Candace Nassar (00:00)
Well, welcome Sandy. I’m so glad and honored to have you on the show today. You have such a powerful ministry that encourages and equips overwhelmed Christian moms to thrive in every aspect of motherhood. And that is so aligned with our heart here at MomQ that I just think this is going to be a great conversation. And I know our listeners are going to be really blessed. So again, just welcome to you. Thank you for being here.
Sandy Cooper (00:25)
Thank you so much. I am really excited about this conversation.
Candace Nassar (00:28)
great. So to start us off, I’d love for you to just tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and help them to get to know you a little bit better. And then you can tell us what first led you into ministry for moms.
Sandy Cooper (00:41)
Yeah, okay, so, basically, I’m a mom first.
I have four kids. My oldest son passed away when he was nine months old. And then I went on to have three more kids. My daughter, Rebecca, is 26. She got married in March. So I have a son-in-law, which, that is such a fun stage of parenting. I didn’t even know what to expect with that, but it’s way fun. It’s so great to have another boy. And then I have a son who is 24, and I have another daughter.
Candace Nassar (01:03)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Cooper (01:13)
who is 18. The two youngest came to us through adoption and so my 24 year old was a domestic adoption. My 18 year old was an international adoption. She’s from Guatemala and yeah, I love adoption so much. I want everyone to adopt. I just love it.
Candace Nassar (01:30)
Beautiful.
Candace Nassar (01:33)
Mm-hmm. Mm.
Sandy Cooper (01:36)
You know, I came to ministry for moms. It was really just a very organic thing. I never like set out and thought, I just want to minister to moms. was more me, just inviting the women in my neighborhood when I had babies to come over and study something together in scripture. you mentioned that you, before we hit record, that you were, you came to Jesus in during a Bible study that had childcare. And that is exactly what I did. I asked a girl from our church if she would watch the little ones in the house next door. My neighbor and I did it together. And I just, I just wrote out a study.
so young. I didn’t even know what I was doing. And I went and put flyers in mailboxes and invited all the moms that I knew in the neighborhood and they came and I just wanted to provide, like an oasis for them to like a break. And I lit candles and made something. I don’t know. I don’t even remember what I did. It was just but that’s how I got started. And from there it just it just grew. I kept doing things in my home and serving in my church and
Candace Nassar (02:19)
Wow.
Sandy Cooper (02:42)
I ran the children’s ministry for a long time. I was a women’s ministry leader for a long time. And then, you know, when blogging came out, I was like, I love to write so much. I could do that. I started doing that and then podcasting and wrote books. And, you know, it just continues to evolve. I don’t know what’s next in terms of technology, but I’ll probably try it. So, yeah, just keep just let it keep evolving naturally.
Candace Nassar (03:08)
So good. Yeah. You just, you, kept saying yes, right. And, then, and then you found your, your sweet spot, I guess is where your heart really was; is, is to moms and in women’s ministry. So, yeah, that’s great. And all the, you do a lot, Sandy, as I’m listening and reading about you, I’m like, girl, you’re busy.
Sandy Cooper (03:09)
Yeah. Yes, totally.
Sandy Cooper (03:16)
Yeah.
Sandy Cooper (03:21)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, OK, so to address the busyness, I just want to say I just sent my youngest to college. And so a lot of things that she literally just left like a month ago. And so I am now for the first time ever in 21 years of having kids in school and 26 years. Well, if you count Noah, 28 years of having babies in my house.
I am now free to just like run with all this stuff, but I have just been working in the cracks. You know what I mean? Like when you’re a mom, you have to just find the cracks of time. So I never want to give the illusion that, you know, I am just, I’m just killing it in every area. And I’m just like getting so much done. There were many seasons, long seasons where I laid everything down for a long time.
Candace Nassar (04:04)
Mm-hmm.
