You Can “Unplug” Yourself and Restore Your Sanity
Have you ever thought about why and how the world speeded up over these past several decades? We work harder, longer, and are less likely to separate ourselves – ever – from our technological “attachments”. Studies strongly indicate prolonged computer time in and of itself creates an addiction, our bodies suffer effects of holding extended, rigid positions, our vision can be compromised, and we can be “keyed up”, yet separated from physical sources of necessary grounding.
Can you come “unplugged” so as not to come unglued? Think of whatever you are attached to in your life that you may at times wish you could un-attach yourself from, as falling into two categories, which I call running around and staying stuck. We run around for work, family, chores, errands – all the things that make up our “to do” list, that somehow never gets completed – and we have no designated breaks. This creates what I call a “slave mentality” – always more to do – and that then takes supreme importance in our lives.
You Need Empty Inner Space to Stay Balanced
Part two is where we’re stuck – to TV, and to a greater extent, it seems, with each passing year, the computer/cell phone, and all related technological gadgets. It is not so easy to get off the computer once you’re on. So many growing enticements – Facebook as the latest deeply and extensively planted networking connection. These are marvels and truly establish a global community – and yet, the computer provides no rest to the mind, no ease to the body – stimulation and information, yes – “letting down” – no.
Can we ever become unplugged? In spiritual terms, no – we are always truly connected to ourselves, each other, and the greater world in which we live – to our histories, to our concerns, to our feelings and thoughts. In that sense we can easily be set up, like a rat in a cage, to endlessly circling around and around with no empty inner space.
Return to a Simpler Time as Your Time to Be
We can then fear stillness, run from stillness and letting go. It is exactly that willingness that restores necessary balance to offset this technological information age in which we explode and virtually exist. When was the last time you separated yourself from your cell phone? Your computer? The TV and all the other external technologies that disconnect you from your own still, empty, greater Self?
I write these thoughts on a blog on the home page of my computer, to offer to you a directive to shut it all down for some time, regularly, and see how it is to be with yourself. This currently seems a somewhat old-fashioned concept.
The Best Gift You Could Have is to Try to “Do Nothing”
I suggest scheduling time to “do nothing” – and live an old-fashioned life. Before the last few decades, and to a much greater extent before the twentieth century, people would gather around the piano and sing songs, play “parlor games”, sit before a fire and dream, read books, journal. Dinner would be a family and leisurely affair. Work would not consume most of a life amongst the upper classes – for the lower classes, of course, there was little or no leisure time.
When was the last time you took a whole day off to “do nothing”? This would be an opportunity to reset your center, have a sense of your real rhythms, and most importantly simply listen to yourself. When my friends and family sent me to Greece last spring to celebrate my 60th birthday, a dear friend said to me, “My advice to you is look to do nothing”. That was the best gift I could have had.
The Key to Restoring and Protecting Your Own Greater and Empowered Self
I followed her advice, which really translated out to having no expectations on that wonderful trip – doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, with whom I wanted to do it – or not. Besides the wonder of the Greek isles and their supreme magic and beauty, I clearly knew I got an even greater gift – I found myself and my sense of rhythm at a time when I desperately needed it. It has been a miraculous source of strength for me ever since. I protect this by taking time on a regular basis to do nothing – to get away – to be unplugged and let everything wait in order to reserve what is really of prime importance – me, my spirit, and my sense of Self.
Perhaps the most important New Year’s resolution you can make is to STOP! – and “go away”. The world will not come to an end. Your delusion that you can’t let go and simply be with no attachments will allow you to see yourself, your life, your relationships and your attachments in a whole new way. What a new beginning, as well as sacred center to restore and keep greater balance and your power to choose.