Is it time to silence your alerts?
We have all experienced the thrill of having messages appear on your phone. Someone has sent you a new message on messenger, your birthday has come about and everyone that you have not heard from all year decides to wish you a happy birthday, your yoga app has a new update on the crow pose, and you can't wait to try it. Your day is full of sounds, little red icons, and vibrations. The summary of all these things happening to us daily is that we are being conditioned. Let me give you a little background on what I mean.
When we are born and come out of our mother's womb, we are looking for signals. We see the signs of light, sound, touch, rocking, and movement as our lifelines. We become adept at taking in those sounds as we develop. Furthermore, we learn about yes and no and who the people in our lives are and who are not. We learn what it feels to speak and the tones that come from that along with the balancing act that is learning to put your head up, crawl, walk or even fall. We consider everything around us, and then there is a point in which we currently become overwhelmed. Likewise, we become desensitized by the calls to the attention of constant media, your responsibilities, bosses, phones, doorbells, car horns, traffic, sirens and everything else which comes with daily life. We stop evolving ourselves and clog our filters for survival. Now, some of you may be advanced in the way you handle your experiences and have mastered some aspects of getting back to your naturally aware state, but the leading majority of the world is not. In fact, they are falling prey to the pressures of unnatural attention demand affecting the way your hormones, nervous system and brain develop over your lifetime. We formulate extreme behaviors that can often lead to a loss of reality versus fantasy. We build cages or graves where there is space to roam free and be.
These thoughts came to me on my trip out of my home state last week. I began to realize how much society has drifted from actual connection to hypermobile stimulation, so I started an experiment to see how I would do with less stimulation. I turned off all alerts for apps that were not text messages or a phone call. Not only that, but I removed the badge icons from apps as well as lowered the vibration on my phone to a small pulse. What do you think happened? I went through some withdrawals, of course! However, by practicing being present with my loved one, I began to see the complete indoctrination that had been happening for so long. I wrote one of my friends, and sure enough, this is happening more often than we think. It is why minimalism is not only applying to the stuff you have but also the experiences you bring into your life which include sensations, alerts, tones, and stimulants. After a few days, I realized things needed to change, so I began deleting apps and removing them from being in front of mind on my phone. Meditation became my primer not only to start but end the day. I can tell you something about all that, and it is that I feel better every day that passes.
The biggest question that pops into my mind is how your life would change if you silenced the alerts for some time? Would you leave the banner ads or badges there and not have any tones or vibrations? If you think about it, software companies hire teams of engineers to create these icons, alerts, waves of stimulation and sound to get your attention. They're doing a good job, and we have adopted it as a need in life, not as an option. My productivity has increased a good bit since I implemented this, and I can tell you that I am more aware of things that are going on in the world as well as conversations. Even my tone of voice has eased up. The experiment will continue, will you join me on the path to balance? You can learn more about balancing your life in my course, which you can find here. Please don't hesitate to send me a question if you would like to learn about how I am going with this experiment. I can tell you that this year has been nothing but strong experiences and awakened awareness, so there will be more stories to come. For now, I wish you a fantastic day without notifications.
