Over the months of quarantine
Zoom…FaceTime…Texting…and an iPad
have found their way into the life and hands of my youngest child.
So many of us feel a gnawing conflict about this.
Tech + our kids + quarantine = unfathomable and unknown repercussions.
Today as I slipped into the online world and started scrolling,
Little did I know
That the smart and savvy screen in my hand was luring me,
pulling me into what my heart has been aching for.
These algorithms are so in tune that I forgot for a bit that what I was looking for was right in front of me.
While I was scrolling the internet like a detective
looking for info,
I realized I needed to look underneath the sleuthing to see what I was really looking for.
I was looking for safety.
Information that somehow would make me feel safe.
The need for safety.
This safety I will never find outside of myself
The internet will never give it to me.
The only place I will find the safety I crave is within myself.
Of course I uncovered this truth
I am always looking for the why?
The root cause.
And the root cause is—
I want to feel safe.
My daughter’s new-found relationship with her devices is rooted in a need just like mine.
The root cause is loneliness.
She, like all of us, needs connection.
She wants to feel connection and she gets a sense of that through a show on Netflix or a FaceTime chat with a friend.
Filling up that need with tech options can give a sense of connection.
However, that connection is fleeting and can put us in the constant state of looking outside of ourselves for connection.
I sense only through connection to ourselves and our feelings can we truly understand what we are looking for.
Today we put the devices away.
All of us.
Not just my child, but me, too.
I’m writing this in my journal by hand
Hallelujah.
I didn’t entertain my child today
We had to go through the boredom that comes from unplugging from these deeply addictive devices.
We were together.
Side by side.
Nothing exciting happened, but the connection filled us both up and as the distraction devices were put away, I could sense how powerful BEING is and how it is becoming a lost art.
If I want my children to be creative,
To read books—
To bake—
To love nature—
To ride bikes—
And to find joy picking flowers…
then I must do these things as well.
Human connection is essential.
Once again I thank motherhood
For showing me where I need to stretch,
Where my work lies.
No one but my children could inspire such fierce grace, and
Such deeply flawed raw and imperfect growth.
My life is my art.
My life is for me to value.
My connection to my soul, heart and spirit is the safety I need.
Nothing outside of me will give me the security I need
Until I have done the inner work.
The messy, not always pretty work of inner questioning, inner healing.
Without this,
I will continue to think someone else holds my power.
That someone else can protect me.
That someone else will make me happy.
That you are responsible for my feelings.
I am again grateful to Natalie Christensen for her potent and beautiful work.
I am reminded that I must decide what values I hold with technology.
I am reminded that children need us to protect them from that which they have no idea cares nothing for them.
The internet does not care about our children,
But we do.
So we do what we can.
We accept that we are here to support, to connect, and to find our way.
