After years of trying to squeeze myself into structures and boxes that simply didn’t fit, I finally decided to break free. As a comedian, speaker, and holistic health practitioner with 25+ years of experience, I mix side-splitting stand-up with deep wellness practices—like sound therapy—to help you kick burnout to the curb.
This blog is an honest, caffeinated, and unscripted guide to leaving the boxes behind, finding your creative soul, and becoming exactly who you were meant to be. Grab a coffee and let’s unravel the rules together!
Can someone survive without being on social media?
Why I am Cutting the Cord on Social Media
I am about to do the experiment. Cut the cord. Delete the accounts.
Maybe even go back to snail mail.
I have noticed some interesting trends on the platforms over this last year specifically, as I tried to create some of my most meaningful works. The main observation… crickets on all my social medias.
I am not moving needles, making gains. In short, I am not actually socializing on here. I could contemplate the “why” behind it, but it is not the point. (Unfiltered would be my guess.) (My self imposed alienation, my second guess.) (My inability to keep my mouth shut, my third.) The point is …consolidating my energy and my focus. Maintaining a calm nervous system is my only priority. And the medias jack it up.
The Impact of Algorithms on Mental Health
I never ever wanted to be on social media. I did so bc it was the way the comedy world was going and I managed to hold out until 2009. I hated every minute except that it brought me Mike. So if that was the goal, check and check. And check please!
I have crossed major things off my bucket list this last year and assumed I needed the medias. That said, me and the medias…were never really friends. I stuck with it from necessity.
Now I have to say, my spidey senses are waaaaaaay up with the pace of AI. And as I have been known to be the one to yell- the British are coming- long before it is seen as sane, I think it is a great idea to not be all over the place and easily accessible.
Counterintuitive to business? Maybe? Maybe crazy like a fox? I will still grow online with my youtube channel, blog and website. But social media platforms are merely amounting to be a distraction. I have noticed no benefit, in fact, only disturbing the calm, as the algorithm is designed to be.
So this time rather than take the safety net of deactivation -“what if I lose a memory, a photo, a contact… the fear…so just deactivate don’t delete!!!” Nah. No. No. I think I have everything I have needed to gain from this social experience. And the courage to delete vs deactivate is huge. I think I am ready now.
Moving Beyond the Online Popularity Contest
I can release the past and start a new future without a numbers game and popularity contest that it had become in this shallow pursuit of comedy. The surface dwellers are just not where I want to keep my spirit. And surface seems to be the MO on social media. Curated profiles to gin up the FOMO. Not healthy. Not even real.
I am not sad just clear. I forced myself to be here. I hated it. I am a sensitive soul and quite unfiltered. I am done contributing to the Zuckerberg’s of the world and their manipulations.
How to Stay Connected in Real Life
Instead, I will be focused on my youtube- A Talk with Teri G. and blog with same name. (Website under my name.) If you want to keep in touch, subscribe to my channel, email me or call me and we can meet up in real life.
I will leave this here for a minute so any of the friendlies who read my stuff will know I didn’t unfriend or block them. I think this will be best.
The Risks. The Rewards. Why AI Can’t Mimic the Comedic Soul.
I found out there are actually people who have called themselves “comics” but used AI to write their material. Huh? All I can say about that is, you will become a ghost to the machine. There will come a time where you will run out of the creative spark of genius you’re currently sourcing from the machine.
Your “person” will not share stages at levels where the real sparks of genuine creative spirit lives. A spirit birthed from a deep well of lived experience, accompanied with it’s compulsion to get it out of you, unfiltered but finessed, into a bit sized palatable form of bittersweet irony, always resting just under our noses THIS ENTIRE TIME!!!
The Transmutation of Pain into Laughter
And only a particularly skewed individual… one with a perspective, bore out of their unique path. Carved, distinct with sorrows ready to be transmuted into the light of laughter. Not even for the audience…if only comedians were that selfless. No, as a solace to the pain. So the creative soul could take on the charge of another day of the uphill, unkind, desperation of never landing the big payoff and accepting $50 for your set until you do. All while knowing…you probably never will.
