#171: 10 Insights from My 7-day Detox from Technology

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Are you ready for a detox? Is your brain tired? Do you feel like you have a lot of clutter and confusion in your mind? If so, you may be interested in today's training where I'm going to share with you 10 insights from my 7 day detox from technology. Hi, my name is Shelly Hitz. I'm an author coach and I'm the owner of authoraudienceacademy.com and I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time to let your light shine. And if you've been following me for any time, you know I'm a get it done type person. But I have a confession to make. I have been a workaholic. I have treated myself like a machine. And it was about last November that I really felt like I hit a wall. And I don't know, I didn't fully understand what was happening until now. I can look back and see, but at that time I really found myself getting into art. If you followed my art journey, you know, I just dove into it and I think what happened at the time was it was filling something within me that was dry, that creative well within me. It had just run dry. So the art just came rushing in. But soon I started treating my art like work and I became like a machine. And I was posting five and six times on Instagram and I have created over 20 Skillshare classes.

I mean, crazy, right? And I hit that wall again this summer. I just sensed the Lord saying he wanted me to enjoy the summer. I have worked so hard with our business over the last six years since I quit my phys therapy job. And I just sensed him saying, shelley, I want you to enjoy the summer. There were days previously like I'd worked 14 hour days. I didn't get outside. You know, I was just so focused on work. And so I told my husband, I was like, what if we go on a little bit longer vacation, maybe to the Oregon coast, do some camping? And his running schedule was already full. He had races and things going and it just didn't look like it was going to happen this year. He said, maybe next year. Well, God had other plans for us. CJ came to me later and his body just kind of needed a rest. After some really hard races, he ran the national championship and did third. He got bronze in his age group and Just a lot of things. But he was like, let's do it. So sometime in June, we decided we're going to take a five and a half week trip to the Oregon coast and we're just going to do it. We're going to go in July, through the beginning of August, we're going to go. And I thought, oh my goodness, five and a half weeks off of work. This is crazy, right? And so it led me on a journey. And what I realized is that my brain needed rewiring. I listened to a podcast. I highly recommend it. It's Revelation Wellness and it's episode 200, if you haven't listened to that. It's called Deep Work and it's based on the book Deep Work. I love the book De Work 2 Cal Newport. And it's a business book. But they talk about how they've actually shown that when we're on technology and when we're switching back and forth, social media, email, Internet, different things, it actually wears down the myelin on the neurons in our brain. That caught my attention. I've taken neuroanatomy. I was in medical school. I practiced for 12 years as a physical therapist. So that caught my attention. They said it actually rewired your brain and you get addicted to new nuggets of nothingness. New nuggets of nothingness. You train your brain to crave new stimulus and basically it's new nuggets of nothingness. So they were talking about this and all of a sudden I was like, I think that's what happened to me. My brain needs rewired, my brain needs healed. I had just done different things. And I hadn't been on Facebook and email on my phone since November. But what happened was Instagram, Instagram took its place. And so I was just as addicted to my phone. It was just a different platform. And I justified it, saying it was my art and it was a hobby. But then it became work and it was just the same cycle again. So it really convicted me that, okay, there's something to this. I need to really seek God and ask him about this. It led me to reading a bunch of books. But also we ended up coming home two weeks early from our trip. It just turned out differently. That's a whole other story. I shared some of the insights behind the scenes in the author Audience Academy, Facebook group, private group. We came back two weeks early and I felt like the Lord said, I don't want you to go right back to work. I want you to have some more time. And so I Took the time and I was kind of reorienting, still reading. And I felt like the Lord said, shelly, I want you to take a seven day detox completely away from your computer and your phone. I was like, what? I've never done that, Never. Even when I was on vacation, I was still checking in daily because I run an academy, authoraudienceacademy.com where my members expect me to check in at least once every day and answer their questions and help them out. I run a business and I currently have a VA working my support desk, but I don't have anyone that's in my personal email and all the things that are required from me. I had all of these excuses. Have you ever done that? Have you ever done that? When you sense God asking you to do something radical or something hard that you have the excuses? The Lord showed me, he's like, you can do it. So I had my autoresponder on my email set up and it said if you need anything urgently before these seven days, you know, with whatever the date was, contact my assistant and then my va. I instructed her to email my husband if there was anything urgent that needed taking place. There was only one thing in the entire seven days that I had to urgently take care of. That was it then. I have a team now with Author Audience Academy and my team are amazing and they took care of taking care of the members and then moderating the group and sent me everything I needed to catch up on when I returned. So seven days I could do that. It was doable, but it was hard. Anyone else start to have the shakes when you think about being away from your phone and your computer for seven?

