How to worry a bit less about the things you worry about.
A question from a client anxious about global conflict reminds me of how getting use of technology into balance helps everything else feel a bit more balanced too.
I'm posting a piece I wrote a few years ago when my children were still living at home and I was still, somewhat unconsciously, in the clutches of technology to an extent that I am pleased to say I no longer am.
The reason what follows came to my mind was because of a conversation this week with a client who is experiencing paralysing anxiety at the state of global events, and the particular challenge we have as therapists when someone brings something to therapy that reflects a trauma we all, to some degree, share. It's impossible not to be affected by the alarming creep of war and its imagined consequences.
Whilst detaching completely, or "avoidance", is as damaging as losing oneself in rolling news and half-baked commentary from people on Twitter, limiting the extent to which we allow ourselves to be slaves to our devices may not be a new idea, but it is still one we sometimes need reminding of.
Like anything that has hugely enjoyable elements, it's worth considering how we do ourselves damage if we don't place reasonable limits on our consumption. For example, I could happily eat my way through a whole bag of dried apricots, but allowing myself to do so made a particular game of five-a-side quite uncomfortable and required my spending most of it in the lavatory.
If the news is making you anxious, unhappy, frustrated, and distracted it's probably time to limit your exposure and go read a book, or walk through the woods while while your dog sniffs the urine of all the dogs that have gone before her. (Reading her wee-mails is what my sister calls it).
There is a difference between ignoring reality and focusing myopically on one fear-inducing part of it.
The world is not relentlessly bad and, as simplistic as it sounds, the best way to acknowledge it is to do things that help you experience the best of it.
wrote this lovely piece about the way that pushing technology aside makes room for more reading, for example.The Macintosh computer turned forty this week and as someone who remembers life before home PCs, smartphones and games consoles, I think we're blessed to have such wonders at our fingertips but, just like the two entire family packs of Marmite Rice Cakes I ate on my drive back home from Tenterden one afternoon, too much of a good thing can leave you feeling bloated, listless, and worrying about nuclear armageddon.
I have an app on my phone that identifies birdsong so that when I am walking through the woods I can tell a woodpecker from a robin.
Every so often it insists on playing an advert which makes me much less likely to buy whatever it is selling and too bitter and resentful to buy the full version of the app to get rid of the ads.
The app, while sometimes very pleasing, seems to think that a lot of birds are wood pigeons but I don’t know enough about birdsong to know that it’s wrong.
At home, my daughter is complaining that Uni group presentation work for her child development module is of low quality.
“The girl in my group who did the introduction didn’t even state the name of the research paper,” she says.
“Why don’t you just record the presentation again?”
“It was hard enough to get the group together to do it the first time”
“I would have thought working remotely was easier for everyone”
“Not really because one of the girls just sits in her room smoking weed all day, falls asleep, and forgets about the Zoom call.”
My son is frantically searching for new TVs in the Black Friday sale even though it is now Black Saturday preceding what is presumably, overcast Sunday before Cyber Monday.
“Aren’t most of these deals the same as deals available at other times?” I ask him.
“Probably, but we need a new TV.”
The last time I looked the TV was working perfectly well.
As I am in the kitchen trying to prise open the iced-up lower drawer of the freezer he explains he is using the voucher sent by the insurance company after the garage was broken into and the old TV was stolen from there.
I wonder how much new technology one can have without needing to store some of it in the garage.
As I’m going at the bottom of the freezer with a fish slice he calls,
“Why don’t you get a new fridge freezer in the sales?”
“Because there’s nothing wrong with this one,” I call back realising that the middle drawer is also stuck to the rear of the unit by a huge block of ice.
I fall into the vortex and start looking at fridge freezers on my laptop.
“Get one with an ice maker,” my daughter says
“Those are huge double-door monstrosities and they wouldn’t fit,” I say whilst thinking about how I could probably climb into one if everything gets too much.
Talking myself down from a new frost-free fridge freezer I read a news article about Black Friday and how Nintendo Switch consoles have sold out everywhere but Aldi.
I don’t even know what a Nintendo Switch is but I navigate to the Aldi website to see what the fuss is about and find I am number 274000 in a queue for something I don’t want.
I feel a headache coming on.
“I’m off out for a walk” I call as I scoop up the dog’s lead and prise her off a chair where she is sleeping peacefully.
In the valley, it is blessedly quiet and the crisp autumn air is a mix of leaf mould and wood fire.
Rounding the corner a heron is sitting on a small island in the pond.
I watch for a minute or so before it flaps its huge wings and rises, disappearing across the lake and over the trees.
As it flies I hear its call, a sound like a small dog with a sharp bark.
I look at the app on my phone.
“Wood-pigeon”.
On “Sideways” this week, we’re talking about “Beginner’s Mindset” and Martin tells us about the time he had an unpleasant brush with Dutch Hell’s Angels at the Reading rock festival.
That’s it. Thanks for being here. I appreciate you.
Until next time.
Wonderful....
“Wee Mail”! 🤍