My Real Life Conscious Tech Life
This one is personal. It’s a deeper look inside my own conscious tech diary, the specific habits and choices that have made a real difference for me.
Before we go any further, I want to address the elephant in the room. I am talking to you about tech and conscious tech use through the internet…on your phone. The very device we are talking about. I get it, its ironic. So I want to call it out, and say, yes, I see it.
Which brings me to one of the contradictions in this work for me. It is oddly the same thing I have found with yoga. I am putting myself out of a job if I do my job right. (Not unlike programmers and AI)
What I mean is, just like when I teach yoga or meditation, one of the goals is to pass along the knowledge and wisdom, so that the student no longer needs you. So that they can work with their own personal practice, and expand beyond what they learned with you by incorporating their own experience and gifts.
Conscious tech is REALLY similar. I am sharing what I have found, what I see, offering some practical tips and practices in the hopes that they support you in your journey and life in some way, and then sending you off to do your life practice.
I think when a student “outgrows” a teacher, it’s a good thing. It means that something has been expanded and opened up in a way that transcends what has existed before. I think this helps all of us grow.
In the same vein, I need to re-iterate that I am not anti-tech. I’ve been in online business for about 5 years. I started writing on the internet over 15 years ago. I’ve often been an early adopter of a lot of tech. I’ve been fascinated and terrified by what is happening in AI and I learn about it all the time. I still use a smart phone.
I share this to say that it’s not about total abdication of tech or phones. It is about boundaries, healthy integration at a pace that is right for you, and your individual wellbeing.
Again, not unlike yoga. We are working with the whole human being system and that includes our energy. And well, like it or not, phones and tech are also in relationship to our energy.
Harmony is really what we are shooting for here, not perfection, not equal weight balance, but what harmony means for you and your system and life.
Sometimes the changes are simple, and sometimes they are complex.
Here are a few things from my own personal conscious tech diary and experience. You might not think of some of these things as conscious tech, so that is why I am sharing. I'm inviting you to think even wider about your own experience.
I don’t use GPS if I can help it. I rarely use it, even in foreign countries…but that’s another story. One of the reasons is because it changes your brain. Knowing how to get places expands you.
I use pretty old tech (as of right now). My laptop is more than a decade old, yikes! I also use my smart phones until they don’t work anymore. I’m currently on my third (all time).
If I am no longer using an account, I delete it if possible so I don’t have digital energy drag out there in the ethers.
I stay aware of unlimited subscriptions. I could write a whole piece on this, but the long and short of it is, we are not yet evolved for the unlimited. Our systems do not know what to do with that. So I have tried to mitigate this by not subscribing to things that are unlimited.
I quit streaming services somewhere around 2018 (Netflix, Prime, Hulu)
Social media is an obvious one that I have talked about in all different places, but I’m social media free and it is a delight for me. Even when people send me social links I don’t open them. (Sorry friends!)
I have an old school alarm clock. It does three things. Tells the time, has two alarms, and lights up when you tap it.
I’ve moved to mono-tasking as much as possible. Phones and tech are like fertilizer for multi-tasking. I have made a conscious effort, especially in the last year, to move to one task at a time. I can’t tell you how much more efficient I am!
This one is pretty tricky, but if I am talking to someone and they take out their phone, I pause. Or if someone is texting and trying to talk to me, I tell them I can wait until they are finished. This is not because I am being holier than thou or passive aggressive. It’s because I know that they can’t hear me anymore. When we have the phone in front of us, we might think we are still paying attention to the person in front of us, but we aren’t, the brain can’t do both. I’d rather just wait, or circle back later than to waste speech and energy. The trick is doing this from neutrality instead of frustration. It is a practice.
I take walks without headphones
I use as few algorithm driven suggestion services as possible. This one is getting more challenging as this type of tech expands.
If I am alone in the car, I often drive in silence.
I could go on and on.
Some of these might not sound like they would make a difference, and for some people they won’t, but for me they do. Especially when these things start getting stacked on each other.
It’s like when you start doing limiting belief work. You find out you have way more than you expected. This is the same, more gets revealed over time.
Once you start to become more aware of your tech use, you become even more aware of it in smaller ways throughout your life. This is a good thing. This is awareness. Awareness is where shifts begin.
Contemplation Question or Journal Prompt
What conscious tech (whether you called it that or not) shifts have been helpful for you in your own life? This could be something you did naturally without realizing it was a conscious tech shift.
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