But what I did was I came up with 10 different insights from my seven day detox and I just thought this would be really helpful to share with all of you some of the different insights that I got and why I found it so valuable. I really do recommend doing some sort of radical detox like this to rewire your brain. I literally do feel different. I feel so different. It was the first time, the first time I've ever unplugged. I've had an online business since 2004 and it's the first time I've unplugged in. So how many years is that? 13 years. I mean, 12 years or something. 13. It's crazy, you know? And so insight number one, this one really kind of hurt. It was kind of hard. So the first insight is I've been a Christian for over 25 years and I'm now Just admitting that I have never truly practiced the Sabbath on a consistent basis. That's really hard for me to even admit. I feel horrible even like saying that. Like, that's not good. That's not good. You know, I mean, it's not to be legalistic, like God put the Sabbath into the seven days for our own good. My husband is a runner and he runs at very, very compet.

Places. You know, like, he's a competitive runner. If he doesn't do recovery for his body and his muscles, if he tried to race all the time at race pace, he would get injured, he would burn out, he would not be running at his best. And what I basically did is for 25 years I treated myself kind of like a machine. And I just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I didn't have any recovery. I didn't take advantage of the gift. Now I'm not seeing Sabbath as a legalistic thing or a dread. I'm seeing it as it's a gift. Amen. It's a gift that we can rest, we can recover, we can heal, like, give our brains, our minds, our hearts, time, space. It's a space that God has given us for very specific reasons.

Insight number two is that without my phone. So I actually, I let all my friends and family know. And I didn't even do texting or voxer or anything like that. So I said, without my phone, texting, voxer, social media. I began to learn to talk constantly to the Lord instead. So, like, in the beginning, I'm like, okay, so like, I'm not on social media, I'm not talking to anyone. I'm not texting. And I'm. I mean, I was talking to cj, but I would still talk with him. But it was weird. It was so weird. And so I'm like, okay, what do I do now? Like, well, Lord, you're here. How are you? What are you doing?

And it's like, hi, how are you?

I had filled every minute of my time with something else. I didn't have space to be talking and hearing from the Lord throughout the day.

That gets me in the gut. I began to learn to talk to him. So similar to how the Bible says to pray continually. I was really starting. And it's continued after my detox. It's just like this flow of conversation between me and the Lord. And, you know, I realized my prayer life had kind of shrunk to just certain times of the day. And instead of being a flow of conversation between my papa, my father, God, and Me, back in March, I took a challenge from Revelation Wellness and it was a challenge on identity. And they talked about, you know, our father God. And at the time I was like, God, what do you want me to call you? Papa, you know, daddy, dad, Abba, Father, because you have Jesus, the Holy Spirit. I just felt like Papa was the one for me. I have my late grandfather, we called him Papa, and just a man of God and someone I still miss today and just, you know, good memories. So anyways, I call God Papa now, God the Father and so just that communication and it's. What happens is we get so used to communicating with other people all the time. We don't save that space or create that space or have that space for God. Can anyone relate to this right now? Now, insight number three is I've always been a driven person and many times I feel an urgency when I get ideas or when I have things. Now some of you are on the other side where you're paralyzed. You're paralyzed by perfectionism, doubt, fear, those things. But I'm on the other side where I've always been driven. And God showed me previously, like a year or two ago that that voice is actually the enemy. It was actually the enemy, like driving me, but it wasn't God, it wasn't what he had for me. And I was still kind of stuck in that a little bit over that seven day detox time. I felt like the Lord gave me so much insight on what that means. And I really want to do a webinar later on exactly what God showed me because I mean, it was a lot and it was so helpful to me. It's more than I can really include on this podcast right now. But if you're not on my email list, definitely check out some of my free training@shellyhits.com free get on my email list and then when I do the webinar, you'll be one of the first to know. Over those seven days, I felt like God gave me a name for that driving voice inside my head and it's my inner slave driver. Does anyone else have an inner slave driver? Or, you know, you may feel like it tells you you need to be doing this. Why aren't you doing this? You're not writing enough, you're not marketing enough. Why aren't you doing this? You need to do this.