Candace Nassar (04:22)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Cooper (04:23)
months and months at a time where I’d be like, can’t write right now. I can’t, you know, I’m taking a break from the podcast for the summer. I’m taking a break. I always take a break over the holidays. I big giant breaks like for real breaks, not like pseudo breaks. I break. One of the things that I decided very early on is I was not going to be one of those content creators who gave the illusion of always being there and like doing everything ahead of time.
so that there was never a break from my content. I always, when I took a break, I would go dark and I would say, I am taking a break because I want you to know I need breaks. I never wanted the people, because I serve overwhelmed moms. If they think I never stop, how is that a good example? I’m not leading them well. So I let them know just to let you know I’m stopping now. yeah, and you’re also, when you look at my website, you’re seeing
Candace Nassar (05:10)
That’s really good.
Sandy Cooper (05:15)
something I’ve been building since 2008. You know, that didn’t happen last week. It was, or even in the last year. It’s been a long time building that, so.
Candace Nassar (05:18)
Wow. Yeah.
Candace Nassar (05:24)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And just your faithfulness to continue. I mean, you took breaks, but you came back, and God blessed all of that. So that’s great. I mean, that’s really a picture of motherhood, that there’s seasons where our kids have to be our priority. I mean, that’s God’s gift to us. That’s what we have been called to do. And then we also have our purpose that He’s given us and weaving that in.
Sandy Cooper (05:31)
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
Sandy Cooper (05:48)
Sure, right.
Candace Nassar (05:50)
I appreciate your example, so thank you. Okay, so what we’re really talking about today, the main thing, is social media and writing off social media. You have a whole podcast about that. so we really want to dive into that. So what role, let’s talk about what role social media played in your life, both professionally and personally.
Sandy Cooper (05:52)
Thanks, thanks.
Sandy Cooper (05:59)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Cooper (06:02)
Yes.
Sandy Cooper (06:10)
Yeah, so I opened my first social media account in 2008, which was the same time I started blogging. And at the time I had an eight year old, a six year old, and a newly adopted one year old. So like, I don’t know where I had the time to do blogging and social media, but somewhere I found the time to add like two more hours to every day and start diving into this. And at the time there were two things that were like, immediately evident when I opened up Facebook.
in 2008. was new, new for the people at large. You know, it had already been in campuses for a while, but for us, people like us, it was pretty new. And so two things were immediately evident. One is that every single person that I have ever known was there. And second, it was a really cool place to share my writing because people would see it and they would read it and then they would share it.
Candace Nassar (06:41)
Sure.
Sandy Cooper (07:00)
And so it was like a win-win for me at the time. It was awesome. I literally looked for every person that I could think that I wanted to get back in touch with, like childhood friends, high school friends. Like it was awesome. And so I dove all in. mean, right out of the gate, I was in. And it wasn’t long before publishers and…
Candace Nassar (07:10)
Right.
Sandy Cooper (07:21)
literary agents, they started taking notice of people on social media, writers in particular, and I was pursuing traditional publication at the time, and so it was really important to me to build there so that publishers would want me. That was the metric that, yeah, yeah, it was the only metric they were using at the time. It used to be followers on your blog, and then it switched over to social media followers, and so, and for a while that was a really
Candace Nassar (07:37)
Yeah, it’s credibility. It’s credibility.
Sandy Cooper (07:48)
good metric because the followers, know, before there was a big algorithm change, I can nerd out on you a lot on social media, it’s all I talk about, but in 2018 there was an algorithm change on Facebook in particular, and it changed the way content was shown to people. But prior to that, you basically saw the people you followed in the order that they followed.
that they posted. And it was a very organic growth. And so it was great. And so I started, once I realized publishers and agents were looking at that metric, I set out to hit a number of followers that I was told I needed. And I opened everything. I opened Pinterest and Instagram and Twitter, and I went all in on everything. And of course, at the same time,
Candace Nassar (02:21)
Mmm.
Sandy Cooper (08:41)
everyone I know personally is also on all of those things, mostly on Facebook at the time. And every group I was in, every group my kids were in, you know, they’re growing up with this and everything has a corresponding Facebook group that I now have to be a part of. And I’m paying actual like cash money to be part of writers groups to learn more about writing.
Candace Nassar (08:53)
Right.
Sandy Cooper (09:06)
By 2016, that was all I did. I was just on social media constantly, either personally or professionally, and it was all enmeshed, it was all intertwined. I couldn’t separate it from anything. I couldn’t separate it from my life. And that’s basically how I lived from 2008, increasingly so, until 2019, for 11 years.
