The Hidden Addiction That's Quietly Destroying Your Focus

What if the real problem is not with you, but with the noise that you're living in?

The more time we spend in these social media spaces, the less time we spend with actual people, and our loneliness is really spiking.

You wake up in the morning, you reach out for your phone, and then scroll, scroll, scroll, and somehow you feel— why do you feel worse? Less focused, less present, and less like yourself.

When you rest by watching Netflix and scrolling social media, your brain is working so hard.

And while the world tells you, just push a little bit more, Just be stronger. What if it is not about doing more, but what if it is about removing what's not serving you well?

Just creating those little moments where you're being intentional about what you're doing. You're not escaping any boredom by just reaching for your phone.

And remember, this is not just about the phone. This is about the stories, the beliefs that you're carrying since you were a young child.

You just assume it's your fault.

And maybe part of you still believes those stories. So what if you stopped blaming yourself? So what if you chose a different path? Because the truth is, the time to change is right now. My guest today is Kelsey, who grew up in chaos, and we'll learn more about that, but built a life of clarity. And now she helps others build that clarity, build that courage. Welcome, Kelsey, to this conversation.

Thank you so much. I am delighted to be here with you and with your listeners.

I'm so looking forward to this conversation. This idea of minimalism is so close to my heart, and we spoke about this when we met, but we don't know where the universe takes us, what streams through both of us today. And so the first question, Kelsey, that we start with to put both of us into the deep end of the pool is, if that 8-year-old Kelsey, the young girl wherever you were growing up, if that Kelsey comes and meets you right now, what kind of a conversation do you think will emerge between the two of you?

You know, I love this question. It's obviously a profound question. It's a deep question, and I suppose That thinking about the 8-year-old Kelsey makes me feel a little sad, just thinking about where she was at that time, growing up an only child with a single mom, a family struggling with, you know, drug and alcohol issues. She definitely felt quite alone. And I suppose I would tell her that there is so much beautiful life to be experienced that she just cannot conceptualize of yet, and that there are also so many wonderful people in the world to connect with and to have experiences with and to help her grow and for her to help grow as well.

It's so thought-provoking, right? When you, when you say this, that there is so much beauty in the world and there are so many wonderful people in the world that are waiting for that 8-year-old to meet. And as— make me, make me be a fly on that wall as an 8-year-old growing up with dysfunction in, in whatever ways there was. How did that feel for that 8-year-old?

Well, I think that I'll just, you know, the disclaimer is I'm not a therapist, but from what I understand, the struggle for people that may have grown up in, in trauma situations is to unpack the self-worth suitcase for basically the rest of their lives, right? That, you know, when you're a little kid, you, and It's things are happening around you and there's addiction and you, you can't but think that it's your fault. There's just, you know, your little kid brain. There's not a lot of other ways to interpret things that are happening like that. And so you just assume it's your fault because otherwise the alternative is telling yourself that these people are not really equipped to care for you. And that's obviously an existential terror for, for a little kid. I will say that, you know, one of the things that's come up is just how deep my mom loved me. As I, you know, look back for that 8-year-old girl, that whatever struggles these adults were having had nothing to do with me. It was their work in the world to do, and that it wasn't my fault. It didn't have to do with me. You know, carrying that into adulthood is, is a, is a great message. It's obviously a little bit deeper than just being able to say the words and then it's solved. But that, that self-worth puzzle, I think, is a, is a lifelong endeavor for For people that may have grown up like I did.

And I think the self-blame, Kelsey, stays with us for, for some time, a very, very long time because it, I think it, in that moment as a kid, and then the listeners who are listening to us, they would've had, and I've had, we've all had our own micro and macro traumas. The self-blame is so easy to carry because it's almost, and correct me if I'm wrong, it's almost like the path of least resistance because I can blame myself and then I don't have to explain it to anyone else. What, what do you feel about that?

Ooh, hot take. Yeah, that's, that's an interesting concept. And I think for a child's brain, there's, there's just, you know, it's a little kid, right? So they, they don't have their therapist and life coach, you know, and all these books that they're reading on self-development quite yet. So, so that is certainly the path of least resistance for a kid. That's really one of the only options, right? But as an adult, that's an interesting concept, right? That That, um, to, to not explore the nuance and the complexity of the universe and to not, not really dig into understanding and unpacking psychology and your own issues. Yeah. I appreciate the thought process.

And then, um, and I don't know, like, how did this thought get triggered right now? I think it's somewhat of a recency bias for me. I was coaching someone yesterday, very successful big tech firm, and, and she said that When her manager tells her or is having a performance conversation with her, she takes up self-blame really quickly, and then it's a downward spiral for her. And I'm just thinking then that is self-blame that easiest path of resistance? So I don't know. And it's open for conversation, but with the current wisdom and understanding of the world, the self-help books, the work that you do, if you were to explain some of this To that 8-year-old to help her work through that self-worth, the self-blame, how would you explain it to her?

