Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to the Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and I'm your host. And today we will be talking about media, the pros and cons of media. Not just social media, but all media that we're like the phone. Right, the phone, the wonderful, beautiful phone that we all have. I have a wallet in mine. A lot of people have that too, right? It's like the phone and the wallet, and very, very important in our lives right now. So, when I was thinking about this, people have different ideas about media getting into technology and so forth. There are some people who think that it's not good and it's rotting our kids' brains and so forth and. I'm not gonna get into that. I know that there's arguments all over. I would like to talk about what's good about it, and then I'm gonna talk about the issues that people have with it in the context of addiction, which kind of makes sense, right? Because you talk about people addicted to their phones and there's all different examples or symptoms of what we would call the addiction, but we're gonna talk about it from a contextual point of view here. So what is good about media? What's good about the technology? What's good about this? What's good about the phone? Well, convenience, right? I have the whole world right here. Literally. I have the whole world right here. How great is that? It's fantastic. I mean, we think now how did we ever live without the phone? Because what happens? What does that mean? That means that because of the convenience of it, that we have been freed of a bunch of other activities that maybe we would've had to do in the past, like go to the library. Like go to the go to rent a movie or wait till something comes on TV or so get the news. We would've had to wait. Now you don't have to wait for anything. So in a way that's a good thing. It's convenient, it's helpful. I can get the answer to any question right away. That's fantastic. It brings everybody up to a certain playing field level playing field. If you think about it, if somebody has a cell phone, it doesn't matter where they live, who they are, how much money they have, how much education they have, they have access to the whole world just like somebody else. So that's a good thing. The other thing is for communication. It's wonderful. I remember the time when there was no such thing as a cell phone where you had to try to find a phone. Let's say you're a teenager and you have to, oh, call me. Okay, we gotta find a phone. There are generations now who don't remember that, but communication now is instant, and I'm talking about phone communication. Like you can call somebody. Of course you can text somebody, but now there's other kinds of communication, right? Like what I'm doing right now. Podcasting. Podcasting is about sharing your unique point of view to the world. How wonderful. What a wonderful use of technology. That people all over the world can see different people. There's no boundaries, like it's taking away all the boundaries. Wonderful. Great. And the other thing is it empowers the person. So if I have access to information, if I have access to communication, if I can express myself and get in touch with other people expressing themselves all over the world, then that empowers me. Great. So that's what's good about media and technology and it's great. So what's not so good about it? I was talking to another Raja Yogi recently and she was saying that she's been practicing shutting off all screens, meaning any media, tv, phone, whatever, at a certain time of day and trying to you could say it's like a fast, almost like I'm fasting from the media for that period of time. And the reason she said she was doing it was because at that time of the day, it was too much activity. She was doing it in the evening, so like she was trying to get her evening time taken care of. And so she started doing that and she says she's having good results. It's basically, it's very transformational. So you're hearing people out there saying, less screens, turn it off, this and that. So like a sense, there's a sense that there's something not so healthy about the screens. Using the screens, and I'm going to share the context of addiction, how addiction works. And maybe if we think about this context, we can start getting back to the first step. Because the first step is what I was just describing. It's the greatest thing ever. Just like when they in invented the washing machine. Greatest thing ever. So what's the first stage of addiction, use. You have to use it before you get addicted to it, right? There's a couple of steps in between, but you're using it now. Usually when they talk about the steps of addiction, it's usually drugs. So these are the steps. Use, abuse, dependency, addiction. Now you might think dependency addiction and addiction are the same, but they're not actually. So use abuse, dependency, and addiction. So use. Use means I'm using it. I'm using the phone, I'm using the computer. I'm using it. Is there anything wrong with using it? Just using it? No, it's fine. It's here. It's a resource. I'm using it. No problem. Next stage is abuse. So what would abuse look like? Abuse, has the undercurrent of pain. Abuse means that there's something not right. Abuse means that I'm overstepping the, what it's meant for. So I'm gonna say, in this case, screens, abuse is when you are attracted to the screen at the expense of other priorities. At the expense of other priorities that would be abuse. So what do I mean by that? Let's say you are a teenager and you are supposed to do your chores around the house, but you're not doing them because you're in there on the iPad or on the on TikTok or whatever you're doing, and then your mom or your dad has to come in and yell at you and tell you to do it, and you're like, ah, you know, you don't wanna do it. You'd much rather be on the phone than taking care of your responsibilities. Other priorities. 