The Phone Addiction Workbook by Hilda Burke

Author:Hilda Burke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ulysses Press
Published: 2019-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

Next time you go there, switch your phone and any music-playing devices off! Look around you, notice what you see, what you hear. And when you come back, write it down here.

Is there a difference? Do you notice more, sense more, or feel more without your phone or other digital device?

4. Meditate

Anyone can meditate. All it requires is breath, something all of us living beings are blessed with. Here’s how to get started:

Create a dedicated space, perhaps with a nice candle or some incense (but only if that works for you) in a corner of your home that feels safe and peaceful.

Sit on the floor, cross-legged if possible, but any reasonably comfortable seated position will do.

Start small. Set your alarm for one minute, sit down, close your eyes, and just focus on your breath, taking long deep breaths in and out, creating some stillness within yourself. When you get distracted, just keep focusing on the breath, letting the thoughts just drift by you.

Once you feel comfortable meditating for a minute then try lengthening it to 90 seconds and then to two minutes, and continue until you’ve reached a duration that you feel content with and can manage to fit into your daily routine (this is crucial!).

The most important thing is to manage your expectations! Many meditation novices feel like they have to sit for 20 to 30 minutes or there’s no point. They then feel discouraged when they cannot accomplish this and just give up. Someone once described the practice of meditation as like sitting at a train station letting the trains go past, not boarding any particular train, but equally not pretending they’re not there, not trying to stop or obstruct them (a pretty bad idea!), and not trying to follow them to the end of the line.

Many of my clients find meditation apps useful. I have some reservations about them as they can create a further level of dependency on our smartphones, but, used carefully, they may be helpful for some. If you find one you like, I’d encourage you to download it so you can at least put your device in airplane mode when you’re using it. Otherwise, a great, simple book on mindfulness is Moment by Moment by Jerry Braza. It’s out of print but can be easily found secondhand online.

5. Engage your creativity.

Whether it’s painting, cooking, writing, drawing, improvisation, or picking up a musical instrument, find something that channels your creativity. I could write another book on the joy many of my clients have found through reengaging with long-abandoned creative pursuits. Our creativity is very vulnerable and, unfortunately for many of us, has been wounded through having received messages about not being “the creative type” from teachers or parents.

If you still feel inhibited, here are some suggestions:

Borrow or buy the book The Artist’s Way, a fantastic guide to clearing away the blocks that stop us from being creative. Make sure it’s a hard copy—remember texts we read offline are more likely to be assimilated and remembered.

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