The Day I Divorced My Phone: An Unconscious Uncoupling
The 6th Love Language
According to the book The Five Love Languages, people express and receive love in five different ways called “love languages”: quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. After dutifully studying this concept, I think I’ve discovered a 6th love language:
I call it “Parked On Our Phones” time, or POOP time for short. POOP time is a primary form of human communication and time spent together. It is also completely independent of the other five love languages - you cannot partake in quality time or physical touch while POOPing, for example - so it therefore fits quite nicely as a 6th addition.
Leading to the Break-Up
2020 was probably a great POOP time for us all.
In March, I mastered reading inaccurate Covid test reports, digesting illogical conclusions people wrote using those reports, and having mind-numbingly annoying arguments about those conclusions on Facebook. Quality POOP time!
In April, I mastered listening to Podcasts all day - while pretending to homeschool my kids, while walking to the park after giving up on pretending to homeschool my kids, while cooking dinner and wondering what happened to my life. I even read bedtime stories with one earbud in, loyally broadcasting news updates in my ear. Solid POOP time!
In the summer, we made approximately 153 eight hour car rides with our children to get from Los Angeles to Flagstaff and back. I had so much POOP time, I literally could not walk straight!
Signs of A Bad Relationship
By November, we had accidentally moved from Los Angeles to Flagstaff (a story for another time) and we found ourselves in numerous stressful situations with none of our friends from back home. Anxiety was abundant and at the slightest sign of it, I immediately had to POOP.
Ironically, as my Samsung and I were scrolling together one day, the following quiz appeared on his screen:
Are you wondering if your relationship is bad?
Are you prioritizing your partner’s thoughts and needs over your own?
Can you go out and do things without your partner joining?
Do your friends and family dislike your partner?
Does your partner make their problems into your problems?
Do you constantly check in on your partner?
Are you happier when your partner is not around?
Does your partner always ask you to pay for things?
Do you constantly think about spending more time away from your partner?
Does your partner always change topic from what you were thinking about?
Can you remember the last time you had a really great time with your partner?
And then it hit me. It hit me hard. Partner, we have a problem.
My real husband (the Hubs) and I had planned a two night trip in Sedona at the end of the year. It was the first trip away from our toddlers the entire year. We cancelled once already.
2020 had redefined suffering. We needed this getaway. And we needed to get away.
No We Can’t Be Friends: A Clean Break
I had a plan. I would bring my phone but commit to zero POOPing. I would put the phone in Airplane mode and only use it for podcasts and photos. We are all adults. We could make this work.
But I knew I was weak. I asked my friends (real humans, just to clarify) the night before if I should bring it to take pictures or leave it at home. I got back what I needed to hear: leave it. It would be so.
Initial Withdrawal Symptoms
It was a close call. The morning of, I came across a stellar real estate podcast I wanted to think about while on our trip. I thought about bringing him. Just this one podcast. Then I will lock you in the car. No! I could feel him drawing me back in! Fight it!
As we raced to get our stuff/kids in the car, I walked to the kitchen drawer, stopped the podcast and then: Turned. Him. Off. Into the drawer he went.
Everything went perfectly smoothly in the car afterwards, if by smooth, you mean a rabid animal clawing at her stolen lunch. I grabbed the Hubs’ phone and started playing the podcast, but it was no use; the kids’ piercing demands for “Wheels on the Bus” were too strong. When we got to school, the Hubs took the kids inside and TOOK HIS PHONE WITH HIM! I grasped for it, and caught air. I thought about all the texts and emails I could reply to, the questions I could answer. I wondered: what am I supposed to do now?
And then it all changed.
I Can See Clearly Now the Phone is Gone
I picked up a book. I had packed several with me to read on the trip. I read a couple pages, calmly. When the Hubs got back in the car, I simply closed the book and we began chatting, all the way to Sedona. Just like that.
Over the next two days, there were profound differences I noticed in my new phoneless life:
Control Your Mind, Control Your Time
While grasping for my phone in the car, I realized my plan was unconsciously to invite the outer world to tell me how to think, spend my time, and react. I could hardly blame the phone. Its entire function after all is to allow us to read and react to communications from the outside world.
Instead, I was in control of choosing my thoughts. And it was a lot more interesting than responding to a text or email on a topic that wasn’t on my mind at that moment.
A Good Time Haiku
When we got to Sedona, we went for a hike. It was beautiful. You should have seen it. But you can’t and neither can we. We took no pictures. We were just there. In it. Alone.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking pictures. But the act of staying present in the midst of the experience kept us together in the moment. It made me ask myself: What is the sound a good time makes if there is no one there to Instagram it?
Ditching Data Overload
I usually check the weather every morning before getting dressed. What would I do if I wore a pair of pants intended for 47 degree weather when it turned out to be 52 degrees outside? In absence of my phone, I did this fancy move: I would open the door, stick a bathrobe’d hand into the outside air, sometimes a foot too if I was feeling scientific, declare, “Yup, that’s cold”, and get dressed. Done.
I didn’t need to know the exact temperature. And this applied to way more than the weather. I didn’t need Google to answer every question. The pondering and unknown added to the adventure of life.
