Disconnect to self-connect
Have you ever been in these situations:
You entertain the possibility that your screentime (phone, TV, laptop) is too high. Perhaps a loved one has brought your attention to this. You've normalised screentime close to bedtime or even in your bed. You have notifications enabled for many apps on your phone. You read and sometimes even write work emails within 10 minutes of waking up / falling asleep. You become very frustrated when your internet connection fails.
You feel overwhelmed by the amount of stuff going on in your life. Day after day. You're barely keeping head above water. You're barely present for most activities of your day. You're not even sure what being present feels like anymore… or what that even means and why that's even important. You've normalised “just getting through the day”.
You have become aware of some kind of an uneasy, unsettled feeling inside you. You can't quite put your finger on it. Things in your life may seem fine or even great on the surface, broadly speaking. But internally, you've become unsure… perhaps of everything, but first and foremost, yourself. Something feels missing. You're not sure where you want to be, but probably not where you are. You may feel lost and demotivated.
These are all symptoms on the continuous spectrum of potential symptoms of disconnection. The extreme end of this spectrum is clinical depression and suicide. It is possible for symptoms to develop along the spectrum in either direction. These symptoms develop when you've become disconnected from yourself. It's communication from your body intelligence. It has many systems to do this communication - 12 systems in fact says google. Your body is trying to tell you something to HELP you in life. Your body is not here to be your ENEMY. It's here to be your ALLY. These symptoms show you are on an unsustainable path! That's right, you should be GRATEFUL for these symptoms. Perhaps you are not replenishing your own energy sufficiently. It's possible you're not putting boundaries in place to protect your system. Maybe you're walking someone else's life path and not your own. Whatever it is, it's time to start paying real close attention. Ignore the symptoms at your own peril.
None of the above three scenarios are pleasant places to be. I know - I was there, in scenario 3. For about 18 months, all-in. At its trough, it was a dark place. But light can only exist if dark is present. You have to face the dark to come out the other side. On the other side, light and clarity awaits.
So unplugging from your EXTERNAL world is necessary to be able to connect with what’s left - your INTERNAL world. What is your internal world? It's YOU. You in its fullest, unexplored, subconscious and highest potential form. That's what you're connecting to when you disconnect from the external world.
It is not possible to connect authentically with our life purpose, nor with others, without first connecting with our own selves. Without that, we're just faking it in life. And life will feel crap and filled with suffering. Thus there is nothing more important in life. Connecting to our true selves, being self-aware is where everything starts. EVERYTHING. What genuinely fulfils me in this life? Why do I behave in certain ways and does that even serve me? Who am I? Why am I here?
So how can we connect with ourselves? Another way to ask this is how do we disconnect from the distractions in our world, the external stimuli, all the noise, the fears, the habit and fear filled chatter of our minds… to leave us with quality time to deepen our relationship with ourselves? How does one disconnect to connect?
There's no on-demand app to solve for this. And this isn't something to be achieved, then you're done. It's like having a fit and healthy body - intense retreats are extremely helpful, but in the long term it requires continuous upkeep. We may end up connecting with ourselves at a deeper level on occasion, but our world is so full of potential distractions, we need to safeguard periods where we foster the most important relationship any of us will EVER have - the one with ourselves.
I often co-create with my coaching clients their tailored set of disconnect to connect techniques. What method suits you depends on your level of awareness, your current circumstances, and most importantly the value you perceive for yourself in disconnecting from the external world and connecting with your internal world. It's a process. You may not even know if you’ve connected to yourself as it's not easy to measure ‘success’. Masculine notions of achievement are difficult to apply here. The barometer of success here is simply feeling better - more grounded, more at peace, less anxious, more accepting, leading your authentic life. This is training of a different kind. Remember: only things worth fighting for are hard 🙂
Here is a selection of things you can try to disconnect to self-connect, in approximate increasing order of depth and difficulty:
Disable notifications from your phone and laptop. ALL of them. Tell your key stakeholders / loved ones what you are doing, and for anything urgent they'll have to voice call you.
Carve out specific and limited periods in your day or week when you engage with your email, social media, whatsapp etc. Make it practically hard to check by not having your phone closeby and use software that blocks access except at certain limited times.
Switch off the radio and TV. There is so much irrelevant and useless content out there that just pollutes our mind and our thinking.
