Week 3 - Conscious Living - Unplugging.

All right, it's Saturday, and that means it's time for a live stream on Cadre. And anybody who's been following me knows that week three should be conscious coupling, right? And then conscious living is the fourth. But I switched it around because I really wanted to talk about my experience this past week. So, from the perspective of conscious living, right. I mean, it's like, what does that. What does that really mean? I mean, for me, it's just really trying to be mindful of how I interact with people.

I'm an outgoing guy. I think I'm funny. Not everybody thinks I'm funny, but, like, consciously, you know, it's like, okay, what am I. What am I doing? How am I showing up? How am I interacting with people? And how. How mindful am I of the internal dialogue inside of me? That's the. That's awesome to hear, Luke. I mean, like, that's the kicker, right? Like, what's the dialogue inside of me? So today's topic is about unplugging. Now, I just. I went to Mexico for, like, five days, right? I left on Friday, came back on Tuesday.

I was in a friend's wedding, and I was on the plane, and I was. I was feeling, like, a little bit of anxiety. And I was feeling the anxiety also of, like, connecting with my wife and my daughter and, like, what was going on with them? And I just texted them and said, hey, I'm thinking of completely unplugging. And I'm thinking that I'm not even gonna be in touch with YouTube. And they texted back with little hugs or kisses or, you know, basically, like, go for it. Yeah, we're cool. We're fine. We're fine without you, which is great, right?

Because, I mean, like, that's. That's part of a healthy relationship that I didn't always have experience of is. Is like, yeah, we can unplug. So I'm like, okay, well, what's this? Is, what is this gonna look like? No tv, no movies, no computer. I left my computer home. I didn't bring it with me. Then what about the phone? What am I gonna do with my phone? For the most part, my phone was on airplane mode, and people knew not to text me for the most part, unless it was urgent. And occasionally, I would turn it off of airplane mode.

There was texting going on between the bridal party and with the groomsmen, and there were some other texting kind of happening, you know, within Mexico. But other than that, it was like I was just present. And I think that's what unplugging really gives us. I mean, for one look, the end result was it was not long enough. I could have gone a week. I could have gone maybe two weeks. It would have been great. It felt so good. I don't think I've ever done that. Like, I've done little. I've done pieces of that, but I've never done, like, completely unplugging.

And we were staying at an all inclusive resort, not necessarily my first choice for vacation, but then it was like, okay, well, if I'm gonna unplug, what does that mean about how I show up at the resort? It's all you can eat, man. You could eat like a pig if you wanted to. I chose not to. Could eat anything I wanted, but I chose to be more mindful about how I ate because that felt like that was part of unplugging, was also just, you know, like, if. If I'm just, like, covering the experience with just, like, food and drink and sugar, that doesn't seem like much of an unplugged right now.

Granted, there are some who do, like, a full kind of detox, which I didn't do. I had my no hitos, right, which are mojitos with no alcohol. And I had my mango drinks, which had some sugar, mostly natural sugars, but it had some sugar. My hamayaka, my agua de hamaca, which is hibiscus water, but those weren't super sugary. And then I'd give myself occasional treats as well. But to me, that was also part of unplugging. Part of unplugging was making sure that I always had plenty of time just for myself, not just with the people that I was hanging out with and that I had time with them.

I'm in twelve step program, and we had some impromptu twelve step meetings, which were great. Being mindful, meditating daily, saying prayers daily. But, man, did it feel good. Like, I had no. The beautiful thing is, I wasn't sure how it would go. I had no anxiety about hearing from people, seeing people about work, about emails, about responding to emails. And when I would get, like, a little hit of anxiety, it was like, you know what? It'll be okay. We'll check on Tuesday. And even when I got to the airport, it wasn't like this frantic, like, need to check email or to call people or respond to voicemails or texts or all that stuff.

I just really tried to be even mindful about that. And I tried to be mindful about how I came back as well, like, with the transition. And so even though it was a vacation, I was transitioning back into work. Long, some long travel days, not super long, but somewhat long. And so I just tried to be mindful of my body, and I went to the gym the next day in the morning, and I did yoga. And, you know, I think I'm gonna do unplugging at least once a year. I don't know how long. And I want it to be a little bit more.

Not formal, but a little bit, you know, because this was completely spontaneous. I did not intend to do the full degree of unplugging that I did. It started with leaving my computer, which was a big deal. I never leave my computer, so I left my computer, and then when I was sitting on the plane in the airport, that's why I came up with the rest of the idea. And, you know, it was great. Friday night, I gotta be completely honest. Friday night, I gave myself permission to finish a show I had been watching, and then it was like, and that's it.

No more tv, no more movies, no nothing. Only reading my book and being present with other people who were at the resort and at the wedding. So I think, you know, the challenge to all of us is, like, how do we unplug in little ways? And then how do we unplug in the big ways? How can we unplug on a regular basis? Just leave your phone for a little bit. Right. How does that work? Or always take breaks when you're in the middle of email or other stuff like that. Always have, you know, so, like, those are the little unplugs.

But I highly, highly recommend, if you haven't done it, giving it a shot and doing some kind of major unplugging to just kind of get a little bit of a reset. So, as always, I wish you all a very wonderful weekend. I.