Or you have ideas and you need to do it right now. Oh, do it right now. Put it on, you know, oh, you could get it done right now. You can fit it into your schedule. Right now you can da da da, da da da. Anyone else?

And since that time, and even on the seven days I had these ideas come to my mind and I would start to flow with them and I'd even start brainstorming them and then I'd hear the Lord say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Not right now. Yes, capture the idea, but you're full right now. In the past, I would have just added the next thing to my plate. I would have just done it anyways. And then one of the things the Lord was just like, no, no, that's not something for you. Maybe later, maybe not. But keep seeking me on that I'm hearing more clearly from the Lord, even like what to keep putting on my schedule. And that's something I've always struggled with. When I create margin, I fill it up again with more projects.

That's been a really, really transforming thing for me and something that I could never really break in the past. So that was insight number three. Insight number four is I'm just more self aware and what's happening is because I have more silence and I have not returned to technology and I don't plan to return to technology ever again. How I used it in the past, again in the future. I may share more of just some of the things that I've done. But one of the things they talk about in the deep workbook is having distraction breaks. He said it's not as damaging to your brain if you have a chunk of time that you're doing something instead of going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. What I'm trying to do and to implement is to have distraction breaks where I check my email and social media at a certain time and then I go and do my work. What happens is you can really do your best and your deepest work when you're focused.

Kind of getting off on a sidetrack there.

But I'm more self aware. So what that means is I'm feeling and processing my emotions instead of numbing them with a quick fix from social media or the Internet. So sometimes you may feel anxiety, you may feel overwhelmed. How many are feeling overwhelmed right now? How many of you feel like you have a little bit of anxiety right now? Sometimes what happens is we have those emotions, but it's attached to something deeper, a deeper issue. So what I found is since my seven day detox, and even through the seven day detox, I'll have an emotion that comes to the surface and then I'll realize Okay, Lord, what is this? Okay, I'm kind of, I'm feeling overwhelmed. What is this about?

And I'm processing it. I'm processing it. And oh my goodness, like some of the deep, deep revelations that are coming to me simply because I'm recognizing, I'm more self aware, I'm recognizing the emotions, I'm taking them to the Lord. And then we're working through it. And some things have come out that I didn't even know was in there. It was just like, what? Wow. Powerful, powerful stuff. Insight number five. I've already been saying it. I'm hearing from the Lord in a deeper way. Again, I've continued to hear from the Lord on a consistent basis, but I'm talking about deep. I'm talking about a deeper way. The book Deep Work talks about if you really want to make an impact, if you really want to see. They're talking more in a career, in your job, but I'm talking primarily to Christian authors. So if you want to really have an impact for the kingdom of God, if you want to really receive information and words and writing that's going to impact a generation, that's going to really impact people in a deep way, that's not just surfacey stuff, then we need to be able to be focused. We need to be able to hear from the Lord in a deeper way. Amen. And I want that, I want that. I don't want to just be creating content to create content. I'm good at that.

I'm good at creating content, but I want to do it in a deep way.