Take a discerning look at your calendar and say “no” more. Seek a non-judgemental opinion from someone independent, as normally we can't see the forest from our own trees. I often do this with my coaching clients and challenge them on justifying both professional and social items in their calendar. Less is more.
When taking time off work, prepare with your team to truly switch off. Communicate to them you're deleting all communication apps off your phone during your holidays. And then actually do it. Your loved ones and your colleagues will thank you for leading by example on this.
The moments after you wake up and moments before falling asleep are special states of consciousness. It's when the mind is not as dominating as it is the rest of the day. Focus your attention on your breathing, not on your to-do list. Or do whatever mindfulness exercise you prefer.
Set times and locations in your home where distracting devices (in particular ones with screens) are not allowed. Bedrooms could be one; weekend family mealtimes another.
Listen to guided meditations. Do just 5mins from your favourite source / meditation app.
Spend time in nature - forest, park, water, whatever you have access to. If you can, by yourself, or at least not with people with who you will feel compelled to talk and socialise. That's not connecting to yourself time, that's connecting to others time. Put phone on airplane mode. The less distractions around you, the better.
Do exercise or any other activity that is monotonous, ie. meditative where you minimise the use of your mind. Swimming laps, running, spinning. For me, some forms of cooking (only simple or dishes I know well) can be connecting. As long as I have very few thoughts flying around in my mind, it works.
Get a coach. Join a peer coaching group. This will help you build self-awareness. No-one can be objective about themselves - a non-judgemental external voice who has your best interest at heart is essential.
Join online group meditations or mindfulness classes.
Do nothing. Yup, you read that right. A few years ago, my coach at the time gave me this advice. I was perplexed for a while, it was just incomprehensible to me at the time. We spent 30mins discussing what doing nothing is, and what it is not.
Meditate.
Do breathwork. Courses, facilitators and online groups are now widespread.
Attend personal development intensive courses. iDiscover360, Landmark, Hoffman Institute are ones I'm aware of that are reputable; there are many other great ones out there.
Attend courses and retreats around connection with the body and heart. Yoga courses, embodied practice courses. You will learn to connect with parts of yourself that was unknown to you.
Try out silent meditation. Maybe for 3 days to start.
10-day silent meditation retreat. I hear you say “How long?? Who has time for that??” Some people say “how short??” 😃 This is a matter of perception. You go on a 2-week holiday every year. How much long-term value do you really get out of that? So you have to have a leap of faith, a curiosity to take yourself out of the habitual, the known. To disconnect from your usual circumstances. Yuval Harari, author and historian, one of the great thinkers of our modern times, attributes the clarity of his thoughts to his 30 (yes, thirty) day silent retreats. That he does annually. TWICE. Sometimes the two together, for a total of 60days in silent meditation. Gulp.
I will write in more detail about my own experience in a future post.
Multi-day darkness retreat. This is the ultimate disconnect to self-connect practice. You remain alone in a pitch black room with just the basics (bathroom, bed, yoga mat, meditation pillow). You disconnect not only from the standard set of external stimuli... But also from visual information. In a sound-proof room is ideal, to disconnect even from external audio information. This needs some preparation and previous silent meditation experience.
I'm scheduled to do a 6-dayer, starting in a couple of weeks. Frankly speaking, I'm scared of it. I'm most scared of losing concept of time (did 2 hours just pass? Or 2 days?), and therefore my mental grip on the linearity of time. But life is not linear - it's much more beautiful than that. So I am curious. And of course, connecting with myself at unexplored depths.
I will write in more detail about my own experience in a future post.
Sensory deprivation / isolation tank therapy with zero-gravitation. This is exactly as it says - you disconnect from even more human senses. Sense of touch remains as your skin is touching water as you float in it. You also remove gravity. This is extreme disconnection. I'm not aware of any publicly available option to do this for longer than a short (~90min) experience, but in theory one could buy such a tank and go “offline” for a week.
I don't know if there are deeper levels - but presumably in the future there will be a way to disconnect from the sense of touch as well. Then with nothing happening on the taste and smell front, that's it - you've removed ALL external stimuli as your sensory instruments would all be zeroed. You take away ALL incoming information from the external world. The only thing left in that void will be your own pure, true self.
Happy disconnecting 🙂
I'm keen to hear about your disconnection experiences - pleaescomment below.