Friday Musings—Cascade effects

What's new with me

I had my second session with the relationship coach and I must say it's a relief to have someone to talk to given the challenging family dynamics I've previously mentioned. It's always good to have someone who will listen, and sometimes it’s really valuable to get an outside perspective—someone looking in from the outside, without any history or emotional baggage tied to the situation.

For so many years, I carried the weight of our family issues and my illness on my own. The isolation and lack of support is what really broke me, not the illness itself. I don't want other people to feel they're alone, that's why I'm offering free mindful chats if anyone feels like they could use one.

Brain rot update

I wanted to share a quick update on my "brain rot challenge". As you might remember, I decided to avoid using my phone during the first hour after waking up and the last hour before bed. Overall, I’m happy to say it’s gone pretty well. There were a few evenings where I slipped up, but most of the time I caught myself doing that and stopped.

My average screen time over the past month has been about two hours a day, which feels reasonable since that includes podcasts and calls. Time on social media (mostly Facebook and Instagram) is down to around 30 minutes a week, which I’m pretty happy with. The next thing I want to work on is the number of daily phone pickups, which is currently hovering around 50. I’ve noticed how much of it is just habit or boredom. Most of the time, I put the phone back down after a minute or two, so it’s not full-on doomscrolling, but I feel all those tiny interruptions really do chip away at my focus. So the next piece of this challenge is more Niksen moments (just letting myself pause and do nothing) and fewer phone grabs.

I also feel like this positive new habit is having a cascade effect. First off, I permanently replaced my morning phone scrolling with some exercise routines (yoga or strength training). Second, I started paying a bit more attention to my phone use throughout the day. Am I using it because I'm bored or stressed? What if I took a meditating walk rather than listening to music? And so forth. Thirdly, I've decided to set some limits to my iPad usage as well (yes to YT exercise routines, my yoga app, the financial or health channels I follow, whereas I want to curb the time I spend on Netflix). Finally, I was confirmed in my belief that small changes can have a significant effect over time.

If you've tried the challenge as well, please let me know how it went.

What's next

Last week I shared how my yoga therapy session was a reminder of just how important it is to learn to deeply rest and unwind both body and mind on a regular basis in order to stave off stress. The topic probably deserves a deeper post, so for now I'll just say that I've decided that my next challenge will be a daily yoga Nidra session. I've been meaning to introduce more yoga Nidra into my life for months now, so I'm glad I'm finally making it a priority! I'll try it until the end of the month and maybe also extend this new challenge into April.

If you're interested in trying it out as well, here's the YouTube channel I use for guided yoga Nidra sessions.

Good people

Before I wrap up, I wanted to share a heartwarming article. Vicky Roy is a photographer who spent four years traveling across India, documenting the stories of people living with disabilities. All those stories, which "focus on the person, not the disability", have been collected and published in a book, Everyone is Good at Something, which is also the name of a larger project aimed at making the country more inclusive (apparently, there's still a lot of stigma around disability in India).

It's always inspiring to see people using their work to make the world a better place. If you come across any good people doing good things, big or small, I’d love to hear about them.

Quote of the week ✍️ 

"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity".  (Simone Weil)

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you have any suggestions or insights, feel free to share them in the comments. And if you know someone who might enjoy these musings or benefit from a mindful chat, please pass this along, I’d love to grow this community.

Until next time,

ML