Episode 390: Digital Minimalism & Real Life Maximalism

No need to whine, it's Whiny Palooza!

Have some wine and join us on the Whiny Palooza podcast with Rebecca Greene.

Welcome to the Whiny Palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Greene. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family.

Hello everyone, this is Rebecca Greene for the Whiny Palooza podcast, and I am so excited today because I get to talk to the fabulous Jenny Ketchum Crooks. Jenny, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Oh, Rebecca, you're a star. Thanks for having me.

I want to tell you about her because like, this is like the best topic for us. Okay. So Jenny is a licensed clinical social worker, anxiety and OCD specialist, and the founder of the West Coast Anxiety Clinic. Sign me up. I can use help.

Come on over.

So she is the author of Look Up. The 30-Day Path to Digital Minimalism and Real-Life Maximalism, a guide designed to help individuals manage their digital consumption and enhance meaningful real-world connections. With a background in clinical education as the former director of clinical education at Seattle Anxiety Specialists, Jenny has also contributed to research at the University of Washington. Her innovative approach has earned her appearances on shows like Oprah, The View, and The Dr. Drew Show, where she shares insights on the impact of digital overuse on mental health and relationships. Holy cow. How did I not start this conversation before we spoke? When I saw that you were on these shows, I flipped out.

Well, so I should clarify, it's kind of like, you know how sometimes when people say they have a PhD, but really their PhD is, is like in a— it's in like, it's in writing and they're not actually like, they're not a psychologist and like, right, right. So I want to be— because so I was on the Dr. Drew Show, uh, almost— oh gosh, how many years? So it was 2009 and that was when I was trying to leave porn. Before I became a therapist, I was a porn star. And so I ended up going on the Dr. Drew, this like sex rehab show. I thought it would be so like perfect for my branding and my marketing. She's a sex addict, she's a workaholic. But what happened is I got sober and people started calling me Jenny, and it totally disrupted my porn career and I ended up quitting. And that's how I ended up on, on, um, Oprah. And that's how I ended up on like The View and speaking at Harvard. And so that whole phase of my life was more about what it's like to change everything in your life and to try to leave one career and start another when you have some pretty rigid ideas about who you can be in this world.

Wow.

Well, I mean, I'm going to stick to my questions, but you may have to come back so that I can talk about that because you just opened up a huge can of worms.

A lot to unpack.

Wow. Okay, I'm going to try to stay focused here, people, because I want to go off on a tangent somewhere else, but We have to talk about digital overuse because we know that this is huge. We know that it's affecting mental health, health. It's contributing to anxiety disorders. Tell us about digital overuse and how it's contributing to anxiety disorders.

Yeah, I think it's really important to start to think a little bit more broadly about digital overuse, right? And so I think in, in the mainstream culture, there's a lot of talk of using our devices in this sort of escape escapist way, right? Like we're spending all our time there. We're addicted to technology. We keep going to it. And it has this sort of stigmatizing flavor to it where the majority of our digital overuse is just a habit, right? It's just like when you walk into a room and flip on the lights, it's, it's nothing more than this autopilot response.

Yeah.

And we just get sucked in. And so when we're talking about digital overuse, we're also including these automatic habits that are contributing to just a constant use of a thing that is shiny and wonderful and sometimes functional, but not necessarily always serving us best in the moment. The, the way that that impacts our anxiety is that anxiety is very much a there-and-then issue, right? In our head, we're thinking about there and then. What's going to happen in 5 days? How is it going to go at Thanksgiving when my in-laws show up? Are we going to talk about politics? What's my kid going to be like when they're like 6, when they're 12, when they're 15? Am I going to have enough money for college? Right? That is all the, the seeds for anxiety. And when we avoid that, when we avoid the sensations of anxiety, when we avoid some of the problem solving that goes with anxiety, we don't have an opportunity to learn, right? We don't have an opportunity to, to witness what's happening here and now. And so the, the trouble with digital overuse is that we get sucked into these beautiful shiny things where there's more there and then, right? Like more future planning, more this, more this, more content, more content. Be this, get ready for this, get ready for this. And we don't have an opportunity to be right here where we can actually take action. Like, I can't contribute to my kids' 529 in the future. Learning about different 529s, helpful, sure, right? Like, we can go directly through the state instead of through a brokerage, save a little bit of money like that. But that doesn't actually get me to invest in 529. Doing that happens right now. And so if we are on autopilot and sucked into our devices, there's a good chance that we're going to miss the opportunity to do something that helps us right now, which is actually what's going to reduce our anxiety.

