I shared a platica (talk) last night on media and it felt good to put in one place many of my reflections and
experiences over the years. Above all that we all need to lift off any blame, shame and judgment and recognize that this is an unfolding mystery we are navigating moment by moment.
And of course, now I am sitting with the overflow of ideas..
I’m thinking about storytelling. And how after so many years of passively engaging with media, watching others’ imagination, and numbing out, I could not muster telling an imaginative story to my children.
I felt a heaviness, a blank in my mind.
For a brief period in the late 90’s I trained in and practiced EEG neurofeedback. We would put electrodes on the person’s scalp and have them watch video games that rewarded them for entering meditative states creating new neural pathways.
I felt TV had similarly trained me into a hypnotic, passive, inactive state and I couldn’t quite wake up.
As I challenged myself to reclaim my imagination and practice making up stories with my children, I began to feel the ping ping ping of aliveness.
As I read ancestral stories to my children and practiced committing them to memory to tell them with spirit, I felt more aliveness rekindling.
When we camped or attended primitive skills gatherings and shared memories or stories by the fire I felt a swelling up of my heart connecting to ancient memory and humanity.
And singing around the fire felt like opening a direct line to the spirit and joy and community!
Then there is dancing around the fire, sharing beloved music, drumming, sitting in sweat bath together and as always, simply getting outside to be with and connect with our extended familia in the plant, animal and elemental world.
So much life, so much regeneration.
So much deep engagement.
Watching my children unfold has been my favorite; from early days of delight filled wonder to teenagers pursuing passions in all its messiness, humor, challenge and relationship building.
So many experiences of real life.
I’m all for a good show or documentary, but what is really sitting with me right now, is that no matter how good the show is, how creative, or what great content there is,
I never experience chills or these ‘pings’ of aliveness.
The whole body resonance and intuitive self saying “Yesssss”
only happens in real, waking life.
Much of what we do when engaging with media is disembodied, and so so superficial.
It is a tool, not life.
One of the most important things we can do in this day and age, is hold space for the engagement in real life where our brains, bodies and soul thrive, by setting healthy boundaries on media.
In the talk, I deconstruct media more and also share stories on how we engage in it with balance, but for me so much boils down to this.
It’s not about villifying media, it’s more about each of us asking,
Where is my YES?
For me, it is in real life, where I feel restored, renewed and awake.
In a landscape where being plugged in is sold as the default, this feels more important than ever.
My generation is the last to remember life before technology became pervasive. This big experiment sold to us as life is just a recent creation but it is hypnotic, triggering dopamine and other receptors, so it feels compelling.
But as usual, the heart knows, the body knows, the soul knows…
if given the opportunity to experience and remember.
So as a parent, I feel best supporting real life with love
so my children can preserve their innate wisdom, aliveness, and creativity
and not have to reclaim as much as I did.
But the journey is not about dogma, there are nuances and we all get to take a deep breath and trust our own inner knowing and guidance moment by moment to find our way to worrying less and loving more.
*Beautiful art by Lucy Campbell*