Candace Nassar (09:31)
So that’s when you went off social media as 2019.
Sandy Cooper (09:33)
And in the summer of 2019, I attended a writers conference to pitch the book that I was about to write. And I’m sitting in this conference and all the numbers that I had been shooting for had quadruple, not even quadruple, had exponentially increased by like hundreds of thousands of people they were now expecting you to have. And I was sitting there going, I can’t do this anymore. Like I was giving it my all.
Candace Nassar (09:59)
huh.
Mmm.
Sandy Cooper (10:00)
And I was still falling short and the target was moving and I thought, can’t do this anymore. And so I came home and I had been, if you look through my journals, one time I tabbed all the places in my journals, I’m a big journaler. And I tabbed all the places where I was praying to God about my social media usage and just how I felt like it was affecting me and asking God if I…
Candace Nassar (10:14)
same.
Candace Nassar (10:19)
Mm.
Sandy Cooper (10:25)
could leave or did I need to stay or is there another way? I mean, if you saw my stack of journals and the hundreds of tabs where I was just crying out to God almost constantly about this. And so after that conference, I came home and that was, you know, in July or whatever. I came home for a couple months and I was just like, God, I don’t know what I can’t do it anymore. it September 11th, 2019, I’m listening to a podcast and
Candace Nassar (10:36)
Mm.
Sandy Cooper (10:52)
it’s a writing podcast and the host of that podcast said, it was a podcast actually about which social media platform you should use depending on your skills, you know, like what’s best for you. I mean, at that point I’m still trying to like, am I just using the wrong one? Like maybe I’m just doing it wrong. And so I’m actively still trying to engage with these platforms and
Candace Nassar (11:04)
Mm.
Candace Nassar (11:11)
Mmm.
Sandy Cooper (11:17)
he said something in that podcast and he said if you are a writer who wants to, who is, who needs to write a book and you’re considering which platform to use, the best thing for you to do is to get off social media and go write your book. And I had never heard anyone in the writing industry say that for sure. Like in 2019 no one in the writing industry was saying get off social media.
They were all saying, too bad, so sad. This is the hard part of your job. Suck it up. Like, just do it. everybody has a hard part of their job. You just have to do this if it’s hard for you. And I literally turned off that podcast, went over to my computer, wrote an exit post, posted it everywhere. And I said, I am taking a year off. I’m going to write my book. And an
Candace Nassar (11:45)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Candace Nassar (11:59)
Wow.
Sandy Cooper (12:04)
I did, I took the year off and after that, well, I’ll just say this, I took the year off when that was actually, I didn’t realize, you know, of course the pandemic was going to be happening because it happened during that time. Also the 2020 elections were ramping up during that time. And so I didn’t wanna come back in September because I wanted to wait till the elections were over because I knew it was gonna be volatile.
Candace Nassar (12:29)
Mmm.
Sandy Cooper (12:29)
I had no idea how volatile it was until I came back. And of course, all the pandemic stuff, people were arguing about masks and vaccines and it was just a mess. And so I stayed off a little bit longer, but I came back after I finished writing my book and it was, I self-published it and I wanted to promote the book and I was really excited to come back. And I was like, I missed it. I’m going all in. I have new boundaries. I can do this. I came back. I started promoting my book.
Candace Nassar (12:36)
yeah.
Sandy Cooper (12:55)
And it was just a matter of like a couple days. And I thought, my gosh, I hate it here. Like, gosh, I hate it. I don’t. My life was so much better off this. I don’t need this. I don’t want this. And I went to the Lord and I said, can I please leave? Like, can I please leave? And it wasn’t like a thus saith the Lord moment, Sandy, get the off social media. But it was just a gentle peace.
Candace Nassar (13:00)
Yeah.
Sandy Cooper (13:20)
that the Lord, I felt the Lord say to me, yes, and we can find another way. And I was like, okay, good. And so on March 18th, 2021. I shut everything down. I haven’t been back since. Yeah.
