Don't Cell Your Soul* - Part One

*How to have a better relationship with your phone (for real)

Dear Kula Diaries,

This is part ONE of a two-part series where I am sharing all of the nitty-gritty-good-bad-and-the-ugly about the how of breaking up with your cell phone. I’m writing this down, because I genuinely and wholeheartedly believe that it can help some folks out there who are struggling like I was. I really hope you find a lot of value in it. Please keep in mind that not everybody has an issue with using their cell phone and/or social media. In fact, there are probably people who use Instagram as much or more than I used to use it, and do not feel that it is a problem. You are the only person who can determine whether or not something needs to ‘budge’ in your life — so this post is not about phone-shaming anybody for spending time online. This is specifically written for anybody who has observed their own behavior with their cell phone and social media… witnessed unhelpful impacts of that behavior… and determined that they want to make a shift or a change.

Over the past few months I’ve taken you all on my own journey of developing a more mindful relationship with my cell phone and social media. This started as an experiment for me — I wanted to know if it was possible to have a more balanced relationship with my phone. I had seen other people doing programs where they eliminated social media usage altogether… or got rid of their smartphone… or a variety of other ways of coping with the addictive urge to spend more time in the digital world than in the real one. My addiction to social media and my cell phone began in the early days of MySpace and Facebook — I can still recall obsessively checking Facebook every single morning before I left for work… during work… and then spending most of my evenings on Facebook. I never intended to do anything harmful — like most people, I just got ‘sucked’ into the habit without realizing it. And, since cell phone use (and overuse) is widely accepted, I just thought it was ‘normal’.

You can read about my backstory and subsequent break up with my cell phone in these previous posts (I’d recommend reading them first, because it will really help with setting the context):

My Body is There But My Soul Isn’t - Part 1

My Body is There But My Soul Isn’t - Part 2

Breaking Up With My Phone — *What Happened Next

When I first left my job as a railroad police officer, I attended a course to become a coach. My life had been completely altered by working with a coach, and I wanted to bring those same skills not only to my daily practices, but also to others. Almost immediately, I started working with a few clients — mostly outdoor-minded folks who were feeling ‘stuck’ in their lives. Based on my coaching training, I created a short class called ‘Stuck to Summit’, which walked students through simple habits and techniques to begin the process of finding more clarity and peace in their own lives.

As somebody who has been coached… and who has also been a coach, it’s funny to look at your own life and have the sobering realization that you are in desperate need of changing something. For so many years I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that my cell phone usage was a major problem — but I was unable to make any lasting change. Every so often I’d give myself some sort of ‘boundary’ about the amount of hours I was ‘allowed’ to spend on my phone… or that I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to use it in the morning or after 8pm. I’d usually be successful… for about one day. And then, I’d go back to my old habits — the draw and addictive allure of looking at my phone all day was just too luscious for me to ignore. It felt like I couldn’t not use it. I saw other people who had supposedly ‘broken’ their habit, and I secretly believed that they were lying. I made up every single excuse in the book to justify why I needed to be on my phone all the time — most of those reasons were based on the idea that using my phone was ‘work’, since my brand Kula Cloth has a very active Instagram page.

And yet, nowhere, have I ever seen this job description listing for the CEO and Founder of an outdoor gear brand who has an active and thriving Instagram account:

As I looked back on my failed attempts at trying to break up with my cell phone, I realized that I needed help. I knew that I also needed a plan — because my half-hearted attempts at ‘quitting’ were not working. Every single time I tried, I always came crawling back to the ‘gram. But, my requirements for this process were a little different than what most people would expect. I didn’t want to completely quit using social media, because, to be completely honest, I really enjoy it! I love filming funny videos. I have met some of the most amazing humans on social media. I have helped to create such a beautiful and flourishing social media community of laughter and fun — and I do believe that there is so much power and goodness in that. Just the mere fact that we can share something funny and send a ripple of laughter through the universe — wow, isn’t that an incredible thing? And so, my desire was not to get rid of social media or my phone… my desire was simply to have a more balanced relationship — one that was more rooted in the real world, but also included and acknowledged the really beautiful parts of the digital world too.

So, I dug deep into my reservoir of coaching knowledge… and created a ‘secret method’ for myself — one that I hoped would help me establish a better relationship with my phone. And guess what? It did! So today, I’m going to share that with all of you. Please keep in mind that while I do have coaching training, I am not a therapist. I created this program to be helpful for me — and while I do believe that it has the potential to be helpful for many people, always do what works best for you. Tweak it and make it your own… or allow it to inspire you to a different method that fits your life better. Stay committed to the process, and it will work. It’s not easy. It was not easy for me to quit being addicted to my cell phone, but it has been such a beautiful experience to replace that mindless time with other things — and I hope that everybody has that opportunity. This real world is beautiful and full and rich with life, and I don’t think that anybody wants to miss out on that.

