{"id":16571,"date":"2024-05-06T13:52:02","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T03:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lightmygaia.com\/?p=16571"},"modified":"2024-05-09T10:28:11","modified_gmt":"2024-05-09T00:28:11","slug":"the-power-we-hold-in-our-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lightmygaia.com\/?p=16571","title":{"rendered":"The power we hold in our hands"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Or... what I learned from the demise of my mobile phone. A cautionary tale.<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The last 10 days have been interesting.\u00a0 As some of you know my phone decided to ascend to mobile heaven last week \u2013 just after my community welcome event. I woke up to see a black screen with no option of a safe mode restart or even the dreaded factory reset.<\/p>

While I was thankful my phone hadn\u2019t died\u00a0before<\/em>\u00a0the community event, I felt strangely unsettled by its demise but I recognised in that moment, the Universe was probably telling me it was time to retreat, to travel inward once more and take my foot off the gas for a bit. I had spent so much of my time and energy \u2018out there\u2019 getting things done, talking to people, being super organised, being super busy, busy being busy as all workaholic perfectionists are prone to do.\u00a0 We all know this is a recipe for illness or burn-out \u2013 so I took the cue from the demise of my phone. It was time to disconnect and have some quiet recalibration time<\/p>

After a couple of days, I realised there may be clients or family feeling slighted by their unanswered texts, so I duly sent an email and Facebook message along the lines of\u00a0\u201cIf you\u2019ve messaged me I\u2019m not ignoring you \u2026\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Everyone said similar things about taking the opportunity to enjoy a phone detox and yes it\u2019s true we all spend far too much time glued to our phones. However, as I thought about what a phone detox would mean, I thought (rather naively I might add),\u00a0well, I\u2019m not one to scroll on my phone<\/em>.\u00a0I mean, I\u2019m not one of those whose life revolves around their phone so this shouldn\u2019t be too hard\u2026\u00a0<\/em>This led me to wonder about my mobile phone\u2019s role in my life. If I\u2019m so sure I\u2019m not ruled by it, why am I feeling this odd anxiety about not having one?<\/p>

Like many of you (particularly women I suspect) I realised I use my phone as a safety net or some sort of electronic comfort blanket. I have no sense of direction, so my phone is generally used to make sure I get where I\u2019m going without any dramas (I have a back-catalogue of \u201cthat time I missed the exit\u201d stories if you\u2019re interested?). \u00a0I carry my phone around so I can be instantly connected to Toni, Mr P, or family who might urgently need to get a hold of me, and there is comfort in knowing I can call on Mr P in moments of need. In fact I can think of a specific time many years ago when Mr P rescued me from a \u2018night gone wrong\u2019. I dread to think how that particular night may have ended if I had been unable to call him. I\u2019m sure many of you can relate to the sense of physical safety a phone can bring, but I digress.<\/p>

Beyond the safety element, the death of my phone taught me something about myself that I hadn\u2019t realised and yet, simultaneously, served as a wake-up call.<\/p>

I can\u2019t tell you the amount of times I have gone to reach for my phone over the last week to take a photo of something that inspired me creatively, or to capture something that just looked beautiful in the evening light. I reflect on the images later to help my writing process \u2013 or to inspire my next chalk paint project, or to share something of my life with family and friends on the other side of the world. Most of the time I like to share them\u2013 because these photos connect us all in some way. I use my phone to take photos \u2013 endless photos.<\/p>

But it\u2019s not just been the wonderful moments I\u2019ve captured with this phone \u2013 I also took photos in the midst of deep pain. As some of you who know us will remember, not long ago, we lost a dear precious soul from our lives. Eric was engaged to my daughter at the time of his passing. It was on this phone I received that call from her. It was also on that phone I sent messages to those in our family that knew him. It was on that phone I had some of the most painful conversations I\u2019ve ever tried to navigate. This phone held messages and photos from Eric. It was on that phone I did a very strange thing. I took photos \u2018of that moment in time\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>

I didn\u2019t sleep that first night \u2013 I paced and listened at my daughter\u2019s door. Mr P had dropped me at the hotel where Eric and Miss T had been staying and he returned home. After all, we were connected by the phone if we needed anything. At 5 am I was still unable to sleep and I thought writing might help. I normally write my way through the unfathomable \u2013 but on this night I just couldn\u2019t write anything too meaningful. Jumbled words – half thoughts perhaps, but my mind was an incoherent mangle of pain for my daughter, for Eric\u2019s mum and dad \u2013 for everyone. The only thing I could think to do to regulate myself was to \u201cbreathe\u201d and to take photos (I know, even now this seems strange to me). It wasn\u2019t a conscious decision \u2013 it was driven out of necessity somehow. If I couldn\u2019t write the words, I had to find some way to express or document this unbearable void. As a mother I connected with Eric’s mum’s pain – as a mother, I wanted to carry my daughter’s pain. But I couldn’t. Something pushed me to capture something of the energy \u2013 perhaps to return to later when it was possible to sit in sacred silence with the trauma that had changed everyone\u2019s life so irrevocably. Those photos will forever hold an imprint \u2013 an energetic time capsule. I took photos of the \u201cordinary\u201d items where they had been placed without a care in a world where Eric and Toni\u2019s life was all that was good and happy. I took photos of the dawn and the gritty street below the hotel window, I took photos of the concrete walls of the inner city hotel room. I never want to visit these photos (or jumbled words) again, but they are there if needed for healing.<\/p>

In some strange way, yes perhaps I thought it might help at a later date, but it was deeper than that. It was about connecting with or silently expressing an inner, smothering pain, that could not be described on paper or uttered in words. By attaching an \u2018energetic cord\u2019 to this moment in time \u2013 I was attaching the inner world to something external and physical in a photograph.<\/p>