Candace Nassar (13:31)
Yeah, that’s amazing. So obviously you had felt like it was kind of become an idol in your life. Is that really the ultimate thing?
Sandy Cooper (13:41)
Hmm. Yeah, yeah, it wasn’t even that I idolized it. It’s like I felt trapped. I felt like I wasn’t allowed to leave. yes, and because of how entrenched I was with the kids. And, you know, and I was like taking culinary classes and they had like a cooking group and I was paying money to be part of writing groups and I didn’t know how to untangle it all.
Candace Nassar (13:46)
Trapped. Yeah, yeah, because of your profession, for sure.
Candace Nassar (13:53)
Mmm.
Sandy Cooper (14:05)
And there were hundreds of people in my family. I have a huge family. My husband and I both come from families, seven kids. And so everyone’s married with all their kids. And that was the main way I was keeping in touch with them. I didn’t know, my kids were on social media at the time, my two older ones. So I didn’t know how, what do I do with that? I have to watch them, they’re my kids. I need to monitor, they’re teenagers here. And so it was so complicated for me.
very, very complicated for me.
Candace Nassar (16:36)
Yeah. And I can see that it was just robbing you of peace. So after you made that decision, first of all, I love how trusting you were that you kept praying about it. And it’s so hard to, I know I get it because we have social media too, and you feel like you have to do these things. But I know that moms feel the same way. They have to do these things because of like you’re saying, the kids, the information for the kids.
Sandy Cooper (14:39)
my gosh, yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Sandy Cooper (14:53)
Mm-hmm.
Candace Nassar (15:03)
and then just staying on top of the trends and all the things. And, yeah, I actually have my daughter-in-law as a social media influencer. Yes. And, and I have a granddaughter. It’s just, yes, it’s so entrenched in our world today. And yet it robs us of so much joy and peace and we don’t see a way out. And I love that you prayed and you prayed over it. And even though you felt like your profession was dependent on it.
Sandy Cooper (15:10)
Yes, of course she is.
Sandy Cooper (15:17)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Candace Nassar (15:30)
You decided I can trust you, God. I can trust you to do what I think social media is doing for me. And obviously that’s what happened. yeah. So tell us about once you got off of it, how, you know, how did you, how was life?
Sandy Cooper (15:38)
Yes.
for sure.
Sandy Cooper (15:46)
Yeah, so I think the big exit for me was that September 11th exit because when I came back for that little while, was such a short period of time. And then when I left the second time, I don’t think anyone was shocked. But the first time, that’s really where the big change happened because I did it just like, I’m done, I’m done. But that first couple days,
Candace Nassar (16:08)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Cooper (16:12)
I left things open. I didn’t just shut it all down right away, but I left things open for a while because I got this influx of writers, particularly in my writing group. There were, you know, probably 4,000 people in that group at the time, that Facebook group, who when I posted that I was leaving for a year in the name of writing, that I had hundreds of people reach out to me.
And so it immediately was affirming. Like, okay, I’m not the only one feeling this. This is a thing. Like, writers feel trapped. And a lot of people had questions. They wanted to know how am I doing this? And so I had already kind of set myself up. Well, I had taken so many breaks, I guess, in the past. I kept trying to break because, you know, that’s what they tell you to do. Take a break and then come back and then everything will be better. Well, you know.
Candace Nassar (16:44)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Cooper (17:03)
Social media is addictive. It’s designed to be addictive. We know this now. We didn’t know this in 2019. They weren’t telling us this in 2019, but we know this now. And so it was like me trying to get off a drug and then come back and I’m just gonna have a little bit of the drug. And you I just couldn’t. There was no halfway. So for me, the immediate effects of being off were so affirming because so many people
Candace Nassar (17:22)
Yeah.
Sandy Cooper (17:30)
sent me messages of like, I wish I could do that too. I admire you so much. This is really brave. And I thought that’s really funny that this is what we consider bravery. I mean, that people really wanna be off, but they didn’t know how and they thought that it was really brave of me to take this step. So that was the first thing. And I think the second thing was just immediately I was spending an average of two hours a day.
on social media between it’s average, it’s average. That’s right. The average person spends two hours a day. I think it’s like two and a half now is what they say. So I had whittled it down. I was trying so hard to be smart about what I was doing. And so I had whittled it down to such a small, you know, and that was across like personal and professional. That’s how much time I was spending. So immediately I had two hours to devote to writing my book.
