Urgency Culture & Five Wisdoms I Remembered Being Off Grid, Again

A Personal Share

I’ve been off grid since last Friday. Even though I got back in the grid system on Wednesday, I’ve intentionally been moving at a slower pace, honoring and integrating the medicine I received.

Off grid isn’t unfamiliar to me. In many ways compared to today, like many in our 40’s and older, we grew up in a more off grid environment, with no internet, cell phones, texting and the constant buzz of technology at every turn. Moreover, my parents were also very conservative and rigid, creating a religious household that had little television use (family movie nights only) and no worldly music allowed (until I pushed back in middle school). It’s not that I lived in a remote area away from civilization, which I imagine the children, like my son who is closer now to five than he is four, may think when they envision my childhood.

It wasn’t that long ago that having a car phone was considered fancy. I was 19 years of age when that time existed. I remember feeling the similar feeling then that I do now when I remove myself from the gadgets, and the influence of urgency culture. That feeling has a name — it is called spaciousness. In spaciousness there is actually more time than we realize. There is more space than we know. There is so much possibility to be in life, and be of life.

Views on one of the hikes to a remote lake at 9,607 feet

I remember touching this felt sense, actually living it for two years, when my partner, James, and I owned and operated a backcountry eco-lodge at 10,000 feet in the middle of the Colorado Rockies. Our days were filled with splitting wood for the winters, tending to the hydroelectric system that ran off the natural creek, prepping the lodge for guest and making paths on the land, among other things. There was administration work to be completed that we tended to in the small mountain town of 8,000 people were we resided when we weren’t at the lodge. When we were at the lodge, we were off grid. And while a small mountain town offers much more ease than a city habitat, the lodge was even more spaciousness. We were in our natural element, connecting in presence with no distractions of technology.

The energetic strings of attachment to technology, the emails, texts, social media and the hum of radiation would fade away like love notes written into the sand on a beach, washed clean by each tide push of the ocean, breathing life again to the present moment and leaving a blank canvas of a beginners mind. I have learned that as the conditioned grip of the outside world loosens, a beautiful thing happens, we become more attuned to ourselves, our needs, our wants, our pain, our goodness, and to one another. We remember the medicine of connection in the real moments of this thing called time, and life.

When I used to teach 10-12 classes of yoga weekly and workshops, managing a sweet “mom and pop” studio in the heart of Carlsbad Village in Southern California, I could touch the essence of spaciousness even in the midst of traffic; even in the grid system. I remember feeling the panic of time, the traffic and knowing I may be very late to teach, but then I would make a choice, and magic would unfold. I would become conscious with my breath, linking my mind to each inhale and each exhale while driving, reciting mantras in my head, only focusing on the road, my breath and honing my mind to the repeating compassionate words in my head. As I veered from the highway onto the street to the studio, I would glance down at the clock and be amazed. It was as if time stood still. What seemed like 20 minutes had only been seven. How is that possible? I am not a time bender. No one is, and yet, perhaps we all are, if time is an illusion we have constructed in our minds. Bigger conversations for another time.

During my recent experience off grid, my family and I nestled into a campsite high in the alpine mountains, surrounded by wise elder pine trees, lush green ferns, aspens, brush sage (which surprised me to grow in this region), wild flowers, oak trees and crystal clear lakes. A cascading waterfall whispered the sounds of an endless sweet lullaby, reminding me at first (sadly) of the sounds of highway traffic, and then soon was replaced with the goodness of water medicine. The wind was consistent, creating a dance with the fluttering leaves through the trees, a familiar sound that speaks deeply to my heart and Soul. Our phones were untouched by the 5G and wifi unseeable energy lines of radiation that infiltrate our fields. We were untouched by it too, and it was felt on every level of our being.

While the advancements of technology are profound, they are also creating an attachment culture that is having devastating effects to our well being. Even with all my decades of mindfulness and yoga practice, meditating and consciousness to live a healthy lifestyle, I am impacted. I believe we all are in some way, at some level.

My partner was sharing with me on our drive home how someone he works with, and he works with a lot of people as a commercial real estate broker, was upset asking if my partner was ghosting because my partner had not responded to this person’s text in a day’s time. The urgency culture has conditioned us to think breaks, weekends, time away from our phones, not maintaining instant responses is abnormal or better yet, personal.

I assure you, someone taking time to respond to you has wisdom — for them, and for you.

Furthermore, the influence of quick fixes and busyness has created a culture that often overlooks basic human decency. It can be easy to close ourselves off to the idea that someone who doesn’t respond may be suffering or has simply forgot, gotten swept up in the throes of life. Our sense of immediate gratification has impacted our ability to remember our shared humanity. We all are juggling many things both internally and externally. While I understand the deeper roots of the blaming and outward frustrations to be the undertone of unprocessed wounds, the attachment culture, our heads buried in our phones, the next ping and ding of a cyber reality, only cushions the impending suffering and disconnect to attaining spaciousness and inner calm.

Our nervous systems are fried, and most of us don’t even know it.

Urgency culture feeds normalizing pathologies, numbing the innate signals of the body speaking wisdom to the Soul, and etches a belief system that chronic stress is life itself. How our energy fills the environment contributes to the pulse of culture. We are all responsible for the culture that we create. Are we creating space or are we adding more chaos to the mix. Are we present to the environment, the essence of our humanness, or are we distracted by the electrical world of our gadgets? What will the effects of the unseen radiation bouncing around and within us have on our future, on our minds and bodies? These are big questions to ask ourselves and ones I believe, especially as a mother, need to be addressed and accessed regularly, if not daily.