Real Talk Solutions

Wellbeing is serious business.

☎️ Calling my Wellbeing Colleagues! Next week is World Wellbeing Week and I have availability on Friday to deliver my "ahead-of-the-curve" Phone Freedom ✊️ workshop. A session reclaiming the work/life balance. Shall we?



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Check these guys out .our.screens_

It's really hard to say "I don't know" especially to those younger than us...

I believe it's why we aren't...

But for huge swathes of society... we don't know... what is going on... for people in their phones... even for us in our phones.

It's not something that has been taught to us in our lives, or glorified to get our attention in our feeds.

has left a generation reeling that we might not be doing enough. Or on the flipside have we been tech pranked into thinking the problem is bigger than it really is. We don't know. And we aren't talking about it formally. And formal conversations are what will shift the needle.

I hear:

"Phones are a massive problem in our office."

"I'm totally addicted to my phone."

"I just don't seem to be able to concentrate any more."

This sociocultural issue IS a workplace issue. Work with me to find a workplace solution. I made it my business to know more 🤷‍♀️

This is the note I left inside...

This year I gifted them on Mother's Day...

Happiness Hack…

This might be a gift for now or it might be a gift for ten, twenty, fifty years’ time!

You know that sometimes, life can tap you on the shoulder and say “Hiya, I can be a bit pants!”. And it can. Life is ups and downs and because of that, it’s sometimes… a bit pants. And that can feel rubbish.

Sometimes life for me has been… a bit pants and during one of these times, I decided to try something I’d read about – willing to give anything a try because I was really down.

So I bought a standard diary, kept it by my bed and every night challenged myself with writing three things I was grateful for. I found it really hard. A few nights passed it was beginning to annoy me - why couldn’t I think of anything? I made a pact with myself to pay more attention during the next day so that it wouldn’t be hard to think of things at bedtime. And I started to notice things. Just small things or thoughts I had – “Thank God that ambulance isn’t for us” or “That person was so kind”.

Anyway. I started to realise, once I was tuned into looking for good things, there actually are plenty of them. Times we find something we’d lost, or realise what we have is pretty good.

You see as humans we’re hard-wired to look for danger, risk and what might be wrong. It keeps us safe. Our world is also set up to make us constantly want more. It’s money-making trickery to distract us from what is just right. Nobody makes any money out of us feeling happy and satisfied so we don’t get that message much. And in today’s world that effect is bigger than ever. It wasn’t always like this… before (yawn – I know) smartphones… it was easier to be happier.

It takes more work to start with, to look for what’s just right, or feels good or makes us lucky or makes up our wonderful lives.

Anyway, it started working and my mood started changing. By collecting these good things throughout the day, I got to relive them at bedtime and remember life is good. It made the good things in life, bigger. It made me feel better.

Anyway after a few years, I started using a new diary – so I could see five years in one day.

Are you one of the other thinkers?

I've noticed in recent years how social media isn't just skewed towards algorithms but skewed on a more macro level.

I've noticed that those adept at working this system, harnessing the attention economy might be... a certain type of person. Having steadfastly studied how to leverage social media for all kinds of gains. But not other things...

I've noticed that those thinkers in other areas are missing. Their quieter, more self-conscious voices are not here. Platforms don't support them.

They live in my real life and I value them but... I don't spend as much time with them any more. TBH I probably spend more time with attention seeking, self-promoting strangers...

Most people won't see this post because I don't live my life on this platform... so I'm low value... to it. And only comments and shares really count. I'm OK with it. Happy to share what I know and think anyway. I also make my connections in the real world - that still really works!

I've also realised I'm seeing the same content repurposed again and again...

My workshops aren't designed to make you feel guilty about being on your phone too much... they're designed to empower you to want something else... freedom.

If the Internet were cars...

We're about 30 years in to commercial Internet.

When cars were 30 years old they didn't have seat belts, wing mirrors, air bags... that came 300 years later... This car doesn't even have a roof!

I see so much potential progress and many safety features ahead of us. It's just... it's a cerebral experience... the safety features live not just in policy and platform reform but in our heads! As awareness, rethinking, unprogramming, self-reflecting, redefining...

Book me soon to chat about this with your people at work. It's a thing. People are already doing it 👍

My LinkedIn profile pic is a statement not a mistake... we don't see these pictures any more.

