{ Read } Should You Disconnect To Reconnect?

 Are you prioritizing social media over your relationship?

Hands up if you can relate to this:

You’re on the couch watching telly and bedtime rolls around. You and your partner head to bed. You pull back the covers, fall in and immediately you check your phone. You scroll through your FaceBook feed, thumb through Instagram and before you know it you’re stalking some “ridiculously successful at life” stranger and your partner is snoring.

Go on… be honest, is that you?

It used to be me.

Mindless scrolling through social media at bedtime was as habitual as brushing my teeth and for a long time a screen was the last thing I’d see before shutting my eyes at night. And it was quite often the first thing I’d look at in the morning.

It wasn’t until I became serious about creating and sustaining an epic relationship with my partner that I began exploring why we were lacking connection and where we were missing moments for intimacy, that I discovered I was indeed a Scrollaholic.

Scrollaholic: A made -up Tara O term used to describe someone who spends more time looking at other people’s lives than participating in their own. I know you know what I mean here.

I realized I was consistently choosing my phone over connecting with my partner and it was impacting everything from our open-hearted pillow talks to our love making. Instead of turning towards my partner at the end of the day, I was choosing to scroll away instead.

And baby ain’t it easy to do!

Our smartphones are an endless source of entertainment and education and for many of us, there is rarely a moment when our phone is out of reach.

But what is it costing us? Are we all spending too much time looking at our phones when we should be looking at each other? Are we trading intimacy for the internet? Our reality for someone else’s highlight reel? Cuddles for cat photos?

Ask any spiritual smartypants and they’ll tell you “ what you focus on expands”.  So imagine the magic that would happen if you took all that attention and energy away from your smartphone and sprinkled it all over your spouse instead. I’m talking more tickles and less emails, more flirting less Facebook, more sex less scrolling. Just, you know… more human stuff. Do the things that make you want to stay awake a little longer, find the juice that makes your heart expand and use it to cultivate connection instead of separation.

Time is limited. You don’t get a lot of it. So choose how you want to spend it wisely. Take the minutes that are mundane and turn them into love bombs. Show more love. Feel more love. Create more love.

Please don’t let technology steal your love story. Don’t let it rob you of late night cuddles and early morning sex. SHARE with your partner. LIKE and invest in what you’re creating together. COMMENT on what they mean to you. 

And be sure to create conscious boundaries. Those devices are sneaky little devils and if you let them they’ll invade your relationship.

Switching off to switch on

My dude and I have a “No technology in the bedroom” rule in place these days. It’s not welcome. No exceptions. No iPad, no phones, no laptops, no screens period!

We talk instead. We make love. We touch. We joke. We look at each other. We tell each other it’s ok. There are nights that I cry. There are mornings that I cry again. We listen. Sometimes I try and hold in my gas but it escapes anyway. We plan and dream and ask each other questions like ” would you rather lose an arm or have sex with your mother?”. It’s not always romantic or ‘spiritual’ but it’s connection and I have a hunch it’s the building block of our love.

We have also started a book club. Each night we take it in turns to read a chapter out loud to one another (Tomek reads in a monotone voice and sometimes I get bored when he doesn’t do the character voices but that’s ok)

We always do our 3 gratitudes before we go to sleep and it’s the best part of my day.

It works for us.

So tonight as you slip between your sheets and reach for your phone. Maybe stop and ponder for a bit. What are you choosing? Who are you choosing? And what is really important to you?