That makes so much sense. Yeah, we definitely get sucked in and we're definitely on autopilot. Both of those are very accurate. And I'm really fascinated. Can you tell us what psychological flexibility is. I'm dying to know.

Sure. So, so this gives— this comes out of like a long time of research, like 30, 40 years of research. And, and what we see is that there are these processes that get rigid when we suffer with some type of psychological disorder, right? So if you're always paying attention to the future, That's like I was saying earlier, it's that present moment awareness. Can we flexibly attend to what is here and now, even if what's here and now is uncomfortable, right? This idea of experiential acceptance. How often are we fighting against the stuff that shows up? How often are we rigidly adhering to these goals that we set and losing sight of the North Star that actually inspired those goals in the first place, right?

Right?

Are we really narrowly defining ourselves? Like I was when I was in porn. I am a porn star. It was so narrow. It was this really small piece of content. And so what we see is that when these behavioral processes are rigid, we suffer more. And so psychological flexibility is really just speaking to how flexible we are in our behavior in these very specific domains.

Mm. And we all get very rigid. Speaking from experience.

Mm. Same. Same. It takes practice, right? Flexibility takes practice.

Yes. Everything. Everything takes practice. And I really want to know, tell us what motivated you to write Look Up.

I work with a lot of clients who suffer with anxiety, predominantly clients who suffer with anxiety. And I notice that the majority of my people were using their phones as this escape hatch. Yeah. Nervous about how to behave in an elevator? Look down and get on my phone. Nervous about going into a meeting? Sit on, sit on my phone until the meeting starts and then look up, right? That is, it's always really quiet. Un, unsure what this feeling is in my body, this sensation. Let's spend 12 hours a day researching things. Even 3 hours a day researching health is sort of excessive. Like, let's, let's not do that. And so I noticed that a lot of my clients were using their devices to escape these present, present moment discomforts. But then what happened is we had this Super Bowl party and my oldest, she's now 6 and a half, proudly 6 and a half. The half. And, uh, at the time she was about 11 months and she was at that glorious stage where she's sort of shuffling along coffee tables. So we're having this Super Bowl party and she's shuffling along the coffee table and I have this errant thought that shows up in my head and it is, I wonder what Snooki from Jersey Shore is doing? Because obviously this is the most important thing that needs to be attended to right now. I follow that thought and I start looking it up. Yeah. And if you give a moose a muffin, she's probably going to want to learn about what the situation is doing, right?

Yeah.

And then I'm going to need to know if Ronnie's in jail, right? Like, that guy is heading to jail. I don't— you know, like, that was the thought. Like, this guy's— I got to know what's going to happen with these people. And so I end up in this Jersey Shore endless wormhole, and then suddenly everybody in my house starts clapping and I, I'm like, oh, there must be the sports ball. It must have, it must be football. Football is happening. I look up and my daughter had just taken her first step and I missed it. And it was, you know, I, I have, I have two daughters that my second daughter, Sadie, I saw her first step. And I don't remember it, right? Like, I've sort of like filed that away in the file cabinet of my mind, and the memory has yellowed, and, you know, maybe something will bring it up, but it's unlikely. But with Elsie, I remember missing that moment, you know, and the regret of missing and of choosing to attend to useless content and information I don't really need to know what Snooki's doing. I do need to know what the Situation's doing because I love him and I'm just so proud of him. But like, I don't really need to know what any of those people are doing, you know? And when I follow those thoughts, I miss out on my life. So it, it really grounded me in this idea that this isn't a psychopathology thing. Being stuck in our phones doesn't mean you have a clinical illness. It means you have a brain that likes shiny things and that is easily distracted and— oh yeah, pulls off the on-ramp of life. Right. And, and so I felt inspired to do something about it. Like, there has to be some sort of clinical path to deal with this. I couldn't find anything that was satisfactory that approached therapy in the way that I do. And so I wrote the book.

So, so it, book has, I believe, a challenge in it. Correct. It's a 30-day challenge.

Mm-hmm.

And it's to help us break free from these digital habits. So can you talk about, can you share with us what you're hoping that we're gonna get from this and what it looks like?