We all know the benefits of art therapy, but by extension, photography is extremely useful when it comes to grief therapy. It feels almost primal to capture images, textures, lighting, colour, mood and everyday objects to articulate a range of emotions that words can\u2019t convey.<\/p>

It\u2019s that ancient indigenous hand reaching out to us from the cave wall \u2013 we instantly want to place our hand on that outline. We want to connect through the images left to us from another time.<\/p>

It may seem unrelated to be thinking about memories of loss when musing about my relationship with my phone \u2013 but this is when a cold realisation gripped me. It was the potential transience of everything that I had ever attached great weight, emotion and meaning to (from recent years). Everything was stored on my phone and I had no ownership of where these memories and moments were kept once my phone no longer existed.<\/p>

Without me realising it, my phone had become an integral part of my life, and a record keeper of long cherished happy or painful memories. My mum\u2019s mobile number, my grandad\u2019s messages, messages from my friend Bernie \u2013 all people who were no longer physically in my life. These photos and messages only existed within the confines of technology \u2013 within the realms of some intangible \u2018cloud\u2019. My phone held photos of my various moves, my adventures and the animals and people I have cared for. Yes, these events are cherished in my mind, but they are not written down or documented for anyone else to connect with in future generations.<\/p>

I\u2019ve been without my phone for ten days now. It\u2019s been quite the realisation to discover I use my phone for so many \u201cemotional\u201d aspects of my life \u2013 as well as being a \u2018primary source\u201d or record keeper.<\/p>

On the positive side, I\u2019ve realised I\u2019m not only a writer but perhaps there\u2019s a bit of photographer in me too. I\u2019ve never considered myself a photographer before \u2013 so perhaps this is a new story to begin weaving through my life story \u2026 and yes, what a wonderful thing to have uncovered about myself through this exercise.<\/p>

However, I didn\u2019t realise quite how much of my everyday, ordinary actions were tied up with my phone from banking, to medical appointments to access to Chromecast and God knows what else. Increasingly as a society we are being pushed into using our phones for \u2018everything\u2019 aren\u2019t we? As one of my friends said \u2013 you carry your identity on your phone these days. If things go wrong, using a service on an App though, there is rarely a human being there to assist us \u2013 it\u2019s a chatbot. There\u2019s no accountability, there\u2019s no resolution and there\u2019s no human connection \u2013 and yet \u2013 somehow I have been using my phone to create connection on one hand, while giving away some of my most sensitive information on the other. It led me to question who holds the power here.<\/p>

Maybe this is the rub \u2013 the toxic relationship we have to detox from. When everything\u2019s good it\u2019s brilliant \u2013 but when it\u2019s bad \u2013 it can have disastrous consequences. It\u2019s hard to leave someone or something that\u2019s convenient or keeps you there with memories of the good things about them. We can look at messages from our parents who are no longer with us, or see phone numbers of those we loved but have long since left our lives \u2026It\u2019s emotional manipulation in many regards. We have a basic need as human beings to be connected to our tribe \u2013 largely due to our primal need for safety. Are these the breadcrumbs we are being lured by, as we hand over control and storage of our \u2018emotional\u2019 and aspirational selves \u2013 as we hand over our identity and our most sacred snapshots of time?<\/p>

How have you felt when you have lost your phone or your phone has died? Did you discover something deeper about yourself that you hadn\u2019t considered before? Maybe you suddenly realised how much of your physical life is tied up in your phone\u00a0 \u2013 but did you ever consider the emotional connection we are developing with these electronic devices? I wonder if there is a more balanced approach to living with technology. It looks like mobiles are here to stay \u2026 but the longer they stay \u2013 the more they will control our lives \u2013 literally.<\/p>

It\u2019s been an interesting time as I say. Today as I unwrap my new phone, I am pondering on my \u2018new relationship\u2019 \u2013 perhaps we\u2019ll start things off on a different footing.<\/p>

I\u2019ll still take my photos to inspire or record for posterity but I\u2019ll commit to learning photography to get the best out of my camera.\u00a0 I\u2019ll consider which apps need to be on my new phone and those I can do without. And perhaps I should go back to just reading maps and road signs to find my way around, instead of allowing my anxiety levels to be dictated by how much battery my phone has left\u2026 (on second thoughts, let\u2019s not be too hasty\u2026)<\/p>

So yes \u2013 a phone detox has done me a \u2018power of good\u2019 after all. It was good to discover something about myself in the process, but it\u2019s a timely reminder we may need to re-evaluate our emotional relationship with this little \u2018device\u2019. Storing so much of our lives on this little rectangle to the extent we have an emotional connection with it, while blindly handing over our identity and control of who we are to \u201csomething unseen\u201d seems like a mass waving of red flags in a toxic relationship to me \u2013 and I\u2019ve seen a few of those in my time! And ignored them too!<\/p>

I\u2019ve unwrapped my phone now. She is a beautiful silvery sky blue \u2013 oh and she\u2019s got some great new features \u2026 and oh damn it \u2026 \u2018how could I stay mad at you?\u2019\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0<\/p>

It feels good to be back \u2026 for now.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or… what I learned from the demise of my mobile phone. A cautionary tale. The last 10 days have been interesting.\u00a0 As some of you know my phone decided to ascend to mobile heaven last week \u2013 just after my community welcome event. I woke up to see a black screen with no option of Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightmygaia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightmygaia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightmygaia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightmygaia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightmygaia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16571"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/lightmygaia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16618,"href":"https:\/\/lightmygaia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16571\/revisions\/16618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightmygaia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightmygaia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightmygaia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightmygaia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}