The Big Surprise Learnings From My First Ever Media Pause//Part One

Where do you go to unwind, to unplug? If you are like most people, your first thought is getting AWAY. Away from your home, from the city, away from your normal life. But what if I told you that you could create the magic of being unplugged in your very own home? That the break you are craving is accessible to you right now? 

A couple of years ago, a mindfulness meditation practitioner told me that she believed that much of the anxiety we felt came from the amount of information we were constantly taking in, without giving ourselves a change to digest it. 

It was the first time I’d heard of the concept of digesting anything besides food.

We know that our bodies can only take in a certain amount of food at one time, and that our digestive system needs to be able to process it through our body, taking out what it needs for various functions in our bodies, excreting the waste. 

But it isn’t just food that our bodies need to digest. Think about how after somebody makes a startling announcement we say “Wow, I need a moment to process this.” Ideas and information need to processed just as much as food does. Some is integrated, and some passes through as waste. 

So what's the problem? 

Our brains evolved over millions of years to thrive in a state where we were closely attuned to our environment, which included plants, rocks, rivers, clouds, wind and sun, attuned to other animals, and other humans. 

Consider the pace of incoming information in nature. The wind blows to signal a storm coming in. The buds appear on a plant, which means the bark is now pliable enough to peel. 

We lived at a much slower pace, our immediate surroundings are what mattered, and we lived in the now. 

That’s the pace that our brains evolved in. That’s what feels good to us.  

Compare that to the environment we live in currently, and it is shocking what we put ourselves through. 

When I was getting trained in Transcendental Meditation (TM), the teacher told us that he had been teaching TM for 20 years. He observed that since smart phones became glued to everyone’s hands, the number of people coming to TM specifically to treat anxiety had skyrocketed.

He felt certain that people had become so anxious because of our phones. What is it about our phones that make us so sick? 

I heard about the concept of a media pause first from the book Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. At the time, the book seemed too radical for me. And besides, I was binging books and didn't take the time to process it. 

 Next, I happened to listen to a podcast where they talked about a digital sabbath. One day a week without technology. That didn't feel quite right. 

 Then I heard from  Hilary Foreman, a sober woman who is a life and leadership coach for creatives. She was about to start her own pause when I brought up a book. She told me she wouldn’t be reading books because she was doing a media pause. What about a book though? I asked her again. I mean books are always good, right? Guess what-- books are media! Huh, interesting. 

The purpose of Hilary’s pause was to give space for her creative muses to come in. To be able to hear that voice of inspiration that sometimes starts as a whisper. The one we often drown out with the constant noise of other people’s thoughts and ideas. Now this was some motivation I could get behind. 

Finally, a couple weeks ago I listened to a podcast episode by Amarylis Fernandez,  another sober woman who is an Ayurvedic Health Counselor, where she described the spring digestion pause she was about to take, and I thought, “Yes, I need one of these”. Amaryllis was doing a pause of both her digestion of food (by eating only kitchari for a week) and a pause of media. 

I knew I really needed this. 

The habits I had noticed myself developing didn’t feel good, and I wasn’t exactly sure when they had gotten so bad, but I'm pretty sure it's a product of the pandemic. 

I’d cycle through my different email accounts, my various Instagram accounts, Facebook, sometimes back to Instagram, and then turn on my computer where I’d often find myself back in my email, opening emails that looked interesting and clicking on links and articles.

Then I’d be back in Facebook, commenting in groups. Meanwhile, the tasks I really wanted to complete sat there on my to-do list. And my brain felt weird. 

Here is what I decided to do: 

Food

I’m learning to make changes one tiny step at a time, so I decided that for my pause, I would focus on making recipes from a  Ayurvedic cookbook.

Media

I wouldn’t use any social media-- no reading or posting (for me, that’s mostly Instagram and Facebook)

No books besides reading the recipes in my one cookbook

No radio, music, podcasts

No TV, or Youtube videos

During my workday, I would only read emails that were necessary, and only look at any other media that was necessary for what I was doing. 

Once my workday was over, I’d be off of the computer. 

I’ve been exchanging daily Marco Polo videos with my family for the last year (which can get quite lengthy), and I decided those were fine. 

Note this wasn't a technology pause. I texted, called, had My Sober Girlfriends events, sent and received messages. But I didn't engage in taking in information that wasn't meant just for me. 

My husband has been amazing in how he is willing to try these wacky new ideas I come up with, so he agreed to join me in this  experiment.

Going into this, I had no idea what I was going to learn or think as a result.

Much like sobriety, it has been so much more meaningful than I could have imagined. And I got a few surprises! 

Stay tuned for Part Two to my media pause. I can't wait to tell you what happened!