Practical Magic for the Chronically Online
How to Stop Scrolling & Start Creating.
The Unreliable Narrator Entry #4
Main character energy? Always. Listen to the essay on the go on Spotify Or Apple — but don’t forget, there’s exclusive media sprinkled throughout the written piece too. Worth a scroll when you have a minute or watch while you work on Youtube!
When I'm connected to a state of flow, the world seems to move in slow motion while I move at hyperspeed. Time unfolds and creates hidden space right before my eyes. Distractions melt away - the nagging need to check my phone or scroll through the electric hum of digital noise feels like a distant memory. When I feel out of balance or far from locked into the magic of life, time seems to collapse around me. Hours and then days pass by with me getting little to nothing done. The sun begins to set, and the anxiety of having achieved nothing feels all-consuming. How have I wasted another day of my life? Where did the time go?
Though it’s incredibly frustrating and at times even painful, I've discovered that these moments of un-alignment are crucial to developing into our best selves. Being able to recognize that we have a problem or a bad habit is part of the lesson itself. Finding the willpower and discipline to work our way back to center should be seen as a gift and not a burden.
Staying at a constant high is unachievable. The laws of gravity demand everything that goes up must come down, and we are not an exception to this universal truth. To operate in a constant state of enlightenment would rob us of the learning and growth we were put here to experience. To exist is to suffer - it is quite literally part of our job as the lucky souls selected to spend time here on Earth. We are assigned the task of searching for and creating light amongst the darkness of the human experience.
I don’t mean to over-intellectualize the simple truth that I am addicted to my phone, but putting aside the fact that these highly advanced paperweights are designed to keep us in a never-ending loop of blue light and overstimulation, I can see that the truth behind my inability to walk away from this toxic relationship is much deeper than a perfectly timed stream of notifications.
It dawned on me while writing in my journal this morning that the past year and a half has been the first time in nearly a decade that I have lived on my own. I moved out of my childhood home when I was only 17, and by sheer force I never had to move back home. Though there were many times I wondered, how am I going to pay my rent? How am I supposed to keep going like this for the rest of my life? I always found a way to survive and eventually even began to thrive. For a short period of time - after living on my own for years, I lived with a friend…quickly learning that it wasn’t for me. To escape the madness of my living situation I moved in with my first boyfriend at 21. Realizing this brought with it a huge wave of relief because I have been struggling to put a finger on why I have felt so lonely for the past year and a half.
Of course I've felt lonely... because I have largely been ALONE. Before exiting my relationship and entering my healing girl era, I was constantly surrounded by people. Our home was a revolving door of visitors from the moment we awoke and long after I went to bed. For the first few months of being single, I slept with a YouTube video of nightlife sounds playing from my laptop. I was so used to falling asleep to the muffled chatter of people and music from another room. The idea of falling asleep to silence felt paralyzing in a way that was shocking to both me and my nervous system. I had been craving silence and stillness for years, and now that I had it, I realized that I no longer knew how to sit in it.
The first year of being single felt like a master class in surrendering and a showering of euphoric gifts from the universe. I felt so tapped into the universe that at times it seemed like I was floating through a waking dream. I think something much larger than myself - call that God, the universe, whatever feels right to you - knew that this leap of a lifetime had to be rewarded with a showering of blessings that can only be described as a homecoming. I had departed so far from myself and my connection to a higher power that I swear I could hear the angels rejoice as I marched out of the metaphorical pits of hell.
With my past drifting quickly into a distant memory and the high of returning to who I once was rapidly wearing off, I find myself once again faced with the silence of the present moment. Except this time, the looping sounds of false cityscapes or the artificially mixed ambient noises of late-night dinner parties no longer soothe me. I find myself wanting to leave the present moment, diving headfirst into the virtual world to avoid the reality that I feel so alone.
Whenever I find myself scrolling online and riddled with anxiety, I eventually arrive at the understanding that I have to come face-to-face with what has brought me there. It’s different every time, but all roads seem to lead to the same exact place. The amount of time I spend on my phone engaged in mindless behavior is a direct reflection of where my mental health and happiness are at. When it comes to this, there is no answer to what came first - the chicken or the egg - because both are true. My mental health and happiness suffer when I spend a lot of time on my phone. I spend a lot of time on my phone when my mental health and happiness are suffering.
Even within my frustration, it amazes me how this brain-rotting habit has the ability to act as a warning system that something is off within me. When I’m able to step back and look at the big picture from 50 feet above, I can trace the invisible string that leads me to seek comfort in dissociation. I used to love being alone. I found it both thrilling and recharging to meditate or even just sit with my thoughts for hours at a time. Now I feel restless and distressed with even a momentary pause of stimulation. I feel racked with guilt about not “doing something”... anything.
