What to do if your Instagram Account is hacked

Grab your Heart with both hands and we take you through our founder Coka's experience of having her beloved Instagram account hacked, held to ransom for $500USD by international criminals and ultimately stolen from her and YogaTribe® forever.

Please re-join as at the new reborn @yogatribeoflove 

This account was more than social media. It was born and grew up within 5 years of work and dedication. It catalogued the evolutionary history of YogaTribe® and its sustainable Eco Yoga Product range, while embracing a 17,3k following within the arms of its beautiful Tribal Community of Love. 

******************************************************************

"Tuesday morning I woke up with the news that my business account @yogatribeofficial had been hacked and deleted from Instagram . I was confused by the fact that all my followers and hard work of 5 years was no longer available. I couldn't find you all anywhere and was more confused every moment.

I felt that my heart was on hold for a couple of minutes…  It soon dropped further within myself when I opened my emails to see that I had received an email called “Instagram account hacked!”. The realization flooded through me. It was painful! There it was - this was real - the account had been ceased.

These criminals had written to me at 1am to inform me with absolute clarity that my account was in their possession and fully under their control. They announced that they would allow me two hours to pay $500USD promising - if this was done - they would give me the account back.

I was sleeping when this email was received into my innocent email inbox.  , The account was already gone.

I closed my computer and I grabbed my phone to contact a dear friend who is really good with computers. He had a quick look and soon said “There is nothing I can do, sorry”

Next step was trying to contact Instagram. Have you seen something harder than this? There should be a joke about it, since otherwise you really feel you want to cry of frustration. But interesting enough, none of these emotions were arising in my field during this time.

It felt so awkward to not feel the feelings I thought I “should” be having….so I stopped. Stilled. And observed….watched them, almost searching for them; but as much as I waited, they never arrived. I waited for 3 days… and nothing.

I kept myself occupied by changing all sort of passwords in my computer and talking to people who had gone through something similar and listening to what they had to say and what they have and have not done. Taking few hopeless actions as well, mainly just trying to feel I was trying my best . The weird thing was that all this was done with such grace…there wasn't within me, any feelings of attachment to this account and underneath all there was, was something stronger pushing right back. It was the sense of “something extraordinary coming” and “everything happens for a reason”. But this time more than just a “cliche” thing to say, was a truth that I was experiencing.

Somehow I was blessed enough to jump from the expected reaction, straight to the big picture and I felt in every vein of my being that there was something there for us, something more that I didn’t know what it would look like …but I could certainly feel it.

Maybe this was simply a new beginning? The opportunity to reinvent ourselves? Or maybe simply the fact that I was given the opportunity to experience how it looks to not react the way I was expected to react with such a situation.. That was itself an amazing and extraordinary experience.

I know that to build an Instagram account organically these days is not easy. Instagram and Facebook have total control of what we see or not see, and the sense of community and authenticity is something hard to build on these platforms now. That makes me so sad as I knew our account was real followers and some of them will never find us again. They will never know unless this message reaches them that we did not abandon them. I did not step away or leave. I did not stop loving, caring and sharing. That is the greatest and heaviest loss of all to bare. 

The whole experience was a great opportunity to observe the behavior of the mind and observe how the idea of ”I“ decided to feed a thought that will take me to feel sad or down…and how I could, with another thought revert the situation.

A week later now and we haven’t managed to recovered the account, we have met few “angels” on the way who tried to help but so far it seems like @yogatribeofficial is gone forever .

We have now created a new account @yogatribeoflove that we invite you to support if you feel there could be something there for you too.

Today while I write this, the new account has 189 Followers. In me, there is a lot of fear, that I’m choosing every moment not feed. There is certainly also anxiety that there is maybe another message hidden in the experience that I’m not getting or responding to accordingly. This makes me release that I have been too hard on myself, that is ok to only stay still and navigate the emotions as they come and go and most importantly that everything has a TIME and a PLACE. Ultimately,  the right signs always come in the right time and in the right way.

For now, here we are sharing from our heart. The only place I know how to share, one thing though  I know now, is how to hold my heart with two hands knowing I have full control of what thoughts I allow to feed in and what emotions are worth spending more time with than others.

For now I choose love and love again… tell me if you find a better one to hang out with.

With love & gratitude

Coka