You bet. So I want to dispel any concern that it's 30 days without your phone. I'm not a monster and I'm Totally realistic. And that these are, these are really important parts of our lives. This is just, this is the air we breathe. And so what, what the 30-day challenge is about is it about helping you refine when you're using your phone, getting you to become more aware of what's happening inside you when you are using it, and giving you more flexibility to choose in the moment whether or not you want to use it. Right. So the first week's all about getting off of autopilot. The second week's all about identifying some of these narratives that we have in our head about why this thing is so essential to us and really starting to question those thoughts. The third week is all about identifying the, the distress that we feel when we have the phone or don't have the phone. And then the fourth week is all about creating a, a much bigger life and clarifying your value. So the hope is that you, you get a different relationship with it.

I mean, I love it. I think it, it sounds super helpful. I mean, I will tell you from talking to my teenagers, you know, if they're uncomfortable in a social situation, they're on their phones. So I guess my question for you to help them is when they're feeling uncomfortable in a social situation and they go to grab their phone, what can you suggest to them to do instead?

What if they treated that feeling of discomfort like it was a challenge? Think about it like if you are a runner, right? And say that beating your last best time is important to you, right? See how much discomfort you can actually feel, right? Like, see if you can lean into that discomfort. See if you can bring it on. Like, let's get uncomfortable. Let's see what happens. Let's test this discomfort. Because when we use our phones, it teaches us that we can't actually tolerate our emotions.

Oh, that's so true. Yes.

And so if, if you adopt this stance, okay, discomfort, let's go. Like, bring it on, right? It gives you an opportunity to see what you're made of. And I recognize this is tough for some of us who run a little bit more anxious, especially in the social world or teens. I mean, like, I don't know, teenage years was really hard and I used a lot of weed to get me through that.

And don't tell my children that.

I mean, look, it was ineffective. It did not. It was a good short-term solution. Yeah. For a long-term problem. And it just sold me short. And using the phone really sells you short. You can tolerate a lot more than you think. Bring it on.

I love that attitude. I'm, I'm gonna use that. I'm gonna tell them that. And you're telling us that if we reduce the screen time and all the digital clutter in our brains, we're gonna get more creative and have more mental clarity. Can you explain that for us? Because that's amazing.

Yeah, I mean, our brains aren't meant to be constantly filled with content, right? And, and the bottomless scroll feature, though very satisfying, it quickly loses that satisfaction and just goes into autopilot. And then pretty soon it's just a consumption thing, right? Yeah, we need periods of peace. We need periods of restoration and spending time in the forest. I talk about it with my clients, like, go touch some grass today, like, see what the grass feels like, right? We don't have the mental space to be creative if we're just constantly filling our faces with content, in the same way that if you are constantly eating, you're not gonna taste the subtleties of food that is a little bit more quiet, right? You're going to need louder food, bigger amounts, and it's just really not going to be good for your body. So the same thing happens with our brains. We need rest.

It's so funny. I mean, you, you know this, you're describing moderation, which I think that a lot of us lack.

It's difficult with these brains and bodies and society that we live in. It's a more, more, more world.

Oh, totally, totally. And I'll tell you something. If we talk about, you know, I don't want to go off in a different subject, but if we talk about Amazon and ordering stuff, it's like, it's like a hit. It's like, let's order more. Let's order more.

Yes, yes. And if you look back at your feed and really start to— I look back and I'm like, how many of these things were purchased because I actually needed them, right? And how many of these things were purchased because there was a whiff of fear that we weren't going to be okay if we didn't have them, which is a very different thing. Like, there's a good chance that the girls are going to be okay if they don't have a unicorn chopstick holder. There's a good chance. But will I be a good enough parent when we go to the dumpling store and they don't have unicorn chopstick holders like other parents.

Adorable.

It's true, right? So all of these, like, little things that just— they chip away at our retirement fund, but they also chip away at the things that I think about myself and the beliefs that I hold. Like, clearly I need a unicorn chopstick holder to be a good parent. I don't know, maybe not. Maybe I just need to, like, snuggle on the couch and read to my kids for a little bit. Like, maybe, maybe that's good enough.

Yeah, it's so true. I'm like, I could use another perfume. You have a ton of perfumes over there. You don't need it. Yeah.

Like, you can have one perfume a day or showers, right? Like, you can have a new— every time you shower, you can use a new perfume.

But how many?

Like, how many do we actually need? Like what?

I know, right?