Our senses are flooded with unreal, edited, perfected imagery.

Do you ever wonder what that's done to our self worth? Our standards of living? Our ability to feel satisfied and grateful?

Incidentally it took ages to get this right 🤣🤣🤣 but I stand by it.

Book me soon at your workplace to explore healthy screen time more...

WE ARE THE ONLY CHANGE

Today in response to Adolescence our Prime Minister calls for a cultural shift needed around technology. Let's face it, it's not new information. So what are we doing?

We all have phones. Lots of us have unhealthy relationships with them that are almost invisible. We're culturally stuck not doing anything about it. Remember when mental health wasn't a thing (but very much was... like that).

It shows up like:

Self checking EVERYTHING (am I good enough? Do I earn enough?... these thoughts have been conditioned and normalised)

Being in a perpetual state of wanting / striving

No life work balance which also means not being truly engaged at work

Being less connected with our loved ones...

These are the tip of the iceberg.

I really want to engage with shifting us into a healthier normal and to do that I want to come into your office or workplace and have this conversation. It's what I do and if we want any kind of change it's what we need to do as a matter of all our mental health. But I need support.

Technology has moved so fast. Has had so much influence, has had so much money spent on it and is now exerting incredible amounts of control.

Our response needs to level up. I'm kinda exhausted over here trying to do something that I can see badly needs to be done.

Please engage in this conversation with me. I know I'm not alone. Other option, after years of trying... I can not do it... and go and get a job. But then it will take longer to make necessary changes... if ever. People like me (and there are a few of us) need your engagement.

Me in an ideal world...

To my pre-high school kids: "Kids the media - especially social media - is gonna do a number on you. Let me show you how, so you can recognise it when it happens, rather than feel confused and internalise it"

To my high school kids: "This, and all these related feelings, is that".

One of the first things I'd have taught them is... this isn't an ideal world. I wish I'd known where to start. I can't reverse time 🤷‍♀️

But if you have pre-high school kids, at home or you lead a group, you can. I made this for you, for them. I wish someone had made it for me.

Designed for kids aged 7-11. A mostly offline, real-world activity, but gives parents / carers/ teachers / group leaders, the peace of mind that their kids have been informed around subjects like:

💸 Them as consumers
🤳 How smartphones shape who we become
💔 How they impact our feelings and wellbeing
😕 The impact on how we feel about ourselves and our real lives

💡 "It's everything I wish I'd taught my kids... if I'd known what to teach them."
Emi Howe - Creator and Digital Wellbeing Expert

It really, I mean REALLY helps when you like or comment. And usually I hate the ask - because honestly who wants that pressure - but, that's how good things happen. So much nonsense gets too much attention on the internet. If this post has any resonance with you, please give it some love. If we're to believe that the internet can still do good - and I do.

Subtext: Me beavering away over here while Dry Robe W@n%ers has 126K followers 🙄

The is Morph, my childhood guinea pig 🐹 ...

(It isnt but this is the internet and I can say what I like!)

It's an inconvenient truth that we've been guinea pigs for the internet. We don't like to look at it and certainly socially we havent shifted gear fast enough to respond.

Like sunbathers watching a tsunami approach, except this one isn't so tangible, oh and it's already passed us and is drowning our worlds as we bob blithely by... if we're lucky. Some of us have already sunk 😔 or are really struggling.

So does your business have a digital wellbeing plan in place?

Have you readied your kids for the world in their screens?

I specialise in formal / structured input in both of these areas. It's my passion and I believe we can all have better. The questions is... do you? 🌊

🔊 Parents this is for you

"You can have a phone... when you get your license"

We don't let our kids drive a car, ride a bike, visit the park, without a LOT of support. This is exactly the same... except in that phone is the whole world.

Our kids need help... but so do we!

This has been 10 years in the making. In trying to get it off the ground I have approached:

Schools ⛔️
The Headteachers Association ⛔️
Our local authority ⛔️
MPs ⛔️
Tech companies⛔️
Education resource companies ⛔️
Publishers / agents ⛔️
The Education Department ⛔️
Applied for grant funding ⛔️
Crowd funding ⛔️

No one is coming to help. At least not yet. We're going to have to do this ourselves. And maybe then the rest of the world will catch up.

Please share as widely as you can on stories or using the app. Link in my bio but also on the pic.