Can we be too connected?
How often do you check your phone?
I haven’t tried to count. I know I would be downright ashamed.
It’s rather addictive isn’t it? This compulsive need to swipe, tap and check. We’ve conditioned ourselves to be wired. And if we are honest, we are wired pretty much all of the time, spurred on by this constant need to be connected, stay connected, remain connected.
The irony is that amidst all this ‘connectedness’ and wiring into technology we lose the most fundamental connection of all – the connection to our Selves.
The simple act of feeling our breath or sensing tension in our body or resistance in our mind becomes an almost impossible task.
I’ve often sat in a yoga class or relaxation exercise and been asked to “scan the body and notice how you feel”. In my early days of practice my mental answer to the teacher guiding such activity was rather simple; “sod off, I’m not feeling a bleedin’ thing!”
As I became more experienced though, this lack of feeling made me ask questions. Why do I find it so difficult to ‘feel’ my toes? Why is it so hard to focus my concentration on the movement of my breath in my body? What is preventing me from really feeling, really connecting, inside?
The answer is simple and it dawned on me as I stepped off the train and walked to work the other day.
We’re all just too wired. We are too connected. And ironically, the more wired we are, the more numb we become to our Selves.
Ponder it for a moment. Better still, try it. Stop whatever you are doing right now and shift all your attention to feel every nuance, sensation and bone in your left little toe. Challenging isn’t it?
So go on, do something just a little bit mad today. Switch everything off, even for a few minutes, so You can switch back on.
Katherine Mair
M.A.D. Creator