My Radical New Relationship with My iPhone

Have you ever checked your phone so many times in one day that you finally stopped, shook yourself out of a zombie state, and thought “What in the world am I doing?” Let me take you back to a pivotal moment in February…
 
It was just about Spring time and my business started picking up organically after an intentional, restful slower season. As my entrepreneurial engines started to fire back up, I felt the pull of social media really start to twist my arm. I have always struggled with social media boundaries; simply setting time limits has never worked for my personality type. 

As I took pause to think about how I would like to move forward with this situation while continuing to pursue my efforts being a present Mom while also working more, I decided to off load all of my social media apps onto a secondary iPhone. This iPhone would sit in my office and I would only use it when I was working.

As my business started growing in the social media sector, I found myself getting wrapped up in trends, insights and the game of social media as a whole. The more I stepped into it, the more my spirit really started to reject it - more now than ever before.
 
I have been absolutely blessed that I have never HAD to use social media to market my own business; I have built my business on referrals for over 10+ years. But, the temptation to jump fully into social media marketing simply because I "could", was knocking at my door and I felt my hand on the door knob, sweaty and ready to turn it.

Right around this time, I had the opportunity to take a much needed break after Mom-ing it while working 8-10hr days. I found myself exhausted and extremely burnt out. The season was changing and thankfully it was time for more rest.
 
During this season of a much lighter work load, I started asking myself - what is this relationship that I have with my phone? What do I use it for and WHY? Why do I feel like I need to post a photo on my stories, who is it for? Who am I talking to? These questions started to really bother me, like a sliver, so naturally I had to find the answers to relieve these festering thoughts.

The first question I had to answer was, why was I so afraid of not being on social media when my business was never built on there? And why did I feel like I needed to start that type of marketing all of the sudden?

The second question was, who are my actual friends? 

The third question was, why did I need to use Google so much during the day? Why can’t I just write down my questions during the day and look them up during my allotted computer time?

Suddenly, social media and my smart phone started to look bad guys; sucking my brain energy, giving me false security, dulling my surroundings and killing my creativity. 

So, I made a new plan. I removed all of my apps off of my regular iPhone, including Amazon. I only left maps, voice memo, and the other standard apps. I even FINALLY figured out how to make the Safari search stop coming up. Yep, I turned off internet access on my phone. I turned my screen color to greyscale and put a solid black background on it. I was breaking up with the addictive dopamine hit that I had become so used to and was using as a crutch and coping mechanism.

It has been almost 7 months since I took the first step to off load my social media apps to a secondary iPhone and it’s been almost 2 months since I locked my iPhone down. And last week I actually deactivated all of my social media accounts.

A couple of weeks ago I was at our local health foods store, Haggen. I was standing outside looking at flowers for my newly bedded garden. One of the tags said “Inter-perennial” and being new to gardening, I had never heard of that. As I stood there, knowing I could not use my phone to search for the answer, a sweet little lady came up beside me and I asked her what she thought. We chatted and had laughs. I would not have had this human interaction if I had my iPhone out. That moment really meant a lot to me. It was one of the first fruits of my new efforts.

I am in my real-life-friends era. I am in my who-can-I-reach-out-to personally era. I am in my connection era. And what encourages me the most is knowing that I am not the only woman feeling this way…

As far as business goes, I know there are SO many other opportunities to use for marketing. From podcast interviews, to blog features (blogs are coming back ya’ll, I can FEEL it!), online ads and more. I am excited to work on unfolding a new way of marketing without the struggle of social media boundaries. 

My family and I have been incredibly impacted by this radical change. It has made me question a lot of my current patterns and what kind of interactions are truly meaningful to me. It has made me a better mom, wife, daughter and friend. It has made me more resourceful and it has freed up creative corners of my mind. New ideas are flowing and pondering is my new normal.  And I am here for it.

I am here for printed photos, hour long phone calls with friends, hand written letters and in- person meet-ups. I am here for peace, for spiritual nourishment, for presence, for hope and for joy.

If you're thinking about getting off social media, here is a PDF I made with some questions that may help you think it out more. 

Here is an encouraging podcast episode I listened to about this topic, too.
 
 I hope my story has been encouraging to you and where you are at with your journey towards more connection and deeper relationships.

Blessings,
Hannah
Daughter of God, Wife, Mom, Entrepreneur

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