I was frazzled, but only for a brief moment, when I ‘lost’ my phone. I turned my back to my bag for about 60 seconds and when I turned back, it was gone. It's amazing how drastically an event, that takes less than a minute, can alter your life. I scrambled around the shop looking for it and after no luck, I used 'find my iPhone' and tracked that it was on the run. Fast and far, far away from me, it was making its way to the other side of the island. I surrendered to the situation...
Since I was living in Bali and I relied on the device for daily tasks like directions, alarm clock, scheduling and social media for business. There are some things that I could only do on mobile like Instagram and client calls. I found a way around some of these things, and let go of the need for some others. I could have replaced my phone immediately, however I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see what life sans smartphone would be like. I've trained myself to assume that every event in my life, big or small, negative or positive, is a blessing and so this one was quite easy for me to let go of.
So for the past 40 days I went phone-free and to be honest, I'm seriously considering adjusting my life to be smartphone-free. Have you ever even thought about how different life would be without your smartphone?
Here’s the top 3 positive things that happened:
Memorizing directions
Since I was living in foreign lands I had relied on the voice coming through my earbuds to direct me to waterfalls, temples, spas and cafes. Since I didn’t have a phone, I learned to memorize directions and started drawing myself maps, which by the time I had finished drawing, would pretty much ingrain the path in my mind. I quickly noticed improvements in my memory in other areas of my life too (learning songs and playing guitar).
People Watching
This one might be creepy. I started to watch people more deeply and intimately than ever before. It was quite fascinating to watch people’s mannerisms and tendencies. As a hypnotherapist I easily notice behavior patterns and sitting in a cafe and watching someone over the course of their meal and sitting in the sacredness observing a priest in a water blessing ceremony was really interesting. It’s my job to help people discover and breakthrough their mental blocks, and while watching people from different walks of life I noticed connections between mental blocks, posture and body language. I also experienced a more visceral understanding of seeing myself in ‘other’.
Forced Expansion
Since I couldn’t post on Instagram (it only works on mobile) I was limited in the way I could connect with some people, and I quite liked not having the option to check notifications in my pocket every hour. It forced me into the next stage and expansion of my business as I started to look at other possible scenarios of how I could continue to share on social media without a phone.
I have decided to expand The Living Narrative and I’m calling in an awesome copywriter and social media expert to manage Instagram and Facebook and all the algorithm, hashtag, analyzing, optimizing, strategizing. That way I can focus on writing and creating content because that’s what I love!! I have been working on some pretty awesome stuff that I’m excited to share with you and it deserves the proper support and creative team, so if you know someone who may be a good fit, keep an eye out for my job posting on Instagram in a few days and email contact@thelivingnarrative.com
Remember.. you can do anything you want with your life.
Just because you've always done something, doesn't necessarily mean it's still benefitting you, and it certainly doesn't mean you have to keep doing it. You have the right to change your mind and live life any way you want!
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