In the context of my life, again, the disclaimer being that I'm not a therapist, in the context of my life, I suppose I would take a wider view for the 8-year-old, right? She had not yet experienced a very super cohesive sense of family and love, but also really not yet, she hadn't experienced Some, some strangers that would help her along on her journey. And, you know, she probably certainly did, but she wasn't quite maybe tracking and aware of it yet. And I'll just give you a little anecdote from my life. I recently visited a high school teacher that really helped me when I was older in high school. And I, I think teachers don't get a lot of immediate satisfaction sometimes. I think they just deal with so much. And so I, I've, I'm trying one of the practices I'm trying to execute in my life is thanking people, even if it's from 10 years ago, or in this case, quite a little bit longer ago, right? To thank them for the impact they had in my life because I, you know, I just want people to know that, and oftentimes we don't get to hear that kind of thing. So I have reached out to her, visited her a couple times, told her the impact that she had in my life, and I did it crying. I mean, there was just no other way to do it. And, you know, it's fine, right? Crying's fine. So I suppose, you know, just, well, there's all kinds of, I'm honestly, I'm doing a lot of inner child reparenting work right now. So I know this isn't the topic of our podcast today. So I'll just say, um, again, that, you know, talking to her, giving her all the love that I possibly could pour in and letting her know that, that there's just so many wonderful things out there for her.

The podcast, there are no constraints, uh, because our listeners are somewhere in that range of 25, and we are also now seeing range of age go up like 60s. And so I think anyone between 25 to 65 who's wanting to make future self a better version, the world a better place, I think our conversation will hit home for them.

Yeah.

As you were telling me about your high school teachers, so I've now moved to Australia after living in India for 37 years of my life. And I sometimes feel that that move led me to almost let go of the past.

Yeah.

Where I start to find ways to dissociate with the past. I've left a part of me there and that's it. Now I can't really visit it back. So sometimes when I'm like pondering in my thoughts, I think of those moments. And as you were saying, a lot of tears sometimes help you process things as well. And so it's just a very fascinating relationship that I have that I want to be present to those thoughts and memories and people. But I also know that the future is more of a concern and the present is more of a concern than the future or the past. That steals me of the joys sometimes of the past. What's popping up as I'm sharing this with you?

You know, I just, full disclosure, I struggle with this all the time because I really believe that we need to process our feelings and emotions and we need to process the past. I personally believe that addiction is really just unprocessed emotion and or Possibly a little existential terror, right? But it's really trying to push down these feelings. So I want to be someone that is willing to feel the feelings. I want to be present. I want to process that shit. I do not want it stuck in my body. I do not want it to cause disease in my body. And I'm not blaming anyone that struggles with anything on them not processing. I'm just for myself. I have seen things get physically stuck in my body and had to be cut out in surgery. So, but then It's interesting because it does then beg the question of, well, then are we stuck in the past? Are we not allowing ourselves to feel fully, be present, look ahead? Right. So truthfully, this is something that I, I work on all the time. And the best, I guess the best practice I have come to have around it is there a space to process, to grieve, to feel, to do the therapy. Right. To be in that space. And then, but it is not all the time. It is absolutely not all the time. And there is then a place to even distract yourself with, with healthy things like going for a walk or even cleaning or whatever. Ideally hobbies like that use your hands and your brain where you're creating and, and make sure to leave space for the wonderful things in life. I believe that life is 50/50, so 50 is going to be pretty crappy.

Mm-hmm.

And 50's gonna be wonderful. And I believe that if you are trying for 100% all the time, amazing, happy, you feel great, I, then you're gonna fall short. It's just, I mean, I don't, I don't wanna be excited about things like genocide or war. I wanna like, I wanna be able to feel that, you know, the feelings around that, that's, that's hard and really tough right now. We're having a, a tough time in the USA. It is not a glorious time right now for Americans. It's kind of scary. So I'm okay feeling that. Right?

Yeah. I was talking to someone yesterday recording a podcast, and the title of that podcast is gonna be, because it's their book, was America in Therapy. And as we were talking about it, Kelsey, and getting goosebumps again, I asked her like, how do you visualize America in therapy? Like as a psychotherapist, what are you thinking? And she responded saying that the Statue of Liberty walks into my clinic and is sitting in— so many emotions popping up right now. And the Statue of Liberty is sitting on the couch across, and I ask it, where is the pain coming from? And it was so mind-boggling for me because the great forefathers of the country, of any country for that matter, have tried so much to protect who we are. We talk a lot about this here in Australia. Ultimately, we are all immigrants to these countries, right? Because the natives were the ones who were caring for the rivers and the waters and the forests and the land. And we came from lands far away and have created home here. And so we're all immigrants and so we are all equals. And where is this, this conversation? Where is the divisiveness really coming from? It's just powerful.

Yeah, it's, it's a, it's honestly a heartbreaking time right now in America. And I think other countries are, are struggling with this too, not just America.

What was that moment, Kelsey, for you when you realized that your past did not have to predict your future?

