14-Tage-Kurs

Detaching From Social Media: A Walking Guide To Authentic Connecting

Von Julia Mossbridge

Was du lernen wirst

In this 14-day course, each brief class session is designed to be listened to while walking in your neighborhood, a park, or in a place you feel comfortable to walk outside your home. In the early classes, we'll work on getting out into the world, moving our bodies, and noticing the desire to check texts, emails, and social media accounts -- we’ll be tuning into how a new way of moving in the world feels. In the middle of the course we’ll make three commitments about the way we intend use our time in relationship to technology. And we’ll examine how it feels to consider re-centering physical presence and connection in our lives. Toward the end of the course, we'll challenge ourselves to notice when we revert to our addictions. We’ll love ourselves as we try to commit again. We'll work on connecting in real life on one of our walks with strangers who cross our paths. Finally we'll walk with a friend, family member, or neighbor where we live or work. This all can sound intimidating, and I don't want to scare you off -- please know we will walk together in the spirit of forgiveness, growth, and unconditional love. As for me, my background is in cognitive neuroscience (including a focus on learning) and I design technology as well, so I have dealt with understanding social media addiction at personal, scientific, and career levels. I will be with you step-by-step as we understand and reclaim our minds, bodies and spirits. Together, I look forward to reentering the experience of unconditional love for who we authentically are, reclaiming our rights to our own movements in the world, and reshaping our relationships to technology in ways that work for us. Note: Thanks to Joseph Mossbridge for excellent audio editing, songwriting, and production.

Julia Mossbridge

Falls Church, VA, USA

Dr. Mossbridge is a scientist and technologist pursuing a deep understanding of love, time, and how these two human experiences relate to each other and the physical world. She is an affiliate professor in the Dept. of Biophysics and Physics at University of San Diego, the co-founder of TILT: The Institute for Love and Time, the founder of...

Lektion 1

Checking In & Moving Out

We start indoors, checking in with definitions and then using a brief breathing meditation to bring love in and let it do its work before we head outdoors. As we transition from indoors to outdoors we notice the urge to check our devices, then make the commitment to not check them for the rest of the class. As we walk, we notice our emotions.

Lektion 2

Walking Out & Tuning In

This class is all outdoors, and starts with the love-breathing meditation. As we walk, we notice the urge for love and the synchrony within ourselves, and between ourselves and the outside world, and appreciate the emotions that emerge. We check in with the “notifications” from our spirits/hearts, minds, and bodies. We commit to checking in with ourselves before, during, and after the next time we use our devices and loving ourselves without judgment.

Lektion 3

Shifting From Scroll To Stroll

We start indoors with the love-breathing meditation, then move outdoors. We focus on love for ourselves when we want to check our devices, regardless of our choice. Then there is a description of the features of the “scroll” that make it addictive, and how we can learn to use the reward signals from our “stroll” to circumvent those shorter-term rewards.

Lektion 4

Walking In & Tuning Out

We’re walking inside today to notice the triggers in our homes that induce us to check-out and absentmindedly check our devices. These triggers can be subtle — but they add up when we see them every day. So we do a 3-step process to heal them: bringing in unconditional love, reminding ourselves who we are and how important we are, then asking ourselves how we can bring in more love.

Lektion 5

Celebrating The Desire To Be Loved

Social media and technology in general is addictive mostly because it tries to fill our desire to be loved — but doesn’t completely fill it. So we try again, and again. In this class we walk outdoors and notice our own desires to feel love, and how they are perfectly fine and normal. We look around to see if there is someone or something to love in real life.

Lektion 6

Walking Out & Connecting In

Our technology feels needy to us — we keep having to feed it our attention. In this class we walk outdoors and bring our most triggering technology with us (or a symbol of that technology). We practice bringing universal love, or life energy, into ourselves first. Then, when full, into our technology — without using it — like a process of reparenting ourselves, our technology, and others.

Lektion 7

Leaning Into Loneliness & What Comes Next

As we reduce our interactions with social media and other “connecting” technologies, we notice that there are some “relationship slots” that have become empty. While the tech never was able to completely fill these slots, we feel different when any part of these slots has been empty. In this class, we walk outdoors and notice how it feels to have empty relationship slots — and how it feels to fill them with love.

Lektion 8

Walking In & Connecting Out

Because we need human connection to thrive, our brains have helpfully created reminders of human connection all around us. In this indoor walking meditation, we notice the positive and negative real-life relationship reminders that surround us. We bring in unconditional love and feel what it’s like to imagine nurturing and healing our real-life relationships.

Lektion 9

The 3 Healthy Technology Commitments

1. Love Myself First — I bring universal love in and around me first, then include my technology in the love if I want to. 2. Ask, “Can My Technology Serve Me Now?” — I bring my device into the love and then ask if it can truly serve me in that moment. 3. Love A Human Daily — At least once a day I share unconditional love with another human, in real life. In this class, we walk outdoors as we understand and embrace each commitment.

Lektion 10

Walking Out & Loving In

Walking outdoors, we practice “Love Myself First” — bringing in unconditional love made just for us, from everything we perceive. We note what it feels like to forget, then remember, this practice, and we give ourselves permission to learn (and forget) this new habit.

Lektion 11

The Power Of Here

After we ask “Can My Technology Serve Me Now?” -- if the answer is yes, we continue the class. If not, we’re invited to start another time. Then we focus on “Love a Human Daily” with an in-depth exploration of what it means to focus our love in the geographic HERE, around us. Loving a physical human who is present on our walk, we challenge ourselves to focus on IRL (in real life) offline connections and feel the hyperstimulating nature of real connection.

Lektion 12

Walking In & Loving Out

Today’s work is making our home into a “lighthouse” — so filled with love that the light comes pouring outside. We walk indoors through our houses, experiencing a guided meditation in which we connect with the center of the earth and also with a ball of unconditional love above our heads. Then we do the same with our homes, watching the light pour in — and out.

Lektion 13

Filling Relationship Slots With Nutritious Snacks

As we walk in our neighborhoods, we will come across others — humans or animals — with whom we have an opportunity to connect. They could be neighbors, strangers, chipmunks…but we can think of them all as nutritious snacks for our relationship slots. What does it feel like to love ourselves first and then notice when real, even brief, connection opportunities arise? This is the focus of today’s class.

Lektion 14

Walking With & Loving All: Moving Forward Together

Walking with another person today, we move forward together. We challenge ourselves to share what it feels like to love ourselves first and share a bigger bubble of unconditional love. Noticing the imperfections and surprises of real relationships, we recognize how addictive real connections — even confusing, bumpy, or unpredictable connections — can be. Finally, we commit to loving ourselves first and seeing what happens next.

Detaching From Social Media: A Walking Guide To Authentic Connecting

Julia Mossbridge

Julia Mossbridge's Collection