This weekend when I was rushing around in the city,
I noticed that my phone battery was running unusually low.
And I was thinking about this,
I was thinking about why it was.
I was trying to work it out and I had a really interesting light bulb moment and this is it.
And my phone has been leaping from network to network searching for coverage.
It's been seeking connection non-stop,
It just doesn't stop when I'm in London,
You know.
Now this is useful,
This is a useful feature of the phone because it means that I can stay online,
It can stay available and have access to wireless connection if I were to need it.
But it's happening in the background,
It's this kind of involuntary usage of energy that is just consistently being undertaken by my phone.
So it's just,
When one network drops out,
It's hopping around and it's looking in this kind of fervent,
Feverish way to connect to another one.
And what it's doing is it's really using up the battery.
So although it's useful,
It's also incredibly draining too.
When the connection doesn't come easily,
It's exhausting my battery.
And I notice how fast the battery drains.
This is also when I'm using my phone persistently,
Possibly a little bit addictively,
Greedily,
When I'm surfing online or scrolling in a slightly grasping way on Instagram,
You know,
Maybe I'm not consciously interacting with it,
But just using it in such a way that the battery is being used excessively.
Or when I'm avoidantly looking for some hole somewhere inside me to be filled by the scrolling on my phone,
My battery drains even faster.
It's as though the handset is a physical representation of my inner state.
It mirrors the fact that I'm constantly looking for places to shelter and refuge from.
So with electricity that I can plug into so that I can stay connected to the networks,
Keep my phone battery charged and stay connected so that I don't run out of battery.
The fear of a flat battery when I'm on the go,
Moseying around London,
Is quite visceral and slightly disturbing when I sit back and think about it.
The irony is my phone battery would stay charged much better if I just left it alone or switched it off,
If I only checked it sporadically and intentionally and with discretion.
I see my phone battery as very much like my human energy store,
My human internal battery.
My human one can be self-sourced now,
I can recharge myself.
Yes,
It's helpful to plug in from time to time to others,
To other people's energy,
But I don't need to persistently roam around mining other humans for energy,
Mining other people for energy source.
I don't need to roam around looking for external networks to plug into in order to energise myself,
Like the phone is always looking for networks to plug into so that it can stay connected.
This is not to demonise connection,
Far from it.
A phone needs to be plugged in from time to time to recharge its battery,
To reboot its battery.
It needs connection,
We all need connection.
What I'm merely trying to notice is that when we're persistently on the go,
When we never take time off,
When we never relax,
When we never ourselves and our phones in airplane mode,
When we're never content to be in quiet mode,
Then our batteries run low and drain very,
Very fast.
And connection in these instances,
When we're on the go,
When we're running low,
It's often simultaneously very weak,
Very fuzzy,
Very feeble.
It's a sort of grasping connection.
It's frustrating,
It's intermittent,
It stops and starts and it doesn't flow.
And that in itself adds to the draining of the battery.
I see my phone connection as a metaphor for that of my bodies with my own energy source.
And I want to really need to understand that as I self-source with my own energy store,
And I do have that capacity now to recharge myself and to intentionally switch off and to intentionally connect to the divine,
Which is my energy source.
And when I do that,
When I switch off and connect to the divine,
You know,
I recharge my own internal batteries,
I self-source.
And this is not just something I need to do so I don't completely run flat and have to switch off altogether.
I need to have awareness around guarding my own battery,
Just like I need to be aware that if I am not intentional with my phone usage,
That too will just run low and go flat and be an inanimate,
Useless object.
You know,
When I connect to specific networks,
When I connect to home networks that are wired for connection for me,
When the signal is clear and strong,
You know,
This doesn't drain my battery,
It doesn't drain my personal battery or my phone battery.
When I'm not trying to connect to signals that are weak or non-reciprocal,
My battery doesn't get drained.
So this is just,
This just leads to frustration when we're trying to connect to networks that are not meant for us,
Or we're just roaming incessantly looking for something to plug into,
Something to,
To,
To enable us to tap into communal energy sources.
I think the key is to,
A key takeaway that I want from this is to be able to understand that when we disconnect or when we intentionally take time out and switch off or,
Or lay low to recharge or to just conserve our energy,
It's so much better,
It's so much more conducive to having a flowing experience,
Whether that's in terms of using our phones or in terms of showing up in the world,
In our own bodies and our own lives.