Well, I would say there, there probably wasn't one singular moment. However, I did experience a total complete rock bottom. And my, my rock bottom wasn't a singular thing. Some people have some kind of, you know, I don't know, drug addiction or whatever, where there's kind of one driver and then their life falls apart around it in lots of different ways. Mine had multiple drivers. I was working in the nonprofit sector. You know, doing, doing good work I believed in, but making so very little money. I was struggling financially. I had a pretty serious health crisis that I just referenced, and I had to have a major, pretty complex surgery. I was in a very toxic relationship with someone that abused substances heavily. I was drinking every day. It was COVID, and, and I just, I felt like everything had come to a place where it was no longer tenable to live like that. And I wouldn't have necessarily known at that moment that this was an issue of past, the past trauma. Thankfully my therapist did, right? And I went in with what they call a presenting problem often in therapy, where it's just one little thing happening and the client thinks that it's just this one thing. And then once they figure out this one little thing, everything will be fine. So I went in with this one presenting problem and that led to this really neat journey that honestly got a bit worse before it got better, where I started to address these things from the past. And truthfully, as someone that manages severe, severe PTSD, this may or may not be a lifelong journey. I'm willing to accept that it might. That's just how it shook out. And, you know, but I did, I, I basically gave myself up to the universe, practiced a bit of surrender. And, and realized that I was going to need to start walking this path or else I might not have made it.

Sometimes the rock bottom is, is what propels that journey. And, and you very beautifully and, and thoughtfully said surrender to the universe, but it does not come naturally to the human heart, mind, or soul. So if someone's Listening to us right now, Kelsey, they are 34 years old and a woman who feels that life's at a rock bottom. Health's not going well. Financially, it's a challenge. The AI is gonna take over the world. There's war in every part of the world, and they're at rock bottom. Where do they start?

I love this question because it can obviously feel overwhelming, insurmountable, so vast, and I Don't wanna make any assumptions about different genders and how they experience things, but I have heard somebody say that women can experience the sorrow of the universe. And wow. I, I truly think that, that women, certain, certain men, whatever, but you know, they, it's easy to fall into these, these traps that make it feel like there's, there's not a lot of reason to go on and you're never going to exit out of these feelings. I truly believe in the power of baby steps and, you know, I, I mean, There's a time and a place to say, like, shake up your life and, and go, you know, buy a one-way ticket to Asia and, you know, just do a whole thing, whatever. And if you have the resources for that and you can, okay, try it, you know, but most of us don't. And, and also probably if you're in that space, you probably don't have the energy for that either, right? So truly the little baby steps that you can take make all the difference. And I would start with The substances, looking at any alcohol-related stuff. A lot of times women might struggle with eating, men too, you know, emotional eating. And one of the things I talk a lot about right now, I think how we initially connected is the digital space and the content consumption of social media and not having any digital boundaries around, around what's coming into your brain and your heart. And I think more and more we're actually seeing the data show that more and more The more time we spend in these social media spaces, the less time we spend with actual people, and our loneliness is really spiking. So I think anything anyone is dealing with in their lives is really compounded by the fact that we are just becoming more and more siloed in our lives.

Absolutely. And then we'll get into digital minimalism after this, but you spoke about getting those baby steps out, any kind of substance addiction. I think one thing that also helps is just any kind of physical movement, just going out in nature, just lying down on On, on, on grass and looking at the sky. I think that could be a starting point.

Absolutely.

Just help me, like, take me through that, that phase for you because, because when you're at rock bottom, you can also get into this space of, again, blaming yourself, the victim mindset, and you don't start. And so what helped you, A, restart this journey? Like going to a, going to a therapist, even that. I come from India. In India, if a 34-year-old were to tell their spouse, or if a 27-year-old were to tell their parents that I need therapy, The parent's gonna flip out. Like, what's—

I've heard this. I have. Yeah.

And that's the truth. Like in, in India, calling a therapist is like, you can have cancer. That's okay. But you cannot. And, and I'm talking about like when I was growing up, so maybe 10 years ago, things have changed now. But so, so how did, how did that baby step come along for you? Like what, yeah. What would you share?

Yeah. Well, I will share that I, I had a ton of resistance to it and even with In my circle, I can't think of one close friend or even fairly, you know, good acquaintance that does not have a therapist. Here it's, it's more accepted. I have a close Indian friend and he has said the same thing about India and such that it actually took him many, many, many years to find a therapist in America because he was afraid of that same stigma. So it's really, it's quite interesting and I think it's changing with time and different generations too, of course. So I will just, I'll just note for people that I, I wasn't like, I'm surrendering. Okay. I'll do all the things now with excitement. I didn't want to do any of the things. And, you know, I truly, truly do believe in just kind of getting yourself, like you said, being outside, being with people, doing these little things, just taking care of your life. If you look at your life as this beautiful entity, one of the ways I conceptualize it is if it were your best friend, You know, I mean, there's all kinds of ways to think about it, or someone that you love so deeply. Would you talk to them in your head the way that you talk to yourself? Would you try to create a beautiful, comforting sanctuary-like space in your house for them? Would you feed them nutritious food or would you feed them Cheetos all day? You know, just thinking about yourself, trying to actually create a little bit of distance with yourself and treating your life and your physical body, which You know, then in turn, of course, means how you treat your mind, but treating it with just the same care as you would someone that you love and trying to detach your own feelings from this.

