By JULIE ROBINSON
Julie Robinson is the founder of Inventure, which creates spaces and journeys (including four days in the Karoo) for participants to create space, slow down, savour beauty, embrace simplicity and cultivate joy. For more information, go to www.theinventure.com.
When was the last time you were offline for a prolonged period? Without a physical device – your smart phone or tablet? Without your smart watch? Without a monitoring device – a Whoop, an Oura ring or whatever it is? How would you feel about placing these items into a box and having them returned to you after four days?
Anxiety, or even feelings of fear and panic due to nomophobia (short for “no mobile phone phobia”) are commonplace. Yet, often just beyond the initial reaction, sighs of relief are waiting patiently in the wings. It’s one thing to be offline, but it’s quite another to not actually have our physical devices with us, especially when the pieces of technology that we’re holding are often representative of every facet of our lives. Without them, we experience a sort of technological nakedness.
But what does it mean for us to be without notifications, calls, messages and the hum of relentless pinging? To be without distraction?
In studies where researchers gave people the choice of either sitting alone with their own thoughts or giving themselves an electric shock, a significant amount of people chose to rather give themselves an electric shock then sit alone with their thoughts because the shock is at least still some kind of stimulation.
And yet… Somehow, the act of placing our devices into a box, can bring unexpected relief. We enter temporary discomfort when we are without this technology and yet when these emotions are experienced together with other people, we are not forced or instructed but rather invited into a space of attention, of presence, of being noticed, of softness, of unfolding, of wonder – and we begin to come alive. We receive the offering of the elements and experience the changing shape of the natural world without the need to capture it. The image of our experience becomes embodied rather than remembered through the lens of our devices. Just for a while, we begin to shift our relationship with the construct of time and deepen the connection with ourselves beyond the monitoring and feedback mechanisms of our devices.
Welcoming the invitation of quiet and stillness, our internal noise dissolves in moments of solitude and space as we attune to the rhythm of the natural world.