You will never find the level of knee slapping comedy that comes from a human heart healing… or bitching about the pain. You will never come out with an all time greatest line ever said by the best comedian on the planet. You will not go down in history as a legend. You may temporarily impress some friends and get on some bro shows for a time period…but the machine can’t make art from the heart.
WARNING: This is not an anti AI rant.
Ok, I have found uses for AI, like in searches. Holy cow…the Google machine on crack. I have even paid a site $20 to create a handful of 5-10 second clips of the BEST cartoon versions of me. I mean, I down right love them.
BUT that was AFTER I went on Fiiver to find a real human that charged within my nickel and dime budget designed to create my one woman show – Outside the Box.
I love the entire clip and call it my own work. The components of the clip that are cartoon are the only AI part. I edited the entire clip together like puzzle pieces. Sound effects, music, all the other Canva promo stuff smashed up in one. AI couldn’t create that. I did, with some parts I bought from AI.
Is Artificial Intelligence the New Sugar?
Reminder…This is not an anti AI rant.
However, to say we “need” AI is a bit overstated.
No one needs AI just as no one needs sugar in the diet, yet sugar exists. And yes, one could argue sugar makes everything just a bit sweeter. Yet, consumed in large quantities, like most things, proven to be horrible for your health and well being.
I happen to believe – based on my personal experimentations- sugar is directly linked to your emotional swings. Once I cut down on sugar, I found when I would occasionally eat some ridiculously decadent sweet, say, around a holiday, and especially over the course of multiple days, I would spin out in a depression.
In fact, when I would diverge from the regular amount of coconut sugar stirred into my daily my coffee…nay…espresso…SSSs. Plural. Many. Many. Too many. I would notice an out of nowhere depressed state creeping into my body. Not the reliable depression I knew that accompanied the pursuit of comedy, an extra layer of tumult would arrive.
(PS) Coconut sugar is low glycemic, meaning it won’t spike your blood sugar…hello!!! And it is a delicious one for one alternative for cane or brown sugar!!!)
The Emotional Cost of the “Quick Sweetener”
I tested this annually and have now maintain fairly rigid amounts of sugar in my body system. And as much as the cookie may seem to taste good, it has not become worth the emotional cost. Sugar is not good for the body in any other way, other than taste. Besides that, the body has exactly zero need for sugar.
Carbohydrates…yes. That type of sugar the body uses with precision. The added sugars in our foods? 100% unnecessary.
So my point is…we don’t “need” AI. It has its positives. It can sweeten a situation perhaps in terms of time. That is unarguably beneficial, if you’re gaining time versus expending all of yours.
But we have survived without it, as with most of the luxuries and decadence we enjoy. An occasional desert, have at it…enjoyed with full awareness of the cost. And therein lies my concern…the capabilities which were designed to outperform a human brain.
It will.
It does currently. That is why they tout it. Replace a worker. Gain a salary. The boss, in particular, raves about AI. Yes, sitting high on a hog, for now.
I am witnessing, real time, the machine beginning to learn how to BECOME “the gamer” that birthed it in the first place. And there’s the rub my friend…along with the underlying issue.
Let’s be honest, isn’t that really always the issue? Men can’t give birth. AI is the closest thing to that type of creation, yet it is an imposter regardless. And just as they invented every religious dogma, they will again settle for the imposter.
The fuel behind the propaganda-esque messaging about “those who would say AI is a bad thing…” is out of alignment with the whole system. Also tracks with man. Still. A huge problem.
So…A little bit of sugar won’t take down the human body…but to create a sense of NEED? Well, that is false. Nobody NEEDS sugar.
Ants , am I right? What the actual. It’s appearance defies the odds. Even this very tiny one, can carry between 10 to 50 times its body weight.
How can something so practically invisible… insignificant…in the day to day hustle… have taken on that mission? Of that size? And for what? I honestly never would have paid it any mind except for… what is that? How is that …what is that a wing? My amazement at the audacity. A wing three or four million times its size. I don’t do math.
And yet…and yet. Though the strategy may seem questionable, the spirit is undeniable.
This ant saw the size of the mission and thought, yeah, I got this. Solo. Without question, picked it up, steadied itself and started out. Even the other ants in the video were screaming at the ant…yer nutz buddy! Who do you think you are?! Yer never gonna make it!