Candace Nassar (17:57)
which is really kind of low.
Sandy Cooper (18:23)
which is immediately what I did. I just thought I’m not going to, you know, it’s like your budget. You know, if you get a raise, all of a sudden you find yourself like you’re, just absorbs into your budget and you’re buying toilet paper at Target. You know, you don’t even know what you, unless you take that money and, you put it in a special account and use it just for that thing, you’re gonna, it’s just gonna absorb. So I didn’t want that to happen. I was afraid that would happen.
So I immediately redirected that two hours a day to writing and, we ended up moving that year right in the middle of pandemic. And so that, you my time got taken up there. But since then, my goodness, I’ve like I’ve written another book. I’ve I started a second podcast and a business I have. So I mean, I am not. I don’t miss it in case you’re wondering. No, there’s nothing. There is never a day, I promise you.
Candace Nassar (19:06)
That’s what I was wanting to know. Yeah.
Sandy Cooper (19:14)
There is never a day that I think, I miss social media. Never, zero times. I forget sometimes that it exists until someone tells me or asks me if I saw something and I’m like, right, people are still using Instagram, I forgot. Like truly, it’s so out of my life at this point.
Candace Nassar (19:28)
Yeah, yeah. That’s yeah, that’s and so let’s talk about this, the impact on moms and their ministry. What it we know that when we’re looking at social media, for the most part, we’re comparing ourselves. It’s keeping us from being content. It’s confusing our identity. How can we navigate?
Sandy Cooper (19:37)
Yeah. Yeah.
Candace Nassar (19:51)
And you also have a quiz on your website, which I loved, which was really good to help you figure out, you know, do you need to get off social media? How much of a role is it playing in your life? So let’s just talk about what do you see in your ministry as to these moms that are overwhelmed? How much is that social media affecting that?
Sandy Cooper (20:08)
Yeah, so before I really started talking publicly about leaving social media, I mean, I had always told my followers about my journey, but before I started to like make it a thing, I wanted to know, is this affecting other people the way it’s also affecting me? And so I surveyed my followers and I was shocked at how many people were struggling with social media because one of the lies of social media and really a lie of the enemy, when he’s using social media for this. I don’t think everything about social media is evil, so just to be clear.
But I do think the enemy really speaks to moms in this way, is he’s like, you’re the only one who struggles with this. Everyone else can figure it out, look at her. I mean, look at these beautiful posts, look at that beautiful video, look at that. And so he’ll make you feel like you are the only one.
But I assure you, you’re not. When I took the survey of my listeners and my followers, 81 % of them said their biggest problem with social media was that time suck. Like they could not believe how much time they spent on social media. Several of my followers, there was a percentage, maybe 10%, said that they were spending four or more hours a day. These are moms, these are overwhelmed moms. These aren’t just, like these are moms who already feel so…
Candace Nassar (21:09)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Cooper (21:25)
overwhelmed just with their, you know, daily tasks and the responsibilities of motherhood, which is just an overwhelming thing. And so that was a huge thing. But the thing I want to talk about with the comparison, and this is this is everybody mentions comparison with social media. But I think what they don’t understand is how the comparison actually works, because it’s not just.
Sandy looking at Candice’s feed and thinking, I wish that I was like Candice because she’s so cool, which you are, by the way. But it’s not just that. It’s it’s that. OK, so I look at Candice and then I scroll and I see Jenny is growing vegetables and I see Mary Kay is on a field trip with her kids. And, you know, Julie is on a romantic getaway with her husband. And, you know, Susan is.
redesigning her bathroom and you know and you’re just scrolling through and what we do as women is we take all of those things and we morph them into one person and we she doesn’t exist this person who’s doing the romantic getaway and hanging out with her kids and growing her own vegetables and redoing her bathroom she’s not one person but it our heads our brains do that
Candace Nassar (22:41)
Hmm.