It Starts With A Reason

When I think back to the times that I tried (unsuccessfully) to break up with my phone, one thing stands out: I was very wishy-washy. In other words, I knew what I wanted to do… but I didn’t know why it was important to me. I’d say very vague things like, “I should use my phone less,” or, “I really need to cut back on using my phone,” or, “Gosh, maybe I shouldn’t be spending 12 hours per day on Instagram.” I was excellent at knowing that I had a problem, but I was not excellent at knowing what to do with it or why. So, I decided that I needed to figure out my WHY. This starts when you answer the big question:

My previous ‘statements of intent’ were hollow and meaningless. It’s hard to make something ‘stick’ when you have absolutely nothing to lose at all. It’s hard to make a change when you have no skin in the game. I decided to answer the big question seriously and honestly. I took a deep look in my own heart — I looked at the uncomfortable places that were damaged by my cell phone usage, and I looked at what I wanted to for my life, and I wrote down my WHY:

I want to be more present with my husband and with other people that I care about. I want to take time to enjoy exactly where I am in life and not feel like I can’t control myself around my phone. I want to see what happens in the open spaces of life that I am not filling with my cell phone. I want to let go of the feeling that something isn’t worthwhile if I don’t share it. I want to allow my creativity to flow freely.  I want my real life to be more important to me than my digital one.

Suddenly, my, ‘I should quit using my phone so much’ statements seemed a lot more serious. The gravity of my situation hit me pretty hard, because I knew that my marriage, career, creativity, and personal sense of well-being were all being negatively impacted by my addiction to my phone. It was impossible for me to argue that this was not a big deal. I was no longer able to come up with a bunch of excuses to justify my behavior. I saw, in devastating clarity, the impact that my phone addiction had on the rest of my life — and I wanted it to change.

… and then a vision

When I started my coaching training many years ago, one of the practices that I started implementing was a daily visualization. Every single day, I’d sit and envision myself working in the outdoor industry, even though I had no idea what that would look like. I saw things in perfect clarity — I saw that I was leading a life of creativity and fun and that I got to spend time teaching people about outdoor skills and other things that I was passionate about. Kula Cloth was born a few years later, and that vision did come true. In fact, I have never once, in the history of my visualization practice, ever visualized something that didn’t happen in one way or another. It is my most powerful tool — it is the art of feeling the realness of something before it exists.

To illustrate how this works, I’ll use Kula Cloth for an example (since it’s an easy one to see — and also near and dear to my heart, obviously):

When I started visualizing myself as the founder of an outdoor gear company and/or working in the outdoor industry — I saw it in my mind as if were real. I allowed myself to feel the feelings of it and the excitement of it, even though I was still working as a railroad police officer. I used to drive around in my patrol car saying things like, “I’m working in the outdoor industry! I don’t know how, but I can feel it coming and I can’t wait!”. I really believed it with all of my heart, and I could feel my energy starting to shift. Suddenly, new ideas and opportunities started to flow to me — not because I was doing anything remarkably different, but because I was exuding the energy of ‘Anastasia, Outdoor Gear Company Founder’… and so, seemingly miraculously, I found myself in moments that an Outdoor Gear Founder might find themselves in. Things like gear testing for Backpacker Magazine… teaching backpacking classes… and then having an idea for a pee cloth… all of these things happened AFTER I started genuinely visualizing myself as a gear company founder.

I looked back at my profound experience with Kula Cloth — and wondered to myself, “Self, could the exact same process work for breaking up with your cell phone?”

And so, the 2nd step in my process was to answer another important question:

Again, I wrote everything down in the present tense, as if it were real right now:

During the week, I share things that feel good to me, but if I don’t share anything, that’s OK too and I don’t feel a need or desire to share … or pressure to share anything if nothing comes to mind. If I do have something, then it’s fun to share it and interact with others on social media – but again, no pressure to do so. I don’t check my phone often … maybe just a few times a day, and when I do, it’s conscious and intentional. I consolidate lists of things that I want to look into and I research them on my computer if needed, and I’m mindful about it. I have conversations with people without looking at my phone and I don’t fill all of the blank spaces in my day with my cell phone. When I get home from work, I spend time with my cats and my husband and I fill my time doing things that feel creative and fun.  I enjoy taking photographs and sharing things when they feel good, but I don’t feel a need or compulsion to do so and if I don’t share them, it doesn’t matter. 

