How To Turn Off Your Cell Phone

Detoxing One Step At A Time

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, addiction is—-

: a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence : the state of being addicted

Now I ask the question, are you addicted to using your cell phone? Could you turn off your cell phone for 24 hours? For 48 hours? Chances are you have a lot of reasons and excuses why you don’t want to turn off your cell phone for any length of time. It could be that your work requires you to have one, your family requires you to have one, and your friends would disappear if you didn’t have one.

The reality is that all of us, including myself, at one point in our lives, made a bargain with the devil. We decided (knowingly or unknowingly) to trade our spiritual, mental, and physical health for the chance to wield the awesome power of digital technology. In my previous article,Lies My Government Told Me, I list the physical, psychological and societal harms from using your cell phone. Your cell phone itself is your biggest exposure to radiation.

And don’t forget about 5G cell towers. You probably understand all of the reasons why 5G, 4G, 3 G, and 2G must be stopped. When you use your cell phone you are turning the cell towers on. When you pay your cell phone bill, you are financing its expansion. If you want to inactivate the 5G towers, and all cell phone towers, stop using your cell phone. If everyone on the planet just turned them off, we would have the quietest revolution. It wold be a revolution without one shot fired.

I am going on two weeks now without using my cell phone. So what is my life like now?

1. I still have my friends. Not all of them, just the ones that put up with not being able to text me at will. I have kept the ones that respect and support my choice even when they don’t understand it.

2. I am a more humble person. I am late more often because I don’t have a cell phone to text or call when I am lost, or running behind. I find myself having to rely on my instincts. I ask help more often. I talk to strangers more often.

3. My personal safety is the same. My phone didn’t make me safe— I did. I rely on my intuition, and I am more aware of my surroundings.

4. I have given myself the freedom to not have my whereabouts known at all times by my family. And I have given that freedom to them as well. We talk about privacy being important, but how do we treat the people that we love? Do we give them privacy?

5. I interact more with people, in person. Removing my cell phone, has forced me to wait to explain or ask questions until the next time I meet that person. And as a result I am having deeper connections with everyone. The interaction itself is more valuable to me when it is not so readily available.

6. I am enjoying the silence. The lack of text messages that I need to respond to, the videos that I need to watch, the news that I need to read, has left a peaceful void. In place of the noise, I have found more time to relax. I read and write more. I interact with my family more.

7. I meditate more often. I garden more often. The void of constant distraction has made it easier to do what is really necessary. I have clarity of mind. The clutter is gone.

8. My memory has improved. I am forced to rely on my memory instead of using a cell phone, texting someone, or calling someone.

9. I am happier.

I am not special. I am an ordinary member of the middle class, with all of its burdens and expectations. If I can do it, so can you. Here are the steps that I took to get to the point where I simply made a leap of faith, and turned off my cell phone:

1. Strengthen Your Spirituality: I read and did the exercises in Rudolph Steiner’s Soul Exercises: Word and Symbol Meditations. This was my first step towards strengthening my spirituality through meditation. Everyone has their own path, whether its through prayer or through meditation, or both. The important thing is to ask for help, not for selfish reasons, but to help others. When we make the sacrifice to forgo cell phones, we not only safeguard our health, we help life, in general.

2. Lessen Your Cell Phone’s Hold On You: At first, I had a smart phone, like everyone else. I turned off all the notifications (the alerts make you think about your phone constantly). I got rid of my social media apps, and deleted my accounts. The only one that I kept is the desktop version of Telegram.

3. Downgrade Your Cell Phone: I got rid of my smart phone and bought a “dumb” phone. It was a very old and very cheap Nokia flip phone. It could only text. It took terrible videos and awful pictures. Its rudimentary features made me not want to use it. I lost the ease of use that my smart phone had given me. Consequently, It helped me get used to living without using it. Also, it prepared my friends and family for my eventual abstinence from cell phones in general.

4. Get a landline phone in your house. Not a cordless phone, those cause cancer . Its not as convenient as a cell phone, but you can still be connected to the world. You also can email people.

5. Change Your Security Settings On Sites That You Use: Get rid of your cell phone number and instead use your email for your security settings to log into your bank account and other accounts online.

6. Turn Off Your Cell Phone: This is the last step to take. This will happen when you are spiritually strong enough to do so. I took a leap of faith when I did this. I didn’t have any plans, and I didn’t worry about about making this step. I just turned it off.

So now what? I feel that I am on a path towards ridding my life of all things that imprison me, take from me, and make the world an evil place. Television watching and drinking alcohol are now occasional indulgences, rather than daily ones. We live in a world fraught with temptations that addict us, and I am a work in progress. Right now, my husband and I are figuring out how to heat our green house so we can grow food all year long. The ultimate goal is to never set foot in a grocery store again.

Join the revolution, and sign the Echoearth.org pledge to rid your cell phone by March 20, 2023.