Sandy Cooper (22:40)
and suddenly we are comparing ourselves to that fictional woman and that is that’s a disaster like there is no coming back from that and I don’t know for me, I had to get off like I don’t know how to manage that I don’t know, I do think that there’s a very small percentage of people that
Candace Nassar (22:54)
Yeah.
Sandy Cooper (23:01)
have a healthy relationship with social media. There is a very small percentage based on the quiz results that I’ve had on my, I’ve had that quiz running for a couple of years. Based on that, a small percentage come out healthy, but overwhelmingly, most of them either have a rocky relationship, need to take a break, or they need to get off altogether.
Candace Nassar (23:20)
You know, I, for me, I noticed that I completely agree with you as I, I just feel not good enough in general. If I spend too much time on social media, it’s just, I’m, failing in all categories. And so I have to put really good, strong limits on it and myself. And, and I can, I can pretty well do that, but
Sandy Cooper (23:26)
Yeah. Yeah.
Candace Nassar (23:40)
I don’t know a lot of things, you know, when I do that and people will say, did you hear about this or do you know that, or do you follow this person? And I’m like, no, I don’t. and, but you know what? It’s okay. It’s okay not to know. And people look at me crazy because I have, I have, I struggle with anxiety, Sandy, and it makes me anxious. And so I know I have to put it down. As soon as I start feeling my stomach tighten.
Sandy Cooper (23:45)
That’s right. Nope. Nope.
Sandy Cooper (23:53)
It’s okay.
Sandy Cooper (24:00)
Same.
Sandy Cooper (24:08)
Yep. Yep.
Candace Nassar (24:10)
It’s time to put it down. It’s time to, you know, just manage it. and you talk about finding balance in a lot of what you’re doing and you talk about good healthy eating and the spending time with the Lord, all of it. It’s so important. And we, how can we, if we’re spending our free time scrolling, there’s no way, there’s no way we’re going to have balance.
Sandy Cooper (24:14)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Cooper (24:29)
No, one of the most compelling concepts for me that comes, it’s a scriptural concept, but there’s not a scripture that says this specifically, but basically what you pay attention to is who you are becoming. And so is, it’s so important that we pay attention where we pay attention, what we pay attention to, because it’s forming us.
Candace Nassar (24:44)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Cooper (24:55)
It’s forming and that was the thing that really, that second time when I came back with my new resolve and my new boundaries and my fresh off my one year break and my new book and I’m like, okay, I got this, I can do this. When I saw the volatile discussion was happening within my good Christian people that I was following, my family, like people I love otherwise.
Candace Nassar (25:18)
Mm.
Sandy Cooper (25:21)
It was all, everyone was engaging in this vault and I thought, I cannot have this shaping my mind. I cannot. I can’t. And so, I think a lot of moms really struggle with their thought life, you know? And just like what you said, like if you already have a propensity toward anxiety or depression,
Candace Nassar (25:27)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Candace Nassar (25:37)
yeah.
Sandy Cooper (25:45)
Social media is not the place to be. There was a 2024 PubMed analysis of all the studies so far that have been done on social media and its effect on our mental health. And 80 % of the studies now show that spending time on social media makes us depressed, anxious, or lonely.
I’m just like, can’t get on board with that anymore. If there are people who feel like they’re called to be there, and I know some people who genuinely feel like they’re called to be there, and I say then, if you get off that’s disobedience to the Lord, you need to do what God is telling you to do, no matter what, no matter how hard it is, you need to do it. But that was not, I think most of us are not called to be there.
Candace Nassar (26:10)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sandy Cooper (26:31)
I think most of us are there because everyone’s there. This is the water we’re swimming in. We don’t know that there’s another way. And I’m here to tell you there is life outside of social media, a very vibrant, peaceful, wonderful life. People will still tell you stuff. I still heard all the news last week that happened around. I mean, I just, but I didn’t get it on social media. just, everyone told me. I have.
Candace Nassar (26:48)
same.
Sandy Cooper (26:53)
I have a Facebook ambassador, I call her. She’s my best friend. she is the one who, I’m like, if you ever see anything that you think I need to know, she was especially helpful when my kids were still in school because she was in the Facebook kids group. Yes. Yeah.