I remember some of the deep stuff that I really felt like I heard when I was really hearing deeply from the Lord. Previously, it was really before social media. I started Facebook in 2009 and then it was around 2011. That's when we transitioned to the RV and some other things. And that's when I had, you know, we really went full into the business. And I was probably, you know, on social media and email all the time most of the time. From that point on, it just, it started to get fuzzy. It started to get less clarity and not as much depth from the Lord. And so what I realized is that in the seven day detox, I really believe I received more insight and I heard more from the Lord. And I'm continuing to. Since I finished, I heard more from the Lord than I did in the previous six to 12 months. I really believe that. And it's just continuing. I returned back on Friday, this past Friday, I'm recording this on Facebook Live. It'll be on the podcast and YouTube and blog later. But it hasn't quite been a week that I've been back. And I'm continuing. It's continuing. And it's almost like, you know, a pipe that's been clogged. It's almost like the pipe, the Drano, you know, was applied, the detox, and now it's like, whoa, my pipe's open and I'm continuing. I've truly repented of not taking the Sabbath. I'm taking a Sabbath. I'm, you know, using technology differently, and I'm still getting a lot of work done. I'm still being productive and fruitful, but with God, not out of my flesh, not out of my own strength, not just rushing ahead and just doing, doing, doing, but doing it with. And if he leads me to do something different, then I do. And, oh, my goodness, I woke up with something on Tuesday. I followed through with it, and it ended up taking my whole day. I had to change some things around. It was one of the most profitable things that's happened to me for book sales in a long time. If you're in the author audience Academy group, you know what I'm talking about. It's a special strategy that one of our members actually shared with us, and several of us have applied it. And, oh, my goodness, maybe I'll be able to share more later. But when the Lord prompts you, his ideas are the best ideas. I recently did a podcast on that, on God ideas. So I'm just hearing from him. I created space to put myself in a position to receive. So are you creating a space? Are you in a position to receive today? Do you have space? Do you have margin? I didn't have it. Insight number six. I know this is long, but I just wanted to share this. I wanted to share my heart. And I really would love to see more authors be able to have a breakthrough, not have to hit the wall like I did. So insight number six is I'm overall much more observant of my environment. So instead of being on my phone or my brain, like, being occupied every minute, like, I'm standing here and I'm looking out. There's a tree right outside my window in my office. Literally. I see hummingbirds flying around all day and birds. I never even noticed that in summer's past. Like, what I'm like, how did I not see? It is just crazy. It's almost like I'm seeing life with new eyes. And as an artist, as a writer, as a creative, when we're observant of our environment. We're able then to use that in our creativity. And it just fills our creative well. All right, number seven in site seven, I have more hunger for the word of God and for prayer. And it's almost like junk food. Like, if you eat junk food, then it takes away your appetite for dinner. Social media and the Internet was like the junk food for me. And it would take away my appetite for the word and prayer. I mean, that's our main connection to the Lord. And I really don't even like saying it, but it's just the truth. And you guys know I don't sugarcoat things.

You get the truth around here, you get the honest truth. And so I have more hunger. Several of the days when I was on my detox, I spent at a location here Locally. They have prayer grottos that you can rent out for free and reserve for free and just spent time in silence and solitude there. My husband and I did one of the days. We both had different rooms, we shared lunch together, shared our insights, and that was really powerful, too. I really want to start doing this on a more regular basis, at least maybe quarterly or every six months. I just have more of a hunger. And I'm memorizing scriptures again. Like, I have tried before to do the Navigator System, and I just would quit. I'd give up. And I couldn't do it. I thought I couldn't do it. I was telling CJ just this morning, I was like, you know, I was just walking around the house and I remembered five. Like, I'm on scripture six already. I remembered the five, and I was able to recite them. My brain is getting clearer. It's almost like, you know, your brain is like a muscle. It's an organ. It's one of the most important organs in our body, and yet we do not treat our brain very well. But just even now, it's like, wow, that's really a difference, you know? Okay, so insight number eight. I realized this was an insight. The world will not fall apart if I take a few days away.