Leave the Blank Space for Your Brain
In the absence of POOP, going to the bathroom became a much faster event. The usual habit of sending that one text on the way to the bathroom, while in line, and yes, on the toilet (oh you know you do it) was replaced with just...blank space. Or was it? It reminded me of my mathematician days. When I had a really hard problem to solve, I would “let it marinate”. That meant to sleep on it, go for a run, or do anything but think about it. Sure enough, it would often “marinate” and answer itself.
I found the same principle applied to any waiting or in-between times - at the coffee maker, getting dressed in the morning. Thoughts I had moments earlier now unconsciously had time to marinate.
Wait, Don’t Execute!
In a typical conversation with the Hubs, especially when planning world domination or maybe just our next play date, we would have an idea, then pick up the phones to execute! Date night Wednesday? Sounds good. Text the babysitter! Travel to our Dallas property in April? Great! Email the property manager! Without my phone, (and yelling at the Hubs to put his down), we had to wait to execute.
This had two benefits. First, it allowed the plans to marinate, per the above. With further thought, we often came up with improvements and adjustments to the plan. Second, it was surprisingly more efficient than executing immediately. By batching several communication tasks into one sitting (when we got home), it was much faster. The same applied to consuming news updates and replying to texts and emails.
Follow Your Energy
I would find myself reaching for my phone after a long time spent reading outside, back in the car after a long hike, and in the hotel room after dinner. I wondered: What is causing me to reach for my phone? The answer: I was tired. Typically if asked why I was on my phone in these moments, I would say “just relaxing”. But I realized two things: A) it’s not actually relaxing and B) it’s not addressing the typical cause which is a drop in energy.
So instead of fighting my energy and exacerbating the problem, I gave into the energy, whether that was just sitting there, closing my eyes, or having a coffee.
Be An Original
I have a Ph.D. in analysis paralysis. Going for a hike? Find the perfect trail. Choosing souvenirs for your kids? Cross analyze shop reviews on Google and Yelp until you’re cross-eyed.
On this trip, we chose a random hike near the breakfast joint, “returned” to the wrong parking lot twice, and had a blast. For souvenirs, we picked matching locally made bracelets for me and the girl (win-win) and went into the most touristy shop on the block where we found a pop-gun for the boy (best-gift-of-2020).
Your Best Presence
In the book, One Thousand Gifts, (which I read on the trip), the author says that the key to joy is to emptying our lives of expectations and filling them with our presence:
“It is only when our lives are emptied that we’re surprised by how truly full our lives were. Instead of filling with expectations, the joy-filled expect nothing -- and are filled. This breath! This oak tree! This daisy! This work! This sky! These people! This place! This day! Surprise!”
Out of all the gifts I received from my phone sabbatical, the best one hands down was: my presence.
Visitation Rights: A Return to Reality
When I returned home, I had a Zen feeling of calm that permeated every day for the rest of my life. Just kidding. We picked up the kids from school, embraced them as if we had been separated at birth, and brought them home where they immediately proceeded to be just as annoying as ever. My old partner called to me, “Come to me, Kim, I’m so relaxing. I’m here for you. There is Lululemon to buy and friends to text about your annoying children.”
I knew I needed a long-term game plan, which I have summarized below.
How to Stop Picking Up Your Phone Starting Today:
Here are the steps I took for long term phone management:
A Clean Break. Think of it as a cleanse, except not stupid. Set a period of time of at least two days and two nights to turn off your phone and put it away. Try to pick a time where you can really enjoy yourself and/or occupy yourself with a big project. Some ideas include a trip, reading a set of meaningful books, or a house project, preferably while discussing it all with a real human.
Observe What Happens. Take notes like I did on what you notice, how you feel, and new ideas you have.
Make a Phone-Checking Schedule. Upon returning, set three periods each day to check the phone. I chose the following:
11 AM: Because I want to have original (not reactionary) thoughts during my morning work time from 8-11 AM.
2 PM: Before I pick up the kids from school since I don’t want to be on the phone while they’re home.
7:30 PM: After I put the kids to bed but not too close to my bedtime.
Make the Urge More Resistible. The phone sleeps in the kitchen overnight. During the day, I try to have it live in a different room than me, unless I’m making calls. Additionally, I make a point of having quiet time to focus on my phone during the three daily checks, and conversely try not to check it otherwise during any of those in-between moments outside those times.
Silence the Demon. I put the phone on Do Not Disturb. In addition, I turned the Notifications off so I don’t see the little bubble of texts (“look I have friends to talk to!”). You can also set exceptions so that the phone will ring if select people call for emergencies (“Babe, can you get more yogurt from the store?”).
Set a Day for Phone Sabbath. Set one day a week (I like Sundays) where you will not turn on your phone for 24 hours. Don’t kid yourself. This is hard. We decided to hide each others’ phones the night before and didn’t reveal them again until 8 PM Sunday night.
Be Nice to Yourself. There will be times when we fall off the proverbial phone wagon and suddenly find ourselves unexpectedly in deep POOP. Don’t give up. Just get back on the plan.
And finally…
Enjoy Your New Best Presence
For much of 2020, I felt like I was missing something, like there was something out there I wanted. A goal? A project? A new plan?
However, when I emptied my mind from my phone, I could actually see what I was missing. I was missing what I had in front of me the entire time. I was missing the present.