Love that. It's such a simple shift, but it's so thought-provoking because, and once you almost like detach yourself or zoom out and look at your life in that bird's eye view or maybe 360 view, you realize that you want to be more comforting and you want to be creating more nourishing and creating more care and love for, for yourself, like you would do for another family member or, or a friend. Digital minimalism. So hard in this world where you're, where the irony is that even to listen to this podcast, you have to be on, on Spotify or YouTube. So what does that look like?

Thank you for bringing this into the discussion because I think it's very relevant to all the things we just talked about. You know, at first I started tiptoeing into this because as you mentioned, it's a wonderful point that we are connected in the digital space. There are some incredible things that come out of that. Of course, you and I are connecting with your listeners here. How neat. People save each other's lives in the digital space. I mean, for myself, podcasts were life-changing, life-changing, you know, and those were free offerings, free podcasts. I heard women talking about the things that had happened to them. And I thought, oh my God, if they can, if they can transcend these horrible things, like, why couldn't I? You know? So I just want to acknowledge the really amazing things that can happen in this space. And sometimes that means, I'd say most of the time currently, that when we, when we are working to, to find the benefits, we sometimes will completely relinquish any boundaries or control that we have over this thing. It's very similar to I believe that it's wonderful to celebrate life through beautiful food with friends. Does that mean that, you know, we have a beautiful dinner and cake and maybe wine, whatever, you know, together, and that's going to be my meal every single day? Like, oh my God, of course not. Right. Yet we have found ourselves in this place that we have no control over Over our scrolling, over how much we're consuming. And it's understandable, right? These things are created to be as addictive as slot machines. And now we are in an attention economy, which means that, you know, for every second longer that we spend on the platforms, this means money for corporations. So things, the landscape has really, really changed in the last 10 years.

And it's so against us, against the normal human being who's craving a little bit of dopamine, who's craving a little bit of maybe connection and belonging and love and care. And so getting onto these platforms is so easy. But as you were saying, these corporations are paying millions and millions and millions and maybe sometimes billions of dollars to have the smartest minds on the planet really keep us addicted and keep us on that platform. So how do we help? Because to me, I think it's important that since we're speaking about this, someone listening to us, maybe first let's start with how is it impacting them? How is this insatiable appetite for content, how is that impacting a human mind?

There are a lot of ways, and I will just note that the research around this is becoming so prolific and also so definitive that you can just look this up. This is real. This is not like a new idea here, right? There's tons of people researching this. More every day. So some of the ways I have researched, and I have also experienced through other people personally that I work with, an inability to, to get things done, to feel like we can look at something in front of us and complete a task. That's one. The inability to be fully present with people around us. And I will say there's a great academic paper called The Brain Drain that talks about if your phone is next to you, even face down, Even someone else's phone face down, your attention is just more fractured. So imagine if your phone's face up, lighting up, blinging and blonging, the sounds are coming in when you're trying to connect with your kids or your spouse or friends or whoever, you know, it's just impossible to focus fully, right? The other thing is we're seeing society is impacted, literally the structure and fabric of societies in terms of connection seriously impacted. So as I, as we talked about a little bit, you know, the more that people are seeking connection online, the more time and, and, you know, energy they, they put into these online spheres, the less time and energy they have to go out into the world. And also the more awkward it feels to have these conversations in person, right? We're so used to these little quips now and DMs and, and being in this space that when we're faced with someone and going back to How we started the, you know, the call, like looking at how divisive things have become. We're getting less used to talking to someone that's different from us as just a normal person without all of this, this hate and the, the distance of the digital space, which means that we can be very different than how we would be, you know, in real life to each other. So there are some amazing benefits and the cost of unmitigated Digital use and letting it take over your life is so, it's so high. And lastly, I'll just note for any parents out there, I'm sure you've all heard about the impact it's having on kids. If you have not read the book The Anxious Generation, this is an amazing one by Jonathan Haidt. It's full of research. It's gonna scare the shit out of you if you're a parent, but it's critical, critical reading for, for the young folks. So I'll just, I'll just frame that up a little bit and I can move into some of the things we can do now. I think that may have been your actual question, but I'll just, I'll just give you a chance to respond first.

I appreciate that. I think you're so right because it's like these distractions and this research that you spoke about. I mean, to even have the phone physically in that space is, is, is so distracting. And then there was a phase where I was unable to get good work done and I was unable to figure out like, What's happening here? And I realized after talking to my coach, which I still do after several years of having a coach, I realized that it was my watch that was blinking again and again, and that was causing me to be disrupted. And I realized, I did not realize it on my own, which is just so strange because things like the phone, the watch, or anything that vibrates and blinks and bongs, they become such a part of our fabric that we, I think just, yeah, just unconsciously look at them or flip out the phone or Things like that. And I think it's also making us attention deficit. And I'm not someone who can diagnose that for anyone, but the more distractions we have, the harder it is for us to focus. And I think it's just simple, plain English for me. I don't have any data to support that, but it's still really hard, right? Because again, you cannot really remove the digital devices away from you. So if someone needs to practice digital minimalism, what does that look like? Mm-hmm.