'Cause I'm attracted to the screen. So now I don't wanna go do my homework, or I don't wanna, so you have a parent there hopefully, if you're a teenager, you have a parent there telling you. Hey, you gotta get your act together. Also, life will tell you that too. If you, if we go against the priorities, the, I would say priorities of life, work, play, relationships, right, fulfillment, things like that. If my use of the screens interferes with, or takes away from the other priorities, I would call that abuse. People sit in a restaurant and they're on the phone phones instead of talking to each other. And I'm not judging that. I'm saying that relationships are, can we agree that that's a human priority, that maybe there should be relationship there? But I'm focusing on the phone rather than interacting with other people. Another thing about that is it creates this isolated kind of lifestyle that we see with young people. And also abuse is of course when you hurt people using the technology. We've heard about, bullying, cyber bullying, and the inappropriate pictures and everything and hurting people and even deep fakes of people's bodies and heads and posting it and hurting people like that, that obviously is abuse. So we have use, we have abuse now. Dependency. Dependency is where I feel like I need it. So not only am I attracted to it, but now I need it to feel normal. I'm starting to normalize myself using it, and I'm gonna say that most of us have some dependency on screens. I'm using it to relax. I'm using it to watch my favorite video or my favorite movie, or I'm watching it to listen, like I'm using it to manage my emotions or manage my moods or manage my, some self-management. So I'm creating. A scenario where I set it up in my mind that when I use this thing, I'm gonna feel better. So I'm attaching a they call it mood altering, right? In addiction they call it mood altering. So when it starts to be mood altering, then that would be the beginning of dependency. I need it to feel better. And then it becomes a habit. Then you don't even think anymore. It's like as soon, as soon as I'm picking up the phone. So that would be like the dependency addiction is when you feel like you can't live without it. When you've convinced yourself that you literally cannot live without it, and this is where fasting or having silence retreats where you have to give up your screens or whatever can be valuable because when we spend some time without screens, without media, we remind ourselves that we actually can live without it. And because I know that I can live without it, I'm less likely to become addicted. I know we have some dependency. I don't think we can avoid that in the world that we live in now. Some dependency in terms of some kind of overuse and maybe excessive use, but I'm hoping that even for myself as I'm sharing this, I'm thinking for myself, where am I in that continuum? I think there is a still a little bit of, emotional medicating with the screens. Okay. To be fair, but I know that I can live without it. Recently, my husband and I went to India to a silence retreat, and it was five days, but the first day was a prep, and then it was four days of no screens. Silence. And interestingly enough, it was very, there were people from all over the world. It was maybe 60 people, and there were very serious meditators in our group. Very serious. These were very high level people, so it was a good group, but I was surprised that it didn't bother me when I gave up my screens, like I had to give up my phone and my laptop. It was interesting to me that it didn't bother me, and I think part of the reason why it didn't bother me was because I had some time to prepare. Like I knew that I was going to be giving it up. Also, they gave respect to giving it up. Like it wasn't like this is the bad, the worst thing in the whole world, and you have to get rid of it. No, we respect it, we understand it, we need it, but now we're gonna put it aside for a while. Because I'm going to be paying attention to myself now for the next few days. And you'd be surprised. I had no problem giving it up. I felt fine. We did a lot of meditation. We actually did, we did many hours of meditation. It was set up to take breaks in between and stuff like that, so that was, it was, they did. They did a wonderful job. But what I wanna say about the media is for those of you who are listening and you know you're interested in this, if you think about it in terms of use, abuse, dependency, and addiction, we definitely don't wanna be in the addicted stage. Definitely not. Dependency, I would say. Hopefully you don't wanna be there either, but am you know, truthful enough to tell you that I can't say that I'm definitely not dependent at all. I probably could use a little bit of work there, maybe. Spending a little less time on it, maybe at certain times of the day, like my friend in the spirit of that retreat that I went on. And then the abuse, make sure I'm using it for what it's there for. And then the last thing I wanted to say about the abuse part, it's not only that I'm using it, more or to hurt or that I'm prior, I'm using it against other priorities. It's that I'm not using it at those times for anything valuable. And so what I would suggest is we wanna stay in the use section without going into the abuse and further. One of the ways that we can stay out of the abuse is to use it for service or use it for something good. Spend some of your time on the screens doing something positive, maybe looking up a meditation video. Maybe take a look at your apps and look at what you have on your phone and see, can I upgrade what I have on there? Do I have things in there that are maybe negative or maybe making me have a bad feeling or something? What kind of person am I and what kind of person am I aspiring to be in the world? Does everything I have on my phone match that? These are things that we can do to help keep ourselves in the use section. And like I said, you are going to, we're gonna turn it into service and self-care, let's say. So if I'm using the screens for service and self-care and I'm using the media for service and self care, then I'm using it in a worthwhile way. So I think I'll leave it there. I don't think we should be afraid of the media. I don't think we should, be negative about it. I think that we can master it if we keep our head on straight about it. I like to look at things in terms of addiction because it makes sense to me. It's a progression of loss of control, and so I don't wanna lose control. I want to be in control. But there's some rules. I have to use it and not abuse it. And in my experience, if you use it for self-care and get rid of all the other stuff that's maybe gossipy or silly, or not who you wanna be, that helps lighten the load a little bit. And you're staying in the use area, which is appropriate, which is great that we have that. And maybe take a break from it every once in a while to remind yourself that we can remind ourselves that we don't need it to live, and we're not dependent on it. So I'll leave it there. Remember, our slogan is Heal, empower, and Serve. And until next time, take care.