Despite what I think, I am not the general manager of the universe. I like to be in control of things, like, to get things done. And, you know, it almost feels like, oh, things are going to fall apart if I leave for a few days. No, things actually were built up and things are happening now like that. I just. I'm like, what? Like, I couldn't have arranged that. I couldn't have figured that out. Like, it's just, you know, you Think things are going to fall apart. They're not. At least it was not the case for me. And not that I can take time off like that all the time, because I do have responsibilities. I do have members in my academy that count on me. But I could probably do this once a year, and I think I would. I think I want to. And then insight number nine, the very first day, I could tell, like, I felt more peace than I have for years, I realized there was a background hum of anxiety. And I probably covered it up with work and doing more work projects. But there was just this background hum of anxiety. And I think a lot of it was caused from being constantly connected to technology.

I felt more peaceful than I have for years. There's a book, it's called Invitation to Silence and Solitude. So Ruth Haley Barton, she also has another book I read. It's called Sacred Rhythms. So good. Both of them are so good. But in her book Invitation to Solitude and Silence, she gives this image. In the beginning of that, she was actually at a breaking point too. She went to a psychologist, which was actually also a spiritual director, and they told her, they said, you, life is like this jar of river water and it's all shook up. You need to take time for silence and solitude, to let the mud, to let the waters settle. And I really feel like I felt more peace than I have for years. And it's almost like that muddy river water in my jar had time to settle. So I finally have some clarity and peace. And it literally feels like a fog has been lifted from my brain. I can't explain exactly what happened. I mean, it literally feels like that. And then insight number 10 is, I've been praying again for divine appointments. I would do it sporadically, but really not on a consistent basis. And then usually I would be so busy and checking things and on my phone and doing things that I wasn't as aware of my environment. And so even if they were, even if I did have divine appointments, I wasn't paying attention. What do I mean by a divine appointment? What I mean is asking God to put people and situations in my path that are to impact for his kingdom. So it might be someone that just needs a smile or to pray with somebody or someone that needs encouragement or help somebody with something that they have going on. I have started praying for these and already several times it's just happened. It's just crazy. I was praying for that at my church. I went to a women's ministry leadership meeting. It was on a Wednesday. I was like, lord, I just pray that you would place divine appointments. And it was during that seven day detox. I got there early and I saw this lady and I just started talking to her. She had a Starbucks cup. I just start talking to her about her Starbucks. Well, we started talking and she's had a really rough go of it. After a while I said, would it be okay if I prayed for you? And she kind of looked at me like, what? Like, okay. And so I prayed for her right there. She jumped up, gave me the biggest hug, and it was literally like her whole face, her whole countenance looked different. It took maybe five or 10 minutes of my time total to talk to her and to pray with her. Well, that night God gave me the opportunity to pray with three other people. One of the persons, she was like, literally just right away. I mean, I don't know if this has ever happened to me, but it happened to me twice during that seven day detox. Once at the church service and once at the women leadership meeting. The girl was like, can we stay in touch? Do you want to exchange information? I'm like, okay. I really sensed it was the Lord. Well, both of these situations that happened were now texting and I'm mentoring them. And the one like, I was mentoring her to share a testimony, you know, and it's just like, God is doing amazing things that I wouldn't have even seen before. I wouldn't have even been open for before because I didn't have margin, I didn't have the space. I wasn't even looking. I wasn't even praying for it. And so some amazing, amazing things are happening. They were encouraged, but I am too. Aren't you encouraged when you see God at work? Yes. Those are my 10 insights. I could go on and on and on. I have a notebook full of insights and breakthroughs and things that have happened. I just shared a new training of two tools that I've recently come across during this time that I'm using. And it's just huge, drastic difference in my business, in my writing, my creativity. If you're not yet an author audience academy member, I invite you to join us. Join us@authoraudienceacademy.com one of our recent members. She was like, I waited so long to join, I finally decided to invest. And she was like, after just a few days, she was like, shelly, this is an amazing community that you've built. And I can't believe all the people that I've met and we're networking and it's like, thank you. I Cannot take credit for it. It's God. It's God that's built it. Yeah, I've done the work, but it's him. He's built something very special. And so if you haven't joined yet, definitely join us. If you are an author, audience academy member, make sure to go check that new training. It's in the Facebook group. I just recorded it earlier today. All right. So my encouragement, please consider. Please consider a detox of your own or creating some time for silence and solitude. Truly practicing the Sabbath, turning off your devices on your Sabbath, getting a break. Give your brain some margin. Let it heal, let it rewire. And let's not allow social media to control us, but let's take control of social media, email, Internet, so that we can use it to honor God. I don't feel like God's asked me to give up social media. I don't feel like I'm right here, right now. This is how I'm recording it. I'm on Facebook Live and then be on the podcast and YouTube and my blog, and they will go out to Twitter and LinkedIn and all these places. I record it. My team does all the rest. But I don't think he's asking me to quit social media. He's just asking me to use it differently. Last week, I really felt prompt to go see the movie Wonder Woman. I loved watching the show when I was growing up.

