Why We Need To Chill Out And Unplug

Summer is almost over…

I can not believe it, but it is the end of August…

I hope you are having a great summer. This has been a great summer for me. After the treacherous winter we had, this has been an amazing respite from the cold, ice and sleet.  The weather has been great, the dollar is strong, work has been busy and challenging as ever.

I am feeling the need to connect and I guess this is what the summer is about. It is, hopefully, about lightness, connection, time off, travel for some of you as it was for me, and time to rest up, think about goals for the fall and year to come, time to chill out and unplug. Which is my topic.  For those who know me well it is an old tune… But I have to say, I really feel strongly about this. Overuse of technology, as I see in my practice, is a major contributor or may be a symptom of many relationship problems, both romantic and other ones.

So, many of you, but, really, most of us, are guilty of not being present for those amazing moments we share with our loved ones, be it spouses, kids, parents, friends… Many of you complain that you come home after a hard days’ work and sit on Facebook or send and receive endless  emails and texts to and from work or people who are NOT WITH YOU, while your loved ones are next to you, often times thinking, “when is he/she going to get off that phone?” This goes on everywhere, home, beach, restaurants, everywhere… With many of you we have worked on turning off phones upon entering your home and not putting them on until a specific designated time. Same goes for computers.  Some of you have done it successfully and have seen the results and some, not so much…It is a work in progress but there has to be progress.

This summer I was in Florence and Tuscany, beautiful places as many of you know and I was struck by the way people live there. I have not been to Italy for years…. Yes, people use phones but in restaurants or at the beach they actually sit and talk and their phones are not on the table next to them or in their hands, even the young ones…They don’t, for the most part, walk around with phones in their hands or talking on them. It was so refreshing to see people really being with each other and taking life slowly and with connection to one another. I took away with me those images of sitting with family and friends, talking, laughing, enjoying time, taking it all in slowly. I want this in my hectic busy life in New York and I am really trying to hold on to it…maybe you will too.