Well, I'll just, I'll go back to the food example because it is similar, right? If you're looking at other addictive things like drugs, you like, let's say heroin, like, you know, you could just take heroin outta the picture. I know that that is a, um, a crazy journey, not speaking to, to say that's easy, but you don't have to do heroin, right? You can take it outta the picture with things like digital use and food. These are 2 things that you do need, right? Food more so. You can survive without, you know, your phone of course, but, but in this day And age, really, it's not reasonable to say we're not gonna use our phones anymore, right? We're not gonna use email. So, so the, the interesting question is that for a lot of us, we have found, if you, let's say you're on this health and wellness train, people have found a way to find equilibrium with their diets. You know, let's say 80% of the time they eat really well and then 20, they celebrate with friends. They have the ice cream and cake, whatever it is, right?

Yeah.

And it's a struggle, but we don't ever say, well, we have to eat. And so we, that means I guess we're just going to have cake for every single meal. And then, well, that's that. Right. And I think a very similar approach is, you know, to ponder is helpful in this space. And I'll just take this moment to point out Cal Newport's book, Digital Minimalism. This is really such a great book. And I think that people can be a little freaked out by the term digital minimalism. Cal Newport is a tech guy. He is a computer science professor. He is deep in that space, and he fully believes that people need to create an ethos in their life where their digital use, their use of technology, is supporting their core values rather than subverting them. So, you know, I know that you do this work in this space, and that's incredible. You are connecting people. You are helping people. That's a core value. You use this tool to do that. That makes sense. Now, I guess the things for people to consider are, where's that line between the way that you're using your technology to support community, family, wellness, service, you know, and then where have you completely relinquished any autonomy To the platforms. And at that point, you know, not only is there, um, no more value for you, but it's actually impacting your brain, your life, your relationships, all of these things. So when we look at what to do, basically it's just the same as if you were setting boundaries with other people. You will set boundaries with yourself. It's really as simple as that, right? You will first examine, how do I want this technology to, to work in my life? What else is important to me? And you'll start to just slowly push back. We talked about those baby steps earlier. You'll just start to slowly push back and say, you know, for example, we know that screens are horrible before you go to sleep and there's all these hacks like, okay, you wear the red light glasses or you have a screen thing. I, you know, I truly believe that just Being off of your phone and screens before you go to bed is so critical. And so setting a boundary with yourself that is, even if it's just a minute a day earlier, that you can be off your phone until, you know, you go to bed and work on that. And then, you know, so there's tons of things. I think as much time as you can spend off your phone, I work on spending 12 hours off my phone and most other screens per day. So 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM, but I do some writing in the morning. So sometimes I'll be on my computer, you know, at 5:30 or so before I go to the gym, but not my phone until 7:00, right? Most days. I'm not perfect, right? We're all on the journey. I'm not perfect. So just some of these little things that you can do to push back. And then honestly, Instagram, I started to feel like my mental health was, was really struggling and I have an amazing Instagram feed. I mean, it's curated with health, wellness, you know, all these amazing thinkers and speakers, really cool content, nothing yucky, crappy on there. No political stuff. Of course it bleeds through a little bit, but in general, it's a very, very curated feed. And I still was feeling like my brain was just overloaded with stuff. So for January, I'm, I took the app off my phone. I download it to post content, you know, share a story, and then I take the phone, the app back off. I can still go on my desktop.

Hmm.

But it's just basically the thesis is creating these little bits of friction. You know, the desktop is just, you're just not probably gonna sit and scroll through on your desktop the same way you would a phone. Just creating those little moments where you're being intentional about what you're doing. You're not escaping any boredom by just reaching for your phone.

Yeah. Let me just, there were a lot of beautiful nuggets out there that you shared and let me just paraphrase them together. So one is just being intentional about how you use your digital device, and that could look really different for each person based on who they are and what they're trying to achieve. So absolutely find your own optimal state. I love the idea of creating some amount of friction. What I've done on my phone is that there's a single screen where I have the 4 apps that I use to track my workout, to track my runs, to track my meditation. And then there's ChatGPT. And then on the bottom bar, removed, I think I've removed my Gmail and all I have is like, how do I open my garage and a couple of others to call people. The other thing that I've done is to remove the notifications being shown up. I think that used to really trouble me. Why are there 100,000 emails that I have to now read? So some of that, I think, and everyone can find out the ways that work for them.

Yeah.

What you were saying was very powerful is like, do that slow pushback. Don't have to change your life because you're listening to Utkarsh and Kelsey on this podcast. But start slow and, and that's how you sustain your progress. And then the third thing that you spoke about, like, yeah, what habits can you be intentional about and how do you set those boundaries?