So I went and I watched it afterwards. I was like, papa, God, was there something that you wanted me to. To know from this movie you wanted me to hear? Was there something you wanted me to apply, you know, a concept or something? And I felt like he said to me at that moment, shelley, there is a battle worth fighting, and it's mine. There's a battle worth fighting. And I felt like he said, you know, social media, Internet, all of this stuff, it's a battle I've returned to the battlefield. Like, when I came back, it's like, you know, it's like, ah, can I just stay in my silence and solitude?

But the Lord showed me. He's like, I want you to be in the world, but not of the world. I want you to have an influence, but I don't want you to be trapped and in bondage to it. I want you to know that this is a battle worth fighting. Because you know what? If I didn't fight this battle and do the things that I need to, to stay clear, to stay calm, to stay peaceful, to have that clarity, I wouldn't be talking to you right now. I wouldn't have my author coaching business. I wouldn't have all these opportunities for God to use me and to reach people from around the world. And so although it's going to be hard, and it already is, it's hard, it's hard to do this God's way. It's hard because they set social media up to be addictive. They set it up to hook you in. Like they pay people and consultants from all different places. And I think it was the deep workbook or the podcast, they were saying that Facebook and other places they pay people to come in and say, like from casinos and slot machines to apply the same techniques to their platforms. And so they make it that way because this is their business. But it's a battle worth fighting. It's a battle worth fighting. But if you need to, maybe you need to shut down some things, maybe there is a time for a fast for you and a detox. Only the Lord can tell you you have to create the space, create margin, create time where you can really hear from him. But I just, I really felt like the Lord saying, it's a battle worth fighting. It's going to be a battle for the rest of my days. But that's okay. That's okay because I know I saw such a drastic change in this time off. And it was a total of five weeks that I was off shy of one day.

Seven of those days completely unplugged. I'm a different person. I'm a changed person. And I'm so thankful because I really don't know that I had any more left to give. Like I just didn't have it. And I was dreading the things coming up in this fall. And I was like, I don't know how I'm going to do it. I was dry. I was done. The Lord refreshed me. He restored me. He's continually healing my brain. And I'm here to tell you I survived a seven day technology detox completely away from my computer and my phone. So thank you for being here. Let me know, has this encouraged you at all? Was there anything that was an aha moment or what is a takeaway for you? What is an action step for you? What is something you can do to create more space so that you can not only receive God ideas for books, for marketing, but you can be writing the things that God gives you to write instead of just writing out of your own strength again. This is Shelly Hitz, the owner of authoraudienceacademy.com thank you so much for being here and I'll see you next time. Bye Bye. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Author Audience. I would like to invite you to attend one of my free trainings all about how to sell more books without being pushy or self promotional. It's called Amplify youy Message. Plus I will give you two free gifts just for attending, no credit card required. First you'll get my best selling book 9 Strategies to Build and Grow youw Author Platform. And you'll also get my ebook titled List Vend 5 powerful emails you can use immediately to grow your business. These are basically fill in the blank style templates and they are yours at no charge when you join us for the training. You can sign up for my free training by going to shellyhitz.com/ that's shellyhits.com s h e l l e y h I t z.com amplify this training and the two bonus ebooks are free and I would love to help you sell more books.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.