Four days. Zero technology.

When was the last time you were offline for a prolonged period?

Without the physical device, your smart phone or tablet?

Without your smart watch?

Without a monitoring device, Whoop or Oura ring etc?

How would you feel about placing these items into a box and having them returned to you in 4-days?

Anxiety, or even feelings of fear and panic due to nomophobia are commonplace. Yet, often just beyond the initial reaction, sighs of relief are waiting patiently in the wings.

It’s one thing to be offline, it’s quite another to not actually have our physical devices with us, the pieces of technology that hold and are often representative of every facet of our lives. A sort of technological nakedness.

What does it mean for us to be without notifications, calls, messages and the hum of relentless pinging?

To be without distraction?

In studies where they gave people the choice of either sitting alone with their own thoughts or giving themselves an electric shock, a significant amount of people would rather give themselves an electric shock then sit alone with their thoughts because the shock is still some kind of stimulation.

Yet somehow, the act of placing our devices into a box, welcomes unexpected relief.

We enter temporary discomfort when we are without our devices and yet when experienced together, we are not forced or instructed but rather invited into a space of attention, of presence, of noticing, of softness, of unfolding, of wonder – we begin to come alive. We receive the offering of the elements and experience the changing shape of the natural world without the need to capture it. The image of our experience becomes embodied rather than remembered through the lens of our device.

Just for a while, we begin to shift our relationship with the construct of time and deepen the connection with ourselves beyond the monitoring device feedback mechanism.

Welcoming the invitation of quiet and stillness, our internal noise dissolves in moments of solitude and space as we attune to the rhythm of the natural world.