Candace Nassar (27:05)
That’s what I was going to ask you actually. That’s the one kind of thing that’s still in the back of my mind is how do you handle that because there’s so much information that you’re missing out for your kids. that’s a great idea. Have an ambassador.
Sandy Cooper (27:18)
You just, yeah, I crown you Facebook ambassador for me. Will you please just let me know if there’s anything here? And I will tell you, here’s two other really good ideas. If you don’t have an ambassador, if you are a recluse and you don’t have any friends, I’m being facetious, because I know everyone can at least appoint one ambassador. But if you can’t, or you don’t want to, you can either go to the club or the school and you can ask, is there another way I can receive this information?
Because what we’re finding more and more as more and more moms don’t want to spend their time on social media and they don’t want their kids on social media, the schools are coming up with, there’s other apps that they can share information. And so that’s the one thing you can go and be the change, you can suggest the change and you can research some other apps and say, hey, what if we used this instead of Facebook? And that’s the thing. The other thing you could do is you could,
Candace Nassar (27:52)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Cooper (28:12)
create a friendless account. you just, you have an account. You don’t follow anyone. You don’t friend anyone. It is only for your groups. And I did that when I first came back because my kids were all in school still. And I was in the cooking club and the writing club and all the things. So I whittled my Facebook. I actually unfriended. I used my own account, but I unfriended everyone and unfollowed everyone. But when I needed to go in and check something,
Candace Nassar (28:20)
Mm.
Sandy Cooper (28:37)
I would just go in really quick, check the thing, but there’s nothing in my feed. There was exactly, exactly. So those would be, they’re very practical, real suggestions that I actually use in the women that I know who get off social media. They do one of those three things. Yeah.
Candace Nassar (28:41)
Yeah, can’t get sucked in. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Candace Nassar (28:53)
That’s great. You know, was just thinking about just yesterday, I had a big mom Q gathering meeting and it was, it was great, but for some reason I felt very drained and came home and you know, I wanted to get, I started to get on social media as I was eating my lunch, but I wasn’t really feeling great. And I needed, I needed God to fill me up and I’m like, you know what? I’m going to put this down and I’m going to pick up my Bible.
Sandy Cooper (29:16)
Yeah.
Sandy Cooper (29:20)
There you go. That’s right.
Candace Nassar (29:21)
and I’m going to read scripture. And I read the Psalms. I forget which one I was in, but it was just about praising God and just acknowledging His greatness. And Sandy, after I did that, I felt so much better. And I would not have had that if I’d gone into social media. It would have drug me into a whole spiral.
Sandy Cooper (29:34)
Right.
Sandy Cooper (29:42)
Of course, and everybody knows exactly what you mean when you say that because it happens to all of us. Like you are not alone. That’s how it’s designed. We’re up against, I think that was one of the things that was the most shocking to me is when I actually realized I wanted to start talking about this for real to other moms. And I just did a deep dive into all the research. I read all the books, not all the books, but I read like 11 books. I listened to hundreds of hours of podcasts. I just wanted to understand the industry.
And what I learned in a nutshell is there is a multi-billion dollar industry that hires its best technicians to create technology to addict you and keep you on the platform because your attention is their fuel and that’s how they make money. Period. That’s what it is. And so
Candace Nassar (30:31)
Yeah.
Sandy Cooper (30:32)
It’s you’re up against it is a David and Goliath situation. You are up against. it’s not a fight. But all the people who say it’s just a tool and I’m like, no, actually, it’s not just a tool because I don’t know anyone addicted to their toaster or their screwdriver. Like you go you use the tool you get in you get out it’s what it is. But it doesn’t have this luring effect that will suck 30 minutes and drain your mental.
Candace Nassar (30:36)
Mmm.
Sandy Cooper (30:58)
low capacity. You know, it’s just it there is not another it’s not a tool. It is not neutral. It is very intentional to keep you there. That’s how it’s designed. So it’s not it’s and again, it’s not to say if you’re called and I want to make sure I make this point because I’m not telling you if you feel called to be there. I want you to be there because I don’t I want you to obey the Lord if if he’s called you to be there. He’s walking with you. He’s equipping you. He’s protecting you and I trust that
Candace Nassar (30:59)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sandy Cooper (31:26)
Lord can handle that. Like I just know he can. But if you don’t and you’re listening and you’re thinking, I really feel like I you know might need a break, then take a break. Just like take a break.
