Your Phone is Your Ego — Here’s What to Do About it.
Your phone is a manifestation of all that is the worldly you. By recognizing this attachment you can reclaim your energy, and get to the heart of your struggles in life.
That phone you carry, the thing you CLING to, and take virtually everywhere, is a pretty good metaphor for your ego. Think about it. A phone tells you how to get places, it answers random questions that pop into your mind. Your phone distracts you from conversations, it interrupts movies. It’s basically the worst friend you’ve ever had.
We try and avoid so much of life by numbing ourselves with the “refresh” button on our apps. By tapping into the moment, you unlock that awakening. By engaging, rather than ignoring the things that so often derail our moods you judo-mind trick yourself into your life’s deeper meaning. You can more easily get through daily struggles by noticing instead of fighting them. By letting them be, and accepting them, you’ll find an elusive peace. This is the true meaning of “mindfulness.” It’s a letting go, a surrender.
Is being bored hard? Is scrolling Instagram and checking and re-checking your text messages more fun? Sure, but the rewards are far more exciting than any Twitter feed. If you learn to disassociate from your ego aka your phone, you will get to the heart of your life’s questions way faster. That’s wisdom you can take to the bank, years of your life you can save from being depressed, anxious, and overwhelmed.
WHAT YOU GET IN RETURN: AKA YOUR SOUL
Your soul, your essence, is WAY more incredible than the latest gif or meme. Your soul’s wit is sharper than any text, and your intelligence is far greater than any google search. The first step in breaking up with your phone is realizing this. You are formed perfectly, no operating “companion” is required. You have innate spiritual intelligence — every being on this earth does. This is your operating system, your “intelligence” and it’s far from artificial. What knowledge would you rather follow? Ability crafted by man, or one divinely transcribed? Exactly.
The key to breaking up with your phone begins with knowing why it’s essential and then understanding the extent of the problem.
EXERCISE: PHONE ANALYTICS
Ok, so prepare yourself, it will only hurt for a minute.
Ask yourself how much you spend time on the phone.
Go to the “digital well-being” option within settings that shows how you’ve been using your phone.
Compare steps one and two. How much time you thought you spent, vs. how much you really spent.
The goal is to show you how much dang time you spend on that thing. Because I practice what I preach, see the below usage for a random week in January.
I spent, on average, two hours on her phone each day. My top soul-sucking apps are Youtube (a shocking five hours a week), the “interwebs” at nearly three hours, and texts with almost two hours of my time.
So if you are a maths person, you’ll add that up to ten hours. Shocked? Let’s do something with this new information. Onward!
EXERCISE: REGAIN YOUR TIME
Begin by writing out how many “hours” you have to spend on your phone per week — using your average daily usage.
Now, write how you want to re-use that time on your phone. Start with a goal for the number of hours you spend, and then go from there. Exactly how much mindless scrolling do you want to preserve each week? What about catching up with friends by text? Or searching mindless queries on the web? Be very specific about what you are replacing all this phone time with.
Subtract 1 from 2, essentially how much time did you start with, what time do you want to reserve for phone use, and how much is left? You can use a “screen time goals” app, or phone setting to keep yourself honest here.
Your total time left over is yours now. How can you use that time wisely? You may have a daily meditation goal, or want to get outside more. Use what you’ve learned in the first few chapters to really “find” the time you lost to your phone/ego.
PUT YOUR PHONE IN ITS PLACE
Now we’ve covered your why, and identified the reason behind Smartphone “abuse” it’s time to introduce how to create a new relationship with your phone.
STEP 1: CREATE A PLAN
You have your usage statistics, and your previous exercise practicing awareness around your relationship with the phone. Below are some tools you can use to help jumpstart where the relationship needs to change.
PHONE LOCATION
Can you charge/place the phones in a non-obvious location? A drawer in the kitchen? Or a landing pad by the entrance to your house? The more out of the way, the better. Out of sight out of mind. Prohibit the phone in certain areas — such as the bathroom, living room, and bedrooms. Sanction areas like an office — create the expectation that the phone is working FOR You, and link it to a physical part of your house. When driving, use the phone only for GPS purposes — and use only on a GPS mount on your car’s window or dashboard.
PHONE PRESENCE
When going for a walk or running a quick errand, explore leaving the phone at home. When working, place the phones in a drawer where they are not in your line of sight. When out, place the phone in a pocket with a zipper, or in a purse in an inside pocket with a zipper, making it as inaccessible as possible.
LOCK SCREEN
You can create all manner of obstacles with your phone’s lock screen. From solving math problems, to answer a question, “Why now?” or “What for?” and even, “Why is this important?” Putting reminders of your “why” on the lock screen itself might help. Even a screenshot of your “plan” you wrote down on a scrap of paper. Use the technology for your benefit.
UTILIZE SCREEN LIMITS
You can set up the phone to limit the amount of time you can use certain apps by utilizing a permissions feature. This might work if you are a 24/7 scroller and just want to limit the behavior by time vs. type. Set up times during a lunch break, or build-in breaks throughout the day. Make it as elaborate as you need to. When you pick up the phone during a non-sanctioned hour, it will be difficult to do anything other than make a phone call. Which is, you know, what we used to use phones for.
PHONE FASTING
Make sure the phone ringer is on and that you can hear it from a specific location for emergencies. Now leave it there all day. When you need to make calls, go to the phone (don’t bring the phone to you) and make the call. Do not use the phone for any other activity until your designated times (evenings/weekends).
STEP 2: EVALUATE
How is it going? Did you aim for a phone diet and fail? Or did you find success with limiting your screen time? Let’s spend some time talking about what you found out, and why it matters to you.
The first thing you might notice when you leave the phone behind is things you thought were emergencies, work notifications, calls, etc. are in fact quite infrequent. When we bring in outside energy, sometimes fear becomes a present feature of our waking state. We begin to worry about what happens when we don’t have the “precious” phone with us at all times. We make up excuses for why we use the phone the way we do, these may seem industrious, “It helps me read more, not less!” to work-related, “It’s my JOB to be on Twitter.”
All these concerns are valid, but they can be managed. Again, the phone works for you, not the other way around. You can set guidelines for how much Twitter you read for work, and when you read it. There are various ways to schedule reading time as well. And again, going back to the data exercise, sometimes the reality of how we THINK we use our phones is very different than reality.
By now you will at least have gotten some real-time information on how you engage with your phone, you need to think hard about what that means for you. Did you feel better without the phone, freer? Or were you consumed with anxiety? Is there a way to tweak your plan to lessen some of the frustrations (I missed opportunities for lunch with friends, etc) by creating new boundaries? Maybe you should ask a friend to call next time they wanted to grab drinks (yes, millennials, I said it). You can always explain what you trying to do, but I always like to make it clear what my needs are vs explaining, such as: “I missed this, the best way to get in touch with me is to call. Would love to see you!”
THE BENEFITS
It’s worth listing some benefits you may find after remaking your relationship with your phone. These go above and beyond less data usage, and a nice full battery. Some of these additional benefits include:
Feeling more freedom — not less.
Chance encounters increase.
Feeling more connected with the loved ones that are RIGHT in front of you.
Becoming more present for yourself, and for others.
Respecting the phone more —less wear and tear.
Identifying areas of low-grade anxiety and other conflicts that you have been avoiding.
By breaking up with your phone in an amiable way, you are one step closer to working through challenges that have arisen in your life. So enjoy your full battery on your electronic devices, and keep those screens on lockdown. Till next time!