Yeah. And I love what you said about what you've done with yours. The thing is, I want to use the cool technology for my advantage and I want to use it. I'm not trying to be a Luddite out in the woods without any technology. Right. So I have the Whoop strap, which is kind of speaks to your issue with your smartwatch.

Yeah.

There's no screen.

Yeah.

Which honestly looks a little bit silly because people ask me for the time. Like, I don't, I don't know. I'm not gonna pull out my phone. I don't have the time. It's just a strap. And then the app, you know, shows all the, all the stats. So I just, I don't want any more screens in my life than I have to have. I don't have a big screen for a TV. I just have my laptop, which is not the most optimal viewing experience, but I don't need any more You know, any, any more of a lure to spend more time in front of screens. Right. And so slowly, I like the idea, like you're saying, of kind of slowly taking stuff off and then sitting with it like, oh, I'm still fine. For example, I also don't have email on my phone because I have, you know, so many, 5 different emails. And I would just scroll through each email. You know, just, just to see at night, you know, and that's a time that I need to be letting my brain rest and rejuvenate. And one of the fallacies, I just wanna point this out, I think this is a really important point. One of the fallacies that we believe right now is that when you feel tired and your brain, if you know that feeling where you just feel frazzled, just kind of like think there's too much going on in your brain, you need to rest. We all feel like we need to rest.

Yeah.

When you rest by watching Netflix and scrolling social media, your brain is working so hard. It has to process everything happening, right? Plus, if you've got a smartphone, I know someone that has a smartwatch, a smartphone, an iPad, and the TV on, on a huge screen, all at the same time. I mean, this would make me absolutely crazy, right? And sure enough, this person can't focus. They can't even finish a sentence almost these days, right? Because they have so much input coming in. And so the point I'm trying to make is that this is not restful for your brain. This is not rejuvenating. This is not helping you feel like you are doing meaningful, fulfilling things. What's interesting is that Cal Newport talks about high-quality hobbies. Where if you replace the scrolling and the streaming and all this stuff, not to say that there's not some time for that to dedicate, like a couple days a week, maybe some boundaries, whatever that is. But if you replace it with these high-quality hobbies where you're actually producing something, cooking, baking, woodworking, gardening, crafting, knitting, whatever it is where you're working with your hands, you can see progress, you're making something. This so much more restful for your brain and also so much more fulfilling for your soul.

Yeah, love that. And I think just be thoughtful about what you watch. I think I've seen this with myself that I do pick up Instagram maybe once or twice a day. And if I'm scrolling, like after 5 reels, I ask myself, what am I really gaining out of this? And the answer most of the time is yes, there's some fun cat videos or random videos or a lot of sports videos show up on my feed, but what am I really gaining? Nothing. What does does it serve? Nothing. Does it help me achieve the North Star that I have for my life? Does it, as you said, I think that was a very powerful point and I don't want that to get unnoticed. Is that amplifying your values or putting them under the rug? And if the answer is yes, it gets your craft, who you want to be, your character, something gets amplified, then watch 45 more minutes of Instagram if you have to. But if it does not serve you well, then maybe it's time to put the phone down.

Totally. And I'll just note that because this is probably gonna feel pretty impossible for a lot of people, if you do scroll, if you've been on media for any length of time, then just set a timer for yourself.

Yeah.

And give yourself the time. Like it can be half an hour, whatever it is, you know, to just, you don't even have to be consuming the best content or whatever, but just give yourself that time. But when the timer goes off, just, you know, put the phone away.

Right.

Yeah.

Love it.

So you can still, it's not 100%. You don't have to do it perfectly. Correct. But, but it's better to, in my opinion, to set a timer to do it and then to Move on than to like try not to, but kind of do it, you know, 25 different times throughout your day. Right.

Yeah. Love that. And as I think when we started the episode, we spoke about creating that accountability, creating that space, the circle of support, the community that doesn't let you quit. And I think if you can find people in your inner circle who are wanting to go on that journey with you, that might make things a little bit easier.

Absolutely. I mean, I will just say too that people don't necessarily have to be on the same digital minimalism path, but just connecting with people in person is, I think, part of that, right? And connecting people in person that also value being fully present, because I'll tell you, when you start down this journey, when you're trying to talk to someone and they're on their phone, it just feels— it can start to feel really challenging and Rude, honestly, it can start to feel rude. Like before smartphones, if we were having lunch with someone and we were talking to someone else for half the time, I mean, we would've just gotten up and left. Like, you know, it's, yeah, it's kind of funny how it's become accepted.

And of course, if there's an emergency, different situation, obviously, but for the general notifications and the general scrolling, it's just, um, yeah, it's, it's become again, part of that social fabric that it's acceptable to be taking pictures of your food before you eat it, to have been chatting while you're enjoying dinner with your family or with loved ones or with your friends. And I think that needs to shift. That definitely needs to shift. I think what that's also— and I don't know, like, it seems like the egg and the chicken kind of a challenge here. So what I've also seen is that because of all this consumption and how digital media is throwing overstimulation at us, we are becoming uncomfortable sitting in silence, sitting in Alone and all of that. And it feels that we don't give ourselves space to sit in silence because we feel that the Instagram or the YouTube video that we have to watch is more important.