Why “Chicks” are Exclusively Superhuman…
Here’s a fun fact…female ants differ massively in strength, with male ants. Yeah. turns out chicks are way stronger. The great google machine said the “superhuman strength” of ants you see demonstrated here, are applied exclusively to females. Male ants are completely “unequipped for heavy lifting.” I didn’t say it. But I repeated it with a measure of glee for sure.
Leave that right there.
Where was I? Oh… the strategy may seem questionable, the spirit is strong.
Taking Risks and Building Unbreakable Self-Trust
There are moves you make and burdens you carry on paths of uncertainty. Yet, someone in that tribe needs that dang wing, so you do the damn thing. You look nuts. But something in your gut is drawing you to that oversized wing that probably no one is gonna like or want or know what to do with… but here it is.
You take risks for reasons unknown sometimes. You walk the line. Live on the edge, maybe to know you’re alive. And sure, maybe you’ll fall but you will have given it your all. Not screaming with fear from an edge you’ve never found enough courage to venture over. You have entered an unknown. A darkness and now have light. A new understanding of your limits. Your strengths.
It’s cliche to say the journey is the final destination. So I will say this: you’ve set out on your path and encounter something you think you can’t possibly take on. Something that seems crazy, maybe only makes sense to you. You are going to look like you have lost your mind if you carry this oversized wing from a dead insect back to the tribe. But this time you take the risk. Maybe someone wants the wing? Who knows? So you test your will, building up that primal strength to survive, to go beyond the bounds you have tested yourself in previously. You teeter in the sound of the whispers and faces full of laughs, but you don’t fail. You keep the mission. A mission to yourself. I am bringing this wing home to Marsha.
Is it about the wing? No. It’s about the essential trust in yourself, an unbreakable sense…that no matter the terrain on the path, You’ve got it.
That’s new. That level of trust in self. It’s the fact that you were moved to a mission and you did it. And found out that you could do it again. You indeed do have it in you. Have what it takes to carry an oversized mission to completion.
An Unexpected Reunion at a Local Health Food Store
I had the fortune to reconnect with someone from my area because he had opened a health food store in the middle of diabetes central. How this area has needed an alternative. How I wished for the money to open one myself. But that was not in the stars. Instead, I waited and one finally opened.
Falling Into the “Us vs. Them” Political Trap
Not the point. The point is, that it was someone I had lost touch with through the political landscape as we landed on opposing sides. How can that be? Here we stand wanting exactly the same thing…healthy options for our neighbors. A sense of a better life. A sense that you can make a difference. in your own life and the lives of others.
I forgot about the person behind his politics. And he forgot about mine. We knew each other once under a different umbrella. He came and laughed at my local comedy shows, as I made fun of the mannequins he had on the roof of his house. Yes. All true. Quite the character. We had familiarity. We had an inside joke. He was in my stand up routine and thereby went on the road with me in spirit. We were neighbors and neighborly in our region.
And then the designed “divide” was employed and worked like gangbusters, pitting once kind eyes towards each other into “us and thems.” And then even deeper into altering grammatical rules that I am still trying to adapt to but can’t. Like nails down a chalkboard to use improper grammar, but I will gladly call you as you wish as I have no dog in your fight. The point is…things got really f*cked up. And I was a part of the divide. Not proud of that. I couldn’t even see it until this reconnection from one week ago.
But I did. I saw the error in my ways. I saw how I was manipulated into thinking my neighbor was a bad guy for what he believed and where we differ. I was focused on what separated us. And now I see what that has gotten us. Stuck and sick and even worse off than before.
We have to stop. We can’t wait for circumstances outside our control. We need to reconnect to the person and not the politics. Or else we lose it all. All of us. Not one side. All of us.
Finding Common Ground in Community Health
We connected on the health of our bodies. We commiserated on the faulty design of the medical system that keeps you sick and ways to combat that sneaky trick created by big pharma. We became neighbors again, remembering why we liked each other in the first place.
I am now committed to seeing the person and not the politics until we return to the unified country we once were. And it starts in your own back yard.
