Unplugged

Results of a Challenging Experiment

When I left my home in Pittsburgh on Thursday December 18^th and flew to Palm Springs to begin what has been, in the last few years, my usually holiday time with family, I unplugged. There had been so much on my plate, and there would continue to be during the 18 days of the family gatherings. I didn’t refer to this time way as a vacation, or an intermission, or a time out. I knew I needed a break, and the word I used was “unplugged.”

Now that I’m home and attempting to restart my life, I’m aware that whatever unplugging really means, it’s clearly something I’ve seldom ever done in recent years. When I’ve traveled, I’ve taken my technology with me, holding online classes from hotel rooms, attending virtual meetings, keeping up my writing practice, being available for short conferences with clients, even arranging book presentations in places I’d traveled to.

But with all the rapid-fire change that has been going on in the body politic this year and all the angst that rapid changes in technology itself has been causing me, I thought it worth a try to experiment with staying away from it all. Shortly before I was to return home, I began to write a few lines about this experiment of being unplugged and only a couple of sentences in, several things I needed to do immediately came to me and I left the essay to carry out those demands.

Once home I googled the word “unplugged” to see what others might mean when they use it and found some interesting references. “Digital Detox Cabins in Nature–– Cabins in 50 locations in the countryside of the UK. The promise––“To unplug and escape the everyday grind and relax in nature.”

There’s a brewery in Ohio that goes by the name “Unplugged,” a smart phone company with a hardware battery disconnect switch that uses the name, and a non-profit. Their listing was sparce, with missing information, but the website for “PA Unplugged” describes “a statewide coalition working towards a cultural shift in our approach to screens and social media during childhood and adolescence. 20 + grassroots organizations, representing 3000+ Pennsylvanians across 10 counties and counting.”

Whew! Just reading these descriptions causes me to need to take a break and a breath. Western culture’s unrelenting connection to changing information that come to us through technology has created a pace that is not the speed of human brains and bodies. What’s needed? Stepping away, I hear advice from a song, popular when I was a younger adult, “Slow down. You move too fast. Gotta make the moment last, Feeling Groovy.”

In reconnecting, it’s taking me a while to find a rhythm or groove that feels smooth and easy– that flow state where what we do feels productive and satisfying. What has this completely unplugging experiment taught me? Like a friend once advised, “let go of tension but don’t let go of your immune system.” In the future I won’t unplug completely again, but be sure to stay connected to the people and practices that sustain my health, wellness, and human spirit.