Getting away from our phone is a new layer of being by yourself. Going to the park with the dog or to the gym used to be enough to temporarily withdraw from the pressures and burdens of the day. Now….we go to the park and pull out our phone. I see others scrolling in between their weight sets 🤦♂️. Even if you successfully carve time and space away from the eyes of others, it can remain incredibly difficult to unplug from the maelstrom of the worlds fervent stream of consciousness sin your pocket.
Social media has been a remarkable instrument in developing the expected self/persona – that’s literally what it’s for. It asks us if we are wearing cool clothes and we going to the best places etc. In response to this, many people manufacture themselves to fit in.
We don’t yet know what the long-term consequences of this digital self-manufacturing are. What we do know though is that people feel compelled to make these communications and they connect to them, and are known by them.
To remain best version of humans that we can be, we need to get to a position where we can say:
‘I need to be more than this – I need to be able to step away from this pull, to get to a place where I can be calm and less dependent on these dopamine pumps and social validations’.
Humans have always had an emotional connection to the way they are validated. This is hugely exacerbated online in a way completely new to our species.
Wouldn’t it be great to get to a place where you can retreat from that for a couple of hours each day? Wouldn’t you be more well-round human if you could focus on self-improvement and self-nurture, or just surrender to activity that simply doesn’t matter?
Yes it’s nice to be connected and to receive validation. It’s also nice to be make money through our phones (I love my role as a counsellor and having the ability to be location-independent 🙃) but all of this is pointless if we neglect to nurture and allow ourselves to reset.
So, how do you reconnect to this pre-digital zone of restoration? Well…the first step is to consciously decide that you’re goin to have it.