And evolution is helpful like that, right? Like, we've been selected for that. Okay, more berries. We need more berries.

Isn't that funny? That is so true. Well, so we're talking about anxiety, we're talking about OCD. Let's talk about the surprising impacts you're seeing on that.

Yeah, so, so like I mentioned earlier, anxiety functions this way where it offers us an opportunity to learn something. And OCD is very similar. So there's, there's a spark of anxiety that shows up, usually in relation to uncertainty or fear of a catastrophic event, and anxiety shoots up. And we have this idea that we shouldn't feel anxious or that, uh, we need to get away from the thing that made us anxious, right? And so we try to stop feeling anxious, and what that does is it short-circuits anxiety, but it actually keeps us stuck in this danger learning model, right, where we learned that it's the thing we did to stop feeling anxious that kept us safe, right? And so in, in the context of OCD, I have this thought, oh, I don't know if I turned the stove off, I should go check. And then we go to check, did I turn the stove off? That's that, okay, well, I got not feel anxious. And there's a certain amount of that that's functional, but then that thought comes back Right? Doubt never really goes away. So we never really learn to tolerate the uncertainty. It's, "There's a high probability that I've turned the stove off. We're just going to tolerate the doubt and move on." Right? But when we use those cutoff strategies to not feel anxious, we never get to learn the things that anxiety is trying to teach us. So anxiety is trying to teach us, is the thing that we're afraid of dangerous? And if it is, can you survive it? Right? Afraid of a shark out in the water? Go swimming, see if there's sharks out there, and if there are, punch it in the face and see if you can survive it, right? That's, that's the first step. We also have an opportunity to learn if anxiety is dangerous. Like, can I feel anxious and not fight against it? Like, what happens if I just feel anxious? And that's just it. Like, no, yeah, I just feel anxious right now, right? Because it is this curious experience. Like, it's a one-in-a-lifetime experience. Those, those moments where you feel anxious, it's like you're never going to feel like this in this moment again. So what if you're curious about that? And can anxiety hurt you? Don't know. Safety behaviors. Do you need to do all of that stuff? It's a lot of busy work doing your breathing work, doing your just, okay, focus on this. Nope, nope, nope, I don't need to do that. Reassure myself. It's so much busy work. Maybe you don't need to do all of that work. Right. And, and maybe you can live a full and meaningful life and be anxious. Maybe, maybe those aren't mutually exclusive things, right? So anxiety disorders, OCD, it's all about dropping the safety behaviors, approaching the things that freak us out, and learning if we can feel this way and tolerate it, even embrace it. I mean, I don't want to be too insane, but like, Maybe you can be friends with anxiety. Maybe it's not the bad guy. Phones interrupt that process.

Mm-hmm. So, so we're learning to deal with the anxiety and embrace the anxiety and bringing the phone into it is, is stopping the whole thing.

Mm-hmm. I, I think about it like this, right? We take our kids out to dinner. They're, they're 2 and 6 right now. This, the 6-and-a-half-year-old is a little bit more reasonable. The 2-and-a-half-year-old is a wild card. We call her the menace. She's got this like wild curly hair.

Oh boy.

Yeah, she's, she is, you know, it's gonna be a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it's, she's, we love her so much. And if we give her a phone at the beginning of dinner and we're like, here, just "Look at this so I can enjoy my dinner," then she never has an opportunity to learn how to behave at dinner. She never has an opportunity to learn how to regulate her emotions at dinner. I never learn if it's acceptable or tolerable, if it kills me to have a toddler who is standing up and screaming "¡Día!" at the top of her lungs, because obviously we're at a Mexican restaurant in this imaginary. Deja, deja. Like, can I tolerate that sort of intensity? And can I, as a parent, actually wrangle her and like help her? And can I tolerate my own distress about it not being the perfect meal? Right. Using the phone. And I don't want to— I don't want to create the illusion that I'm a perfect parent and that I don't give my kids tablets when we go out to dinner. Like, at a certain point, when the churros show up, Like, I just want to have this churro in peace. We have exhausted all of it. Just watch a little bit of Bluey and yes, please, like, we got, you can watch one 7-minute Bluey and then we're out of here. Just please, God, let me have this churro with my coffee and then we can go.

Yeah.

And there's, there's a lot of learning that happens before that point. Right. So we don't want to sell ourselves short. And so we want our kids to have the opportunity to learn how to be humans. And, and using a phone to regulate ourselves really cuts us off from that opportunity.

