversation of social media, um, is that if you wanna use it, use it.
**Unknown:** But have an intent of your transition going into it. Like, before you even pick up y- your phone, your tablet, whatever you're using, like have an intent of really what you're trying to discover, what you're trying to use. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, it sounds funny, but set a time limit, but not on a phone, not on a computer.
**Unknown:** Just be like, "I'm gonna spend 15 minutes. I'm gonna spend five minutes. I'm gonna spend..." Just, just say it out loud, set it to yourself, and energetically they'll be there, and they will, like, you'll have some type of clue or feeling saying like, "I'm good. I, I don't need any more." If you continue after that, well, there's a shame on you and a shame on me, uh, aspect to it.
**Unknown:** You know? You can overindulge in anything. So have an intent. Get clarity of what you want to receive out of it.
**Unknown:** Uh, and then hopefully that algorithm's working for you. Yeah, and I think the, the last thing I'll say is just thinking about what is going to promote more energy and inspiration opposed to detract it. Um, you know, if you're a business owner and you're looking at other businesses, you know, the question I would always ask is, you know, is this providing value, or is this actually detracting me from my uniqueness factor? You know, the whole book that was written about the blue zones, or not blue zones.
**Unknown:** I'm sorry. Blue ocean, uh, ver- versus red ocean. You know, are you gonna put yourself in the saturated ocean where you look like a different version of what everybody else is doing, or are you going to strive to be the bo- most unique, bold in your market? And, you know, that is, that is something that I think that a lot of us entrepreneurs can get really caught up with.
**Unknown:** And, And the same thing goes for all of these other aspects that we're talking about is, you know, is social media... I- if it is detracting energy, then go ahead and use the tools in this podcast. Ask the questions and, and try to decipher what the feedback is and how it can then be transferred to more inspirational, aligned action. 'Cause it is telling you something.
**Unknown:** So I think that this is a huge topic because social media can either create opportunity, or it could be a huge distraction and detraction. Boom. All right, guys. See you next time.
**Unknown:** We thank you so much for being an avid listener of Integrative U Radio, formerly known as Integrative Wellness Radio. We appreciate all of your support. We love your comments. Please visit us on social media as well as our website to see all of the fun things happening behind the scenes and the new amazing content and courses that is being rolled out on a monthly basis.
**Unknown:** We hope to see you there.
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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