Mm-hmm.

How are you witnessing or experiencing this relationship?

Well, I love this question because this is something I'm working on deeply in my own life. And we are recording this in January. I just did a 36 hours of silence New Year's retreat for myself, solo retreat. And I, this one was really interesting cuz I usually do, I do these 24-hour screen-free challenges. challenges, right? 1 or 2 a month. So that's common, but 36 hours is different. And also silence, meaning that there was no external ideas coming in. So I also didn't read any books and I covered up the clocks for this one.

Wow.

And I will tell you, even as someone that practices this, you know, and of course a big chunk of that you're sleeping, right? So it was quite a journey. And to your point, It is very challenging to sit in silence, to just be with our thoughts and process those. And the second night, because this is 7:00 PM New Year's Eve to 7:00 AM the day after New Year's, by the second night, I felt like I was going a little crazy, you know, like going a little insane. I had no idea what time it was, but the interesting thing is I was looking at the clock for all kinds of things. For information about myself. Should I eat? Is it time to wake up? Is it time to go to bed? And it was a really interesting practice to say, do I feel rested? Do I feel tired? Do I feel hungry? Just, you know, like to eat or to go to sleep or do whatever based on that. And again, the silence and just what I think is interesting is that there's so much super cool content out there that we have become so accustomed to consuming. That we have lost the ability to create. And by create, I mean, I don't just mean our own also content. I mean our creating the life that we want, our relationships, creating a sanctuary space, creating the ability to sit in silence, process our thoughts, go on a walk without music. Nothing against music, obviously I love podcasts, you know, but if you cannot go for a 20-minute walk without music, You know, and earbuds. This is something to really examine in your own life and work on because the benefits are great. When you start to be able to sit with that, when you start to be able to stand in line at the store and not be on your phone and just be present, this kind of thing actually ripples through the rest of your life. And it helps you to do the things like we talked about, to focus, to feel present, to not feel that low-level agitation. When you're in a situation where you can't look at your phone or you don't, you don't want to, you know, because you don't wanna be rude. It's like the ability, again, it's like going back in time to before we had smartphones. If you, you know, if you remember that time, you know, where we didn't feel so discontent all the time.

36 hours. That's, that's pretty awesome. Well, I think, I think the challenge that you're facing right now is that it's not that the silence is scary. It's just that we are afraid of what might come up when we are in silence because there are things that we might be avoiding that pop up. And I was coaching someone who's going through a very rough time and I asked him that sit in silence for 1 hour and stare at a point on your wall and just sit there. And I've tried to do that myself. I've not yet reached 1 hour, but there are tears and emotions and processing and all of like, there's just so much that comes up when you sit in silence. And on the running and listening to podcasts, I love podcasts. Everyone should listen to podcasts. But I think what I've realized is that you don't retain much if you're running and listening to a podcast or listening to an Audible book. And so, no, not against people who do that, but I often say this and did not say this today in the podcast episode, is that sit. It's 1 hour of your time. If you can sit for 1 hour in a week and listen to a full podcast, whichever one you pick, you pick the Ignite Neurons podcast or someone else, but sit with a notepad and put some actions down, things that you'll actually shift because of spending that 1 hour. So yeah, it'll help you create less noise. And so what I'm trying to do now is that I don't listen to anything while I'm running because that to me is like my own sanctuary. It's my space to process, just look at the houses, the trees, the sky and whatnot. So yeah, there's a lot of joy.

Oh, that's great. I love that. Yeah. And I know especially with something very hard like running, it is nice to have, like I listen to all these podcasts full of these great thinkers and motivating people and I'm like, yeah. And I love that, but it's, I feel like there's space for both. I love your idea about listening to a podcast and actually listening, not just like having it compete with your own thoughts. Sometimes you can have that happening, but fully listening, taking the notes, seeing if you can integrate a few of those actions and ideas into your week coming up, right? And then, so doing that, that's great. And then also doing the practice that you're talking about, 1 hour, awesome. You know, if you can get to an hour and I don't know, do you have people And do people literally just sit and stare or can they walk around?

Ideally sit and stare because as soon as we start walking around, we see things that, as you were saying, they start to stimulate us and they start to give information that we then get distracted by.

That's fair. Yep. That's fair. Yeah. So I mean, that's an amazing practice. And I guess the one thing I just really wanna say again is that you and I are people that, and I'm sure some of your listeners too, that try things Because they're like, ooh, that's an interesting idea. I'm willing to experiment. I'm on this personal growth journey, so I'll try it, you know, whatever. But there is, there is serious benefit for your life in all aspects of your life, your sleep, your health, relationships, that feeling that you have, that, that noise feeling, the satisfaction I think you can feel in your day, all kinds of things. It really is worth it. It really is worth it. It's not just an arbitrary idea sitting for an hour, let's say.