Suddenly, just like the way that I started to see ‘Anastasia Allison, Outdoor Gear Company Founder’ in my mind, I started to see ‘Anastasia Allison, the Outdoor Gear Company Founder who has a healthy relationship with her phone and social media’. The more that I started to see myself in this way, the more I felt called towards decisions that were in alignment with this new way of being in the world. It wasn’t even a matter of motivation or determination — I was truly becoming a new version of me.

I cannot stress how important it is to have a vision. A vision is your roadmap to where you want to go. A vision is what gives your heart and cells guidance on which way to head. Without a vision, you are left in a confusing state of reactivity and living life on autopilot — bouncing around like a pinball, wondering how you got where you are… and sometimes feeling like you got smacked by one of those pinball flippers too many times. I lived on autopilot for a lot of years, and it wasn’t until I intentionally started crafting a vision that I was able to lay out a welcome mat for what I wanted to create — even if I had no idea how it was possible for me. Simply put, you must begin to see yourself as a person who has a healthy relationship with your phone before it happens. Most importantly: What does it feel like? What does it feel like and what do you feel like as a person who has a healthy relationship with a phone? This is the final step of the vision process, and it’s critically important as well. The feelings that you connect to your vision are the catalyst for putting your plan into motion.

When I asked myself What does a healthy relationship with my phone and social media FEEL LIKE? My answer was:

Again, this exercise reinforced both my WHY and my VISION: these feelings are decidedly ones that I want to include in my life, so the evidence that a change was necessary was extremely compelling. There was no way for me to argue that I needed to continue my obsessive addiction to Instagram anymore. In fact, it was becoming more and more obvious to me that the things I really wanted — creativity, love, connection, abundance, and a feeling of freedom — were actually being hindered by my resistance to giving up my phone usage.

At this point in the process, you can imagine that I was pretty well ‘sold’ on the positive benefits of making this change in my life. There was no list of ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ needed. I knew that I had to do this… now, I just needed to figure out how.

The How

In the past, when I had attempted to ‘quit’ using my cell phone, I had never been successful. I would override every single ‘social media timer’ that I ever set. I even recall trying to use an app that monitored my social media usage, and it popped up with a message that said, “Using your phone in the bathroom? Ewww! That’s gross!” And guess what I did? Swiped away and then went into the bathroom to pee while staring at my cell phone. Clearly, my previous methods had not worked. But what does work? This is where my method varies from person to person: the plan is not the same for everybody. Some people (or many people) are not nearly as addicted to their phones as I was, so they might not need to implement rigid boundaries. This is the moment in the program where you get to decide what will work best for you. Your next task is quite simple: write down your plan for the next week. Not for the rest of your life. Not for the next month. Just for the next week.

Based on what I know about myself and my previous inability to actually make a lasting change, this was the plan I wrote down for myself:

PLAN:

• No social media on weekends (unless needed for work reasons)

• Mindful (general) phone use on weekends — prioritize spending most of my time enjoying where I am, what I’m doing and the people that I am with

• During the week, post curated and intentional content and do not go back onto Instagram obsessively to re-watch stories or posts

• All notifications on phone are turned off and phone is on ‘do not disturb’ mode from 8pm - 10am

• I release myself from the (self-imposed) expectation to drop everything and respond to text messages immediately (mind boggling, right?)

• No phone usage in the evening after work, except for playing Wordle before bed

• Intentional and conscious phone usage during the day

• Phones are not allowed in: bathrooms or restaurants or at the dinner table

Once I had my basic plan for the week, I also looked at my schedule to see if there were any upcoming moments that might require additional alertness or awareness. For instance … was I going out to dinner? Was I going to go on a hike with friends? Was I planning a small trip with my husband? Was I attending a work event? I’d look at these planned activities and then I’d write down additional and specific pieces for my weekly plan:

Once I had my general plan and my more specific plan, I felt like I was setting an intention and laying a solid foundation for the how of my vision. I had previously discovered that when I went into a situation with no plan, I reverted back to my old, familiar and endorphin-laced habits. If I made a plan before I had the chance to slip backwards, it was infinitely easier to follow. Each time I looked at my week and my weekly schedule, I wasn’t just taking the time to make a plan — I was making a commitment to myself that I was 100% devoted and serious about making this life change. Each time I wrote out a weekly plan, I re-read my ‘Why’ and my ‘Vision’ and I reminded myself WHY this was so important… and I reminded myself WHAT this looked like. As I allowed myself to feel the essence of this balanced relationship, the physical urge to compulsively check my phone gradually subsided … because it no longer matched the person that I had become.

