If you’ve started a mediation practice you’ll now recognise that meditation is “simple but not easy”.
You’ll also have hopefully started to get the intuition that it is worth sticking to this practice. The more this becomes a habit, the more it’ll stay with you during the day, and the more it stays with you during the day, the more you’ll notice the benefits of having more equanimity, more balance and less reactiveness.
Today I’d just like to really quickly cast a glance at a topic that is very dear to my heart, and that’s smartphones.
Unless you’re super-human you’ll have felt the same pull that I feel – and that millions, no – billions – of people feel every day. That’s the little tug of addiction, the “just pick me up, look at me, oo, shiny” that emanates from this little rectangle of plastic. I won’t go into the studies now – we’ve all heard of them, the little bursts of dopamine, the fact that even having one of these gadgets in the room. let alone in your hand, is enough to distract…
Clearly, not everything about smartphones is terrible.
But. They can also become the single most mindless thing you own. Browsing in that way we all know so well – endless (doom)scrolling, not really seeing, not really hearing, not really focusing on the other things around us (the kids, the tv, your food, your partner…) – this is about as opposite an activity to mindfulness as you can possibly get.
There are many ways you can counter this. I’m not going to use too much of this blog encouraging you to change your smartphone habits in radical ways, but here are just two quick ideas.
Firstly: try being without it, and use your growing mindfulness practice to really notice how you feel when you are parted from your phone. Go out without it, and notice your relief or discomfort – don’t judge these feelings, just notice them.
Secondly: when you do settle down with your phone or tablet – or any other screen! – do this mindfully. It’s almost as if you’re setting aside “some mindless browsing time”, but knowing that you’re doing this, by focusing on it.
Try these practices – and again I emphasise working on them without judgement, and with as much kindness and compassion as you can – just to notice more about how you feel in this particular aspect of your normal waking life.