That makes so much sense. And I think that people are listening and they're thinking, this is so overwhelming to me to even begin to think about reducing my screen time. So can you give them a little step of where to begin?

Yeah, I mean, the, the first step is to get the book. The book lays out 30 solid days of instruction for changing this behavior, right? If you're feeling overwhelmed, that's largely because this is a huge task to imagine taking on, and there's a lot of ambiguity, right? And so having a structured approach, uh, guided, infused with compassion and a little bit of humor, that can really help you go step by step. And so keeping in mind that this is an ongoing change process— change is not a light switch, it is a slow, slow roll. And right, the more gentle you are with yourself, the easier it is. And so the book offers an easier, gentle way to make some changes.

I love that. Well, and I think that we're all looking for a balanced, healthier digital life. So can you paint a little picture for us of what that would look like?

A balanced, healthier digital life is going to be— is going to be unique to each person.

Yeah.

Who's trying to live it. Right. And so it's, it's being able to walk into a room and see your kids before you pick up your phone. It's being able to be at dinner and to see them eating and throwing stuff at the walls instead of shoving a phone in front of them. It's a, it's a short, it's a short time that the Menace is throwing spaghetti at the walls, right? Right. And we're gonna watch that for a little bit, right? Digital management like a rich life with digital devices might look like you using it to, to look things up with your kids. They ask, why, why is the sun needed? That was one of the recent questions my 6-year-old asked, like, why? Well, she actually— one of the more curious questions was like, is— oh gosh, what's Jeffrey Dahmer? That's it. That was the question. So she asked about Jeffrey Dahmer. She wants to know who Jeffrey Dahmer is. Right.

Oh my gosh, it's 6 years old.

Thank you, Katy Perry. Look, I'm, I'm, I'm here for it, right? And she wants to know who Jeffrey Dahmer is. Well, that's a great question. Let's use the phone to look up a little bit. We're not going pictures here, folks, but like, let's look up a little bit of information and I'll water it down so we can talk about who he was and what he did that ended him up, that earned him the consequences of—

oh, good Lord.

His behavior. But, you know, like, that's a helpful use of, of our devices. So it, it's gonna look different for each person, and what's gonna guide you towards those actions is really clearly identifying what your values are.

Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. You know, and, and you talk about how parents and work can help with reducing screen time. So can you tell everyone what we can do as parents to help reduce our kids' screen time?

The first step is to really start to model the kind of behavior that you want to see. If you don't want your kids on their phones all the time, then you're going to need to get off your phone all the time, right? If, if you want them to pay attention at dinner, then maybe there's a bucket for phones before dinner, and the phones go in the bucket, and that's just— and everybody's phone goes in the bucket, right? Yep. You might have a call that's coming through. There might be something important that you need to do.

Sure.

Your kids feel the same way.

Yeah.

There's important stuff happening in that phone for them. And so modeling what you want to see from them, and that's going to take a little bit of thoughtfulness and intention. Right? You gotta come off autopilot for that.

Well, and I think that as a parent who doesn't always model the best digital habits and—

You heard, sister.

Right? And seeing other parents also not modeling the best habits, you know, I think that we need to be honest with ourselves because we're yelling at our kids for things that we're doing. So I just wanna put that out there.

Totally, totally, right? I think there's such a great opportunity to, like, when you see one of your parent friends using their phone around their kids in a way that you're kind of like judgy about, right? Like, we all do it. Like, let's not lie, right? Like, we look at our friends and we're like, can you just get off your— like, your kid is clearly trying to get your attention. Know that we are doing the same thing, right? We are not out of the pool. Like, we are all in that pool together. We just don't see ourselves doing it because we're on autopilot, right? And so every time you see that, that's an opportunity for you to say, oh yeah, I do this too. This is, this is really something I can work on. And the, the strength of the feelings that show up when you see that— if you're like, oh gosh, like, listen to that. Because that tells you what's important to you. And there's a good chance that in the moments where you are on autopilot and on your phone in that same way, that your kids are looking at you wishing that you were looking at them.

Oh, it's so true. It's so true. I mean, I, I was at lunch with a girlfriend and I noticed how often she was on her phone. And I wasn't feeling judgy. I was feeling like I was being present. But there's many times that I'm not. And as I saw her going through her phone, I was like, that's what you look like when you do that. And I want to be present for whoever I'm with across the table.