How have I drifted so far away from the understanding that doing nothing is doing something! Taking a stroll down the street with no music, no podcast, and even a lack of destination is a treat that needs to be indulged in. Our thoughts and ideas need space to form, and if we are constantly doing and consuming, we leave no room for higher consciousness to tap into our energetic field, bestowing us with an answer to a problem, a creative idea, a song lyric, a book title - an aha moment to life's biggest questions and mysteries.
To create is an act of worship and devotion to the universe and our higher selves. We are all creatives, whether we are aware of it or not. Acting on that creativity is a birthright and a ritual that always brings us back into the present moment. Tapping into the creative stream that metaphorically flows above all of our heads is a gift that we all have - but a select few give ourselves permission to act on.
When I am in the practice of creating instead of consuming, I always find myself organically remedying my loneliness because great art is rarely made alone. It takes a village of people to make something truly special. Even if a book is written entirely by one individual, it is not the words alone that bring the story to life but the editing, the graphic design work for the covers, the photograph of the author, the publishers who amplify it, the marketing team that carefully crafts its output. You will find this to be true in every art form. From painting, to movies, to music and beyond - even if only the “artist” is credited - the final form of their work is a labor of love by many.
I say all of this as the answer to both my own question and presumably yours if you're reading or listening to this: How do I stop wasting my time scrolling through a sea of posts that don’t positively impact my life, and how do I realign back into the balanced flow of productivity and rest that allows me to have a stable state of mind and happiness?
Of course there are a million tips and tricks online about how to cut down your screen time or break an addictive pattern to your phone: setting screen time limits, sleeping with your phone in another room, deleting social apps off your home screen. Though I find many of these practices helpful, the truth is none of them are as effective as replacing the desire to disconnect from reality with a desire to reconnect with the here and now.
Creating is for everyone and anyone. When I talk about creating, I am not referring to being a social media content creator, though that may be the medium in which you choose to create or release your work. Truly creating requires us to be tapped into something larger than ourselves, whether we realize it or not, and that only happens when we are in the present moment. There is a distinct difference between creating and replicating. Making something from nothing is practical magic, and the more you do it, the better you will become.
There is nothing more rewarding than catching an idea and bringing it to life. Even if that's for something as simple or seemingly trivial as a social media reel, your best ideas will not be found scrolling through a sea of other creations, but within the silence of your own mind. You already have everything you need to bring your best ideas to life right within you.
It’s important to become comfortable with your own thoughts and the extensive time it can take for them to form. Our brains are not computers. There are deep, nuanced layers to how a thought or idea is uniquely formed within each of us. Some ideas may come to you all at once in a flash of creative inspiration that can’t help but pour out of you. Other times, it can take hours - even days - for the full picture to load into the view of your mind’s eye.
AI and data processing softwares have robbed us of the patience that’s needed for a truly great idea to form. We want problems and questions to be solved and answered immediately. What happened to the age-old tradition of just having a think? Instead of brainstorming, we have begun to run straight to AI to think for us - once again robbing us of the opportunity to be bestowed with the gift of tapping into the flow of creative consciousness.
My challenge to you as I wrap up this entry is to sit with your thoughts for as long or as little as you feel comfortable and note the first creative idea that comes to your mind. Commit to bringing that idea to life in any way you can, and watch what happens to your state of mind, sense of self, and happiness when you act on your own creative gifts. Not only will you be rewarded with a sense of ease as you manifest even more ideas in your reality, but your mindless screen time will plummet because truly inspired creations demand to be seen, heard, felt, and experienced. Your desire to scroll through a sea of other voices will be drowned out by your own inner voice telling you to follow the invisible string of your creation rather than the tempting path of disconnection.
I know just how well this works because this entry is the living embodiment of this exact concept. I wanted to write, but for days I was unable to quiet my mind or pull myself from the clutches of my phone long enough to even brainstorm an idea. Because I couldn't relax into the stillness of my thoughts, I decided that exact concept would have to be my jumping-off point. Now, a few hours of phone-free bliss later, I have created something from nothing.
A simple idea has become an essay that thousands of people will listen to or read. The itching ache to check my phone or scroll has been replaced with the excitement of editing this article in the morning, while sipping on an ice-cold matcha latte, as the smell of fresh chocolate croissants fills my light-drenched living room. The gift of creation will only continue to bring me into the connected moment of the here and now. I already have more ideas swirling around in my head for the videos and imagery I want to make to promote this essay - all of which will require me to style outfits, or reach out to friends and family for help with filming, the list goes on and on, because creation always creates connection - with others and with yourself.
So if you’re looking for a sign to pursue or catch your next big idea, this is it - and breaking up with your codependent phone may just be an added benefit to pursuing your passions.
Yours truly,
The Unreliable Narrator