Candace Nassar (31:37)
Mm-hmm. And see how you do. See how you feel. Mm-hmm. And pray over it. mean, it’s, you know, I love that you’re giving permission for, you there are people that can handle it, but like, I feel like most of us can’t, like you said. And so as we’re praying over it, you know, I’m thinking one of the verses that was popping into my head is, he who is in me is greater than he who is in the world. And I just think about, you know, we think I can’t do that.
Sandy Cooper (31:40
That’s right. That’s right. Of course.
Sandy Cooper (32:01)
Hmm.
Candace Nassar (32:05)
you it’s too hard or whatever, but actually, no, if God is calling you to do it, then you can do it. And you’re a great example because we, we see that, you know, not only did you get off social media, but then he called you into a whole new ministry where you have a two podcasts and one of them is on writing off social media to help authors find a way to promote themselves without it. So he can do it.
Sandy Cooper (32:19)
Right.
Sandy Cooper (32:28)
That’s right. He can do it. That’s right.
Candace Nassar (32:30)
And it’s just, it’s just trust. It’s a big, big trust, but he will hold your hand through it. So, wow. Well, Sandy, this has been such a great conversation. I really appreciate you. Is there anything as you know, if a mom’s listening today and she feels trapped and just really afraid, but longs for freedom, what would you say to her?
Sandy Cooper (32:34)
It is.
Sandy Cooper (32:40)
Hmm.
Sandy Cooper (32:51)
I would say, first of all, there is always freedom in Christ. There is no such thing. When you’re a believer, there is no such thing as a necessary evil. There’s no, and that’s the word I hear a lot out there. Social media is just the necessary evil. And I’m like, no, actually, as a believer, there’s no such thing. And if you desire to get off the platforms, you are allowed to leave. You are allowed.
And I know that God is able to sustain you. I know that God is able to give you the peace. know that he can make sure that you, you know, God knows everyone. And so if you’re worried about staying connected, there are alternate ways to connect with everyone. I have voxer chats, I have, you know, group texts, I call people, we meet in person. I mean, I am not. Yeah.
Candace Nassar (33:40)
Yeah, there’s a concept. Me in person, right?
Sandy Cooper (33:43)
Exactly! I’m not off of social media, you are not resigning yourself to living in obscurity for the rest of your life, I promise. However, God, if Jesus is calling you to go just take a leap of faith, I promise you, he will not disappoint. This is how we build our faith. It wouldn’t be faith if we thought we could just do it on our own.
So we trust him, we take his hand, we take a break, distance yourself from the platform for a period of time. I used to say for at least a week, I now suggest 30 days. That is my new, I think you need to do it for at least 30 days because you have to get past the instinctive checking your phone, checking your phone, checking your phone, checking, because that takes a couple of days. And then you have to feel the emptiness for a little bit.
Candace Nassar (34:06)
Amen.
Sandy Cooper (34:32)
And then you can see clearly how the platform was affecting you. And you can see clearly whether or not you want to dive back in. I am just living proof, if you need any help, if you just want to email me and say, Sandy, here’s my issue with social media. What should I do? I will field all those emails. I love talking to people about this. So.
Candace Nassar (34:56)
Mm. Mm.
Sandy Cooper (34:58)
But I know you can trust the Lord. I know you can trust the Lord. Yeah. Yeah.
Candace Nassar (35:00)
Yes. Amen. Love it. Yes. And we will put all of your great information in our show notes. You have multiple resources for moms to help with the overwhelm and getting off writing off social media is a piece, a big piece of that. So we just thank you. I thank you for your bravery, for your courage, for your ministry. It’s been great to have you.
Sandy Cooper (35:25)
Hmm. Thank you. Thank you. It’s so great to be here and thank you for what you’re doing as well.
Candace Nassar (35:28)
You bet.