Welcome to the very first edition of The Human Connection Experience here on Substack.
Pull up a chair, grab a coffee, and let’s kick off this very first of our posts.
This week I took a few days off, as unplugged as possible - ok, aside from catching up on The Undoing, and scaring myself witless with The Battersea Poltergeist, which is excellent, by the way.
As is so often the case, it was health that caused me to stop; both mental and physical.
A virus has been draining my energy. I tested negative for C19, and although I had slowed down a little, it hadn’t been nearly enough.
With Lockdown 3 here in the UK fraying our collective nerves, still in grief from my losing my dear Dad last year (read more on that and how I found wild swimming right here), and a terrifying number of family members also passing in recent months, it’s just… well, it’s a lot.
For so many of us, the humanity of what we are living through right now is waging a war on our already fried adrenal glands and nervous systems.
And yet, doesn’t it feel SO hard to just stop, sometimes?
As if, somehow, all the Slack channels, Monday and Asana boards, tweets, Facebook and Instagram updates, inboxes, WhatsApp messages, will amount to such a large mountain of THINGS, we can never recover.
Yet as I am reminded, Every. Single. Time. I step away from social and my inbox to gulp a breath of fresh air, the world doesn’t stop.
In fact, the space opens up and reminds me how glorious it is.
It reminds me that I am not someone who places a value on being reactive, desk bound, led by my scrolling habits, and finding a way through this grey UK winter by impulsively checking my ‘phone.
I even wrote a book on unboxing brilliance and finding new ways to do things, dammit.
Yet when habits go unchecked, they easily slip back into the unconscious behaviours of every day life.
And taking time out reminded me it’s not how I want to live.
We do have a choice.
In January this year, I set myself two non negotiable daily activities:
✅ Daily breath work
✅ Daily exercise
In February, I am adding the mindful limitation of social media.
For all the wonders of the platforms we connect on, I don’t want them to rule my day, to set the tone for my energy, and to be a a part of the echo chambers that are so easy to find ourselves wheel-spinning in.
In the industrial era, output was determined by hours worked. In the knowledge era, output is determined by the quality of your thoughts. To improve our thoughts, we need to give ourselves space to think and refuel our minds without a set agenda. In this economy, the most effective work often doesn’t look like work —but it is the invisible labor that makes creative life possible. Suzi Azout, Check Your Pulse
That invisible labour - the aha moments that happen on walk, or in the water, or in those liminal, in-between moments - that’s where the magic is.
Effective, meaningful human connection to others needs effective meaningful connection to ourselves first.
So, let the experiment begin,
I have signed up for Bleeper to see whether a cohesive way to engage with (and step away from) all the incoming things is useful, or just another layer of noise.
I used to love Franz for Mac, but found it very heavy on memory, and would love a solution that sweeps up iOS apps in one handy place, too.
Having lost many humans over recent months, I am mindful of creating deeper relationships with those I truly care about.
Creativity is a core part of my life too, and I have no desire to bury it deeper under a barrage of digital things.
So, we are here to explore human connection; what it means to me, to you, to others. What it means for creating change, for creating content, for living in these times we are in right now.
TECH(K)NOW Day Talk: 8th March
I am delighted to be speaking at this amazing event on 8th March, with a session on Creating Human Connection Through Content.
Check out the details of the event below 👇
The latest podcast episode
In this episode, I am in conversation with Ebonie Allard
In this Episode:
- Why community works over competition
- Working to our strengths
- Finding spaces to experience full range living
- The power of community
....and much more,
Find Ebonie on her website and on Instagram.
Until the next edition, thanks for connecting, human.
Jo