As you make your own plan, be realistic with yourself about what is possible for you. Some people might need more strict boundaries in the beginning. When I say that the physical compulsion to look at a phone is a literal physical ache, I mean it. Your body is craving the mini endorphin hits, and it will do almost anything to try and get you to pick up that phone. During the first few weeks, I found that I needed to be very strict with my boundaries, because one look at Lady Cell Phone, and I was drawn back into her seductress ways.

As time progressed, I found that the physical urge diminished significantly. When I had first started the process, it was uncomfortable not to film things and share them almost immediately. Seeing something cute or interesting and the urge to film it and share it were a coupled activity — they happened simultaneously and almost instantly. Picking up my phone and looking at it obsessively was another unconscious activity. If there was even a hint of empty space in a fragment of my day… I was picking up my phone and looking at it. Breaking this habit took conscious effort. I had to surf the feeling (like I mentioned in my last post) and make an intentional decision to leave my phone in my pocket. Unbelievably, as I deprived my brain of endorphins from my phone… I began to see joy in other places again. Except this joy was not connected to the act of sharing a 15 second video — this was just the pure joy of being… the joy of living… the joy of being alive. There were moments that crept in during this time when I wept for the joy that I had missed over the past decades of my life spent with my brain absorbed by the social media sponge.

Ok, so now what?

You’ve written down a why… a vision… tapped into the feeling of this new version of who you are… created a plan… and, in general, completely committed yourself to breaking your cell phone addiction. So — now what? Without belaboring the point: you just have to start. There is no ‘right’ time to do this, other than now. And, as I quickly learned, I am the only person that can hold myself accountable to my own vision and my plan. Nobody else comes with me on my walks in the morning to ‘verify’ that I’m sticking to my plan — I’m the only one who truly knows and can feel the difference that it is making in my life. But, as I also have learned, I am not the only one who will experience the benefit of releasing myself from this addiction. As a result of my journey, my husband has also reduced his phone usage to barely minimal (although he was never addicted to it… I think he used it more as a coping mechanism to handle how unavailable I was). I’ve had more energy for creativity in my business and I’ve been able to be more present with the people who are important to me. I listen to people now, without getting distracted by my phone. The ripple effect of this new relationship with my phone and social media has both equaled and surpassed the vision that I set for myself many months ago.

Next week, I’ll be sharing part two of this series, where I will get into a few more specific details about ‘pinch points’ and ‘the cell phone bone’ (ha!)…noticing the ‘nudges’ … as well as moving this journey with your cell phone mindfulness into a more vast vision for creating a life of balance, peace and joy. As I have learned over the past year, what started with my cell phone… had nothing to do with my cell phone at all. The cell phone was, sadly, my own addictive coping mechanism that allowed me to avoid things that were uncomfortable or painful — the validation I received from Instagram temporarily numbed a feeling that I wasn’t good enough. But a temporary balm that needs to be applied more thickly as time goes on isn’t sustainable — and ultimately, the source of that pain needs to be witnessed, observed, and loved. It was hard to admit that there was a deeper wound at the root of my own struggles with my cell phone, but giving myself the opportunity to live in that uncomfortable space has allowed me to nurture the parts of me that I had hidden away for a long time.

What I do know is this: I am loved and I am whole, whether I post anything on social media or not… and so are you. I am infinite in every way and in every single direction — I am beyond the 1’s and 0’s that I see on a screen. I am capable of anything that I can envision in my heart and in my mind — I can let go of the need to be seen by others, and I can, for the first time, truly see myself. I can find peace exactly where I am. I can sit in uncomfortable silences, and be OK. I can watch a sunrise without taking a photograph, and it will be no less of a sunrise. I can dance alone in the dark, and nobody can know, and it will still matter.

Friends, I’m sending you so much love today — and thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for allowing me to share this topic — which, if I’m being honest, surprised even me. When I started The Kula Diaries over six months ago, I definitely never imagined that I’d be writing about cell phone addiction — but I’ve loved watching where this writing adventure has taken me, and I feel very grateful that I have such a kind group of folks who are interested in reading the things that I write each week. I hope that, in some small way, my words can bring a little bit of goodness into your heart.

You are so loved, friends!