Loved our conversation today. As we get to the final end, final question now, Kelsey, we get to that, we started from that 8-year-old, we went through our journey, and now we get to that 80-year-old, a few decades into the future. If that 80-year-old Kelsey comes back to you right now in this moment and has one piece of advice on how you should live the rest of your years, What would that Kelsey say?

Yeah, I love this question. And honestly, I had, I was anticipating the 8-year-old question and I think I had forgotten about this, this 80-year-old question. And this is very salient for my life right now because I'm in a bit of a transition period where it could go, my life could go a lot of different ways. I mean, all of our lives could go a lot of different ways at any point, right? But partially by choice. And I feel like it's a little bit easy to forget how much opportunity there is, even if you have limitations, finances, if you are kind of, you know, integrated into one geographic location, whatever it is. I think about, and I know we're looking at 8 and 80 right now, but I'll just look back into, I'm in my early 40s. I'll look back into my 20s and I thought like, whoa, I could have done all of this stuff. I could have started this company. I could have lived abroad. I could have whatever it is, right? But for some reason now in my early 40s, I'm like, well, oh, this is my life now, you know? And I love a lot of things about my life, but it feels like I'm kind of stuck and it's kind of set, you know? And I just imagine, I've actually been asking myself this exact same question a lot lately. When I'm 82, am I gonna look back at when I'm basically 40 years prior and think like, Well, that was it. Or am I gonna think, oh my God, I was a baby. I could have built a company. I could have lived abroad. You know, I could have done whatever it was that I thought that I could have been doing in my 20s, that the time is now, right? And there's, there is no other time than the present to really put some of these things in action. And this goes back to our whole conversation about discomfort and what it could look like to take risks, to grow, to take chances, to really live fully and put yourself out there. And I'm honestly grappling with this question quite a bit right now. So I love this, the way to end this podcast of looking back as an 80-year-old and thinking about that the world is open. The world is open and to get your ass out there and experience it.

So beautiful. And I don't know how you captured this, the phrase, the time is now. I was thinking about this earlier in the conversation because I had a mentor who was a McKinsey consultant, and he once did a session on, I think it was something to stay present while you're communicating. And he gifted each person a watch in the room. And when you wear that watch, all that watch says is the time is now.

I love that.

Mind-blowing. It was just mind-blowing. So every— doesn't show the time, just the time is now.

That is fabulous. I might have to get one of those for myself, honestly. Wow.

Wow. To everyone who's still listening to us 57-odd minutes into the conversation, the time is now. Let's listen to the 8-year-old Kelsey's wisdom. The world is an open oyster. Go do whatever you have to do. The time is now. Remember that silence is scary, but it reveals what you've been avoiding. So go deep. Make sure that you understand that when you feel tired, when you need rest, watching Netflix and scrolling on Instagram is not rest. Your brain's working extra hard. To everyone who's trying to build a little bit of digital minimalism, start small. Create a little bit of friction between your device and yourself, and that'll be your first step forward. Remember, your phone is not the problem. Your habits are. For all the parents, read the book Anxious Generation because Kelsey has recommended that. We don't have any control over our scrolling and our consumption, but if we try to do that, But we can create better habits that'll help us get there. Baby steps is all we need. Whether you're at your rock bottom or wherever you are on that journey, just keep thinking of the baby steps. Remember, your life is a beautiful entity, and if you had a friend or a family member in pain or in a difficult situation right now, all you'll do is create a nourishing environment for them and build a comforting space. Remember that life's 50/50. 50% of it is going to be crappy and 50% is going to be amazing and wonderful. Enjoy both of them, because that's all you can do. We don't know what the source is, because— but because Kelsey said this, uh, to all the women out there, I appreciate you. Because what Kelsey said is, women can feel the sorrow of the universe. So I'm gonna keep a note of that and remember that. We all need time to process our emotions, our feelings, and our challenges. So process that shit. You have to create space. You have to build healthy habits of being creative, of cleaning, of exercising. Do whatever it takes to process that shit. And in life, work with a wider view of the world because the 8-year-old Kelsey told us that there's so much beauty in life that's waiting to be unfolding, waiting to unfold, and wonderful people are waiting to meet you. So don't put your self-worth in a suitcase. It's inherent. You got this. Any final words, Kelsey, before we close?

Thank you so much. Well, I love that recap of things I said, and I just, I really appreciate you and the mission of this podcast. So thank you so much for the work that you do and that you're bringing into the world and how you're helping people.

Thank you. It was wonderful to have you here and enjoy this conversation with you. To everyone who is listening to us 1 hour into the conversation, you've spent this time. Do not share this episode with anyone because not everyone's ready for this kind of conversation. But if you feel there is someone in your network, in your circle who would appreciate what Kelsey and I have spoken about, then send them the link and let them know that listen to the full episode with a notepad, with a pen. If you're on Spotify, follow us. If you're on YouTube, then subscribe to the channel because we have to appease to the algorithm gods and grow the podcast. And Kelsey and I are looking on the comments. If there's something that's stuck for you, that resonates with you, put that in the comments and we're looking at them. This is Utkarsh and Kelsey signing off.

Bye-bye.