No longer living in tiny boxes.

[3-26-21]

I don't remember when it was, but a while ago, I decided to lose my phone. I was living in tiny square boxes, seeing my life through those boxes. It helps to watch documentaries about social media, but even before that, I knew something was off.

I watch my family always inches from their phones. I see them on the tv and their phone, on their computer and their phone, as though some invisible string keeps them tethered. It scares the shit out of me.

Addiction is addiction. Social media is not there for us, anyone who says they use it (and I still use it) and it doesn't affect them, perhaps doesn't have a grasp of how it is designed to manipulate us. (Watch Social Dilemma.) Once you know, you can't unknow it, and if we choose to use it, we should have all the information.

The kids joke now that if you need a ride, text Dave because mom won't know where her phone is and if you call her ringer is probably off. I text through my computer and I limit times that I'm on my phone. Losing the phone is vital for this, our phones are designed to make us pick them up, the rush we get just touching the screen to check the time, then ending up an hour in, lost, floating out of our lives.

I do run a shop on Instagram so I have days for that and I support other small businesses who use Instagram as much as I can, so I will do little check ins with them on days I run my shop. It is about the feeling I want more than anything. I love the ease of Instagram, I have to be incredibly intentional in how I use it so I don't get lost. I took months off so that I could decide how I wanted to return.

I used to see life through what could become a little square photo and words. I told myself I wasn't affected by it, that I used it well. Until you detox, you can't realize the scope of the intensity that one little device can have upon you.

I want my friends to hear my stories before they read them on Instagram. I want the people in my courses to know my truths and teachings before they become tiny boxes that an algorithm decides who will see it and how they will manipulate me to post more, to be on more, to give my time to building numbers because the world has decided it now values that.

I stopped drinking almost three years ago. In April I made the decision to quit, I slowly removed it from my life. One day I was done. It is hard to become sober and then not look every other addiction right in the eye. Money, love, food and the newest added to our pile, phones.

So I decided to lose my phone. In the mornings I drink coffee and stare out the windows or walk around the house and tend plants and fluff pillows. I day dream like I used to when I was young. I have gained so many more hours in a day that in the beginning I didn't know what to do with them.

I spend most of my time without podcasts or audio books or music or social media. I have become accustomed to my own company, to thoughts, to the sounds outside and in, to a slower pace and quieter needs than ever. There was so much noise, I had to relearn how to be with myself.

I had to practice being in life without thinking about it as tiny box material. I post now and then, I check in with some people who offer some beauty, and then I get off and go back to my life. Sometimes I find that without even thinking about it I'll go to look at one thing (like a shop update from someone) and before I know it, I'm lost in a thousand directions, because that is what it wants me to do. It takes incredible practice to be able to not get lost when you are there. Especially lost in other's lives or words or advice or beauty or anger or needs.

There are things I love about having a phone. There are things that terrify me. My job is to live in my life so that the collection of moments isn't a grid of tiny boxes, but a true sense that I was there, that I am here.

I am figuring it out. I don't have answers for anyone else, I just know that nothing fell apart. My business is strong. I feel more connected to my family. The time I now have has led me to simplifying other parts of my life and I just breathe better.

Do I worry about missing out, being left behind, becoming irrelevant? Yep. But I seem to remember those thoughts before I had a phone too. Many people say Instagram has replaced blogging for them. I know it did for me. So easy, simple. But what did we lose? I don't have answers, I'm just trying to figure it out for me.

A long time ago when I was studying business, a question came up, "What would you do if social media went away? Would you still have a business? Would you have a community built, connection that is unique to you?"

I'm forever grateful to be able to say yes. Yes, I do. It is you, on the other side of these words.

You who have allowed me to create a sustainable business. You who found me on the internet when I was a nursing mom typing her blog with one hand. You who came along with me for Joy Ups and cleanses and the magic. You who kept me going through my divorce and learning to be a single mom. You who allowed me to iterate over time, in all sorts of chaotic directions. You who send me little notes when something I write strikes you in a similar place. You.

In business we call it our list. But you are so much more than that. You are a safe place for my words to land, for my offers to be received, for my fears to be explored. You are an email away. You are who I devote myself to, each week when I sit down to type words, tell stories and show up in something so much deeper than a tiny box could ever offer.

I'm grateful. I'm here. I'm devoted.