Pick up your cell and change your voicemail message to reflect that you will be otherwise engaged for awhile. Let your callers know that if they are having a life or death emergency, they should hang up immediately and call ‘911’ (or your country’s emergency services equivalent).
Now, turn your cell phone off, and put it down. When you put it down, put it out of sight, but not in your sock drawer or the lettuce bin. Put it somewhere accessible, where you won’t have to get all stressed out after this exercise, thinking ‘Crap, where did I put my phone?’.
Breathe.
Today, I invite you to practice a variation of Tadasana (“Mountain Pose”) that I like to call Tardarasana. Let’s just translate that from Spanskrit (Spanish + Sanksrit) to “The Pose in Which One is Invited to Linger as Long as One is Able To Which At the Very Least is 32 Minutes”. The thirty-two minutes is an arbitrary number. Pick a number that takes you beyond your oh-my-gosh-my-cell-phone-is-off comfort zone. Anything less than 12 minutes is pathetic. Seriously.
Breathe again, especially if it is YOU I just called pathetic. I am sorry if you find that offensive. But, if you are one of those people who insists upon texting while we’re engaged in a conversation or some other intimate endeavor, then I feel it is within the realm of acceptable to call your actions pathetic. Deplorable. Rude, even. But I’ll just step off my soapbox here and get back to the blog post.
Breathe again. Take a deliberate inhale, and let your breath out through your nose, or preferably your mouth. Do it again if it feels weird or uncomfortable to actually think about your breath. There’s probably an app or 743 for ‘Remind Yourself to Breathe’. Do not go download it. You are, right now, on an abstinence program. STAY.ON.THE WAGON.
- to remain or stay on in a place longer than is usual or expected, as if from reluctance to leave…
- to dwell in contemplation, thought, or enjoyment…
- to be tardy in action; to delay; to dawdle…
- to linger in discharging one’s duties…
- to walk slowly; saunter along…
There, now you have it. Go. Breathe. Linger. Look into someone’s eyes, in real life, in real time. Record it in your memory. See if you can prolong the exquisite agony of being out of electronic, interwebs contact for a minute longer, then another minute more. Build up your tolerance to Beauty. Pain. Hunger. Boredom. Being lost, tired, overjoyed.
Let me know how it goes (*and P.S. ‘nomophobia’ is defined as ‘the fear of being out of mobile phone contact).
liza keogh blog 
I loved this post. Ironically, I read it on my cell phone.
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Irony is good. Personally, I am trying to substitute stepping away from my ‘laptop’ for ‘cell phone’. Some habits die hard. The cell phone was aided by actually leaving the country. Not an option for everyone =)
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