I’m still on hiatus but this felt necessary. This intermission episode explores how social media and the attention economy have subtly trained us to equate metrics with meaning, output with worth, and visibility with existence, often without us realizing it. Over time, this conditioning leads to social media burnout, digital fatigue, and a constant pressure to perform.

This is a think-piece episode and an invitation to slow down and examine why we create, why we post, and who benefits from our constant production and performance. We’ll question:

• Why we feel pressured to constantly create and perform
• How productivity became proof of relevance
• Who actually profits from our attention and exhaustion

As we approach a tipping point in the attention economy and the emergence of a new paradigm, discernment, self-inquiry, and self-awareness are more important than ever. They’re how we protect our energy, reclaim our agency, and choose consciously rather than reactively.

This episode invites you to reclaim your attention, step out of fear-based loops, and return to something more intentional, grounded, and human.

If you’ve been feeling:

• Drained by social media but unsure why
• Tired of being marketed to at every turn
• Pressure to stay visible just to stay relevant
• A quiet sense that something about all of this feels off

…this episode is for you.

You can check out the substack article I referenced here - "You are not your Output & You Don’t Owe Substack or Social Media Anything"

Before I take a hiatus from the podcast, I'm closing out Season 2 with my most immersive episode yet, recorded lakeside, like you’re right there having coffee with me. 🌊☕

I’m diving deep into why the world needs dreamers right now, and why you’ve gotta be just a little bit “delulu” to manifest the life you really want. In this finale, I share:

• Bold predictions for the next 10–20 years
• Why logic will never get you to your wildest dreams
• How manifestation goes way beyond “happy thoughts”
• The raw story of my latest anxiety spiral and how it revealed the final boss I’ve been battling all along: fear of loss and how I time-traveled to heal it
• The link between rooting out limiting beliefs and finally being able to hold joy and abundance
• What it takes to keep believing when the external doesn’t match the internal
• The many examples of my current reality where the external says I'm "failing" and why I'm choosing faith over fear

And I wrap it all up with a collective oracle card pull for what’s coming next...because this story is only just beginning.

For more content, you can follow me:

On Instagram - @mavmalone

On Substack - Mentally I'm Here

For this milestone 50th episode (!!), I’m sharing why Jake and I chose to step away from the America’s Favorite Couple contest, even after making it to the quarterfinals. What looked like a “loss” turned out to be a bigger win: a chance to honor my integrity, align with who I’m becoming, and trust that the universe always knows best.

In this episode, I:

💫 Reflect on the lessons behind our decision and why not every opportunity is meant to be pursued.

💫 Reframe rejection as redirection (and share how you can too).

💫 Read my poem “Top Down, Bottom’s Up”—a reminder to stand firmly in your power.

💫 Launch a new segment reclaiming the acronym AFC, now standing for Amplifying Fierce Community—and highlight Amanda Dzimianski’s stunning new poetry collection Something Hungry Just Woke Up.

This conversation is all about integrity, alignment, and celebrating the unexpected wins hidden inside every “no.”

If you'd like to dive deeper and read the full Substack article on my experience with Colossal's America's Favorite Couple contest, you can read that here: ⁠America’s Favorite Couple Contest: People’s Choice or Privileged Choice? ⁠

To purchase ⁠Amanda Dzimianski's⁠ book Something Hungry Just Woke Up, you can choose from the below retailer (and we suggest using Bookshop.org to support local bookstores):

• ⁠Bookshop.org⁠
• ⁠Barnes & Noble⁠
• ⁠Amazon⁠ (womp womp.)