Yes. It reminds me of the still— I think it's called the still face experiment. I don't know if you're familiar with this. So it came out of research on, on moms with postpartum depression. And what, what the study did was it took a baby and mom and baby just sort of like interacted and she's— baby's pointing to things and mom's looking at the things that, that he's pointing at. And, you know, there's— they're sort of engaging in this like very like sweet and like active way. And then mom goes still face, right? So no response, just total stonewall gone. And baby makes a bid for affection and points to something, and mom doesn't respond. And baby gets more distressed and points to something else, and, and mom still doesn't. And baby gets more and more distressed to the point where baby gives up. Oh, and, and that's what it's like when we're with someone who is choosing their phone over us.

Yeah.

And that's what it's like when we are choosing our phone over them. It hurts. And we make these bids. We try again. You know, when you're in that lunch with your friend and they keep choosing their phone, it hurts. Yeah, it hurts to come in second to a beautiful shiny rectangle. Right? I am here right now and I want to be here with you. And so anchoring to that moment, being present in that moment, even if it's sort of like awkward, we haven't seen each other, what are we going to talk about? Okay, like, let's lean into that. Bring it on. I can be awkward. I'm good at awkward. Let's get awkward.

Oh my gosh, I love it. You're leaning into the difficult feelings that we're all trying to avoid.

Yeah, I mean, they're here and they're trying to whisper. Maybe it's just the universe tapping on our shoulders and being like, how are you gonna show up in this moment? Maybe that's all awkward. Discomfort is. Yeah.

Yeah. It's very true. It's funny how we try to push it aside. I'm going to lean in.

Lean in. Bring it on. All right, anxiety. Show me what you got. Let's do this.

You're going to be in my head the next time that I'm feeling uncomfortable. I'm going to be like, bring it.

Look, that's one of my measures of success is how many clients come back and are like, you know, there's this little Jenny that has, like, taken up residence in my head.

Oh my God, that's the best. That is the best feeling when, when somebody tells you that.

Yeah, totally, totally.

Do you have any— I'm sure you have lots. Do you have any specific success stories that are like sticking out to you right now?

You know, I, I think the biggest success stories that I see are often with young adult women. Who are on their phones a lot. And when we start to get them off of Instagram and when we start to get them off of TikTok, and which are fine places to exist, right? Okay. The, the distorted view of their own body really starts to change.

Oh.

And so, so what I see, and I don't, I don't have data on this, I wouldn't be surprised if there is good data on this, But what I'm seeing in my office is that overexposure to these hyper-idealized versions of bodies and of, of humans is really creating this distorted sense of, of what our bodies and our faces and us should look like at different points. And I get a little bit of botulism to the forehead, right? Like, mom gets deep 11s. And so we're trying to prevent some of that. I'm I'm not open to a little bit of body modification.

Right, right, right.

And there's, there's a— I'm 41 and, you know, these are like 19-year-olds who are like hypercritical. And, you know, so I start to see a huge reduction in body dysmorphic symptoms as we get them off of these platforms that distort bodies.

Amazing. Wow. Our poor children. My poor daughters.

Poor us. I mean, we have to witness this too, right? Like, this is hard for us too.

I will tell you something, and you can argue with me.

Oh, my God.

I don't think it affects me the way it affects my daughters. And I think it's the whole brain development thing. My brain is developed. I have more thinking power.

I love that thought.

And you can challenge me.

I mean, I take the challenge.

Yeah.

What happens, right? Like, I'm totally— I'm totally open to that idea. And there is good data. Like, we are older women. And so, like, we are not of the age where we grew up with exposure to these devices.

Right, our whole lives, right?

Like, I remember a time, and I'm, I'm guessing you remember a time where smartphones just weren't part of the daily life. It wasn't a part of my life. I went places without it. I figured it out without it, right? So like, there's this, there's this knowledge in the background operating that like, I actually don't need this thing. I like it, it's, it's easy, it's fun, but like, I don't actually need this, right? But our kids will have always had them, right? And so they never get the opportunity to learn that actually you can leave your house without your phone and be totally fine. You can be totally fine if you leave your house without your phone. Like, that's actually— there are no— there are very few consequences to that other than people can't call you or reach you immediately. But take the challenge.

Yes.

And just see, see what shows up, right? And it might be that nothing changes. For you in terms of your screen use, you will get more flexible, you will have clearer values, you will have a much bigger life in terms of the other actions that you're taking, right? The phone use will become more insignificant to you, and you'll, you'll have a lot more present awareness around when you're using your phone. So it'll improve your ability to choose.

100%. And, and I think that I, you know, the The funniest thing that I hear from women who I know are on their phones all the time is that they don't have time.

Oh.

And I, and I really bite my tongue because what I want to say is I can make you more time.

So much.

Right? Like, I know it's a time sucker for me. I will look up and I will have been scrolling for 30 minutes. That's 30 minutes that I could have been doing something else. So I definitely, I could get so much more time and be so much more productive and have more recreational other things in my life.

100%. Look, if you are worried about time in your life, if you're like, I don't have time, then in the book there's a really helpful math problem that helps you examine not just how much of your life you're going to give to your phone, but how much of your life in the context of how much life you likely have left, right? And so the average, I think, I don't know, we're 76, maybe 77 is the average lifespan for women right now. It might be a little bit more. But, um, you know, like, if, if you are mid-40s and you're spending 2 to 3 hours on your phone each day, that's like 3 years.

Oh gosh.

Yeah, like the— of of the 30. That's a, like, that's a big percentage.

That's a lot of waste of time.

That's a lot of waste of time. And you don't, you don't even factor in, like, the hours that you sleep, so you, you lose those too, right? And so if you're concerned about time and if you're thinking, like, I don't have the time to do this challenge, you do. Yeah, absolutely do. You just think you don't. You don't have to listen to everything you think. Right. We tell our kids that all the time.

I'm just opening the door for my dog. I'm coming right back.

He's like, I'm done.

He's like, I'm done with you. Can I get out? I've had enough. Oh my gosh. Well, I mean, I've asked you so many questions. Is there anything that you think that I missed that you really want to share?

Not in particular, no. I think I think that the, the, the thing I want to leave your audience with, the parents out there, is that parenting is really difficult. Parenting in this world, in, in this culture, is, is really difficult. And, and there's a lot of information out there about what you should do and what you shouldn't do and how you should be and how you shouldn't be, and there's all these rules that people try to put up, right? And we can do our best to follow those rules. And at the end of the day, there is something inside of you that you have been selected for that has allowed you to get to this point. And if you start to listen to that very quiet voice inside of you, there is a chance, uh, an acceptably high probability that you already know what to do, that you know what is important to you, that you know how to handle a situation, right? And so if you're wanting to do it right, maybe step back from that thought too. Maybe the stance is to treat yourself with as much kindness as you can.

Mm-hmm.

And maybe that starts with giving yourself a little break. So maybe that's doing the challenge, maybe that's starting therapy, maybe that is just, I don't know, gazing at your maniac curly-haired 2-and-a-half-year-old as she throws quesadillas on the floor and demands yogurt, right?

Like, oh, good times.

Whatever it is, right? Like, be here now, as often as you can be.

Yes, yes, put the phone down. That's what I'm gonna— I'm gonna be telling myself later. Put the phone down.

Just be here now. So just be right here, right now.

Love it.

I love it.

Well, tell everybody where they can find you and your fabulous book.

So you can order the book on Amazon. It's Look Up The 30-Day Path to Digital Minimalism and Real-Life Maximalism. You can find me on Instagram at becoming Jenny, and I do a lot of anxiety questions of the day and some helpful stuff on there. So if you are looking for therapy, I have a group practice and it's called the West Coast Anxiety Clinic, and you can find us at westcoastanxiety.com.

Wonderful. And you— do you connect with people like online if they're not in your state?

Yep. So I'm licensed in Montana, Washington, Oregon, and California. I have a psychologist— our clinical director, Dr. Aldia, is licensed through PSYPACT, so she's able to, uh, practice in like 40+ different states.

Wow.

Um, and then we have another psychologist who is licensed in, I think, Wisconsin and Washington, maybe Minnesota as well. So we have some flexibility in who we can see.

Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time and your expertise and for sharing with us today.

Thank you so much for having me. And to everyone who is listening, Go easy, go soft, be gentle, be here.

I love that. So beautiful. And remember to, um, reminder to laugh, learn, and love every day.

Thank you for tuning in to the Whiny Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.

This show has been produced by Market Domination LLC. To discover how you can have your own show completely done for you and turn it into a real published book and become the authority in your marketplace, go to www.marketdominationllc.com/podcastoffer.

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