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Untethered From The Blue Screen

• THeresa Marie

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What would you change if you knew time was short? I take that question out of the abstract and into daily life by sharing a raw experiment that began when my phone went missing and continued by choice. The initial shock felt physical—cortisol surges, racing thoughts, frantic searches—and then the real test emerged: could I meet the craving for dopamine without reaching for the blue glow?
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If you knew you would die five years from today, what is it that you would make sure you did over the next five years? If today was your last day on this earth, what is it that you would wish you would have dedicated more of yourself to? Because life is fleeting, folks, and in a moment we'll all be gone. And on that note, I want to welcome you back to Free to Just Be. I'm Teresa Marie, an ambassador of Qi, and I share my own transformation so that maybe it'll help you navigate yours. This podcast hopefully will open your heart to the energetic shift that we're all moving through and lead us all into real life community where movement and compassion will ultimately reconnect us all again. And if this resonates with you, please like, subscribe, and share so we can all waken together. And I do want to welcome you back to this Friday morning. It is 4:43 a.m. here in Middle Tennessee. And I am continuing the series of scrolling the blue is killing the real you. And yesterday I talked um about dopamine and the good and the bad about what it does in our body. And today, as promised, I want to talk to you about the physiological things that happened to me when my phone went missing. So let me just kick right in. Before I share that, I want to let you know though that I had already, well, first off, I don't know where I'm at as far as my addiction to the phone. Um I am not a big social media person. I uh I barely post on Facebook, I don't have an Instagram account, I've never been on TikTok. So if you um dare I say compare, I I really don't like comparisons at all. It's a trap, but you know, compared to other people that are on every one of these sites, I may have had an easier time than most. But an addiction is an addiction, and there are varying different levels of it, as we all are very familiar with. So um with that in mind, I I I'm gonna share what I went through. Um also, I had already consciously committed um for about, oh I don't know, maybe six weeks to possibly two months, I had been consciously deciding to get away from my phone as much as possible. Um, I would use it to listen to music and podcasts at work, but when I got home, I would try to ignore it and leave it alone. I was tracking, um, using the tools that we all have on our cell phones where you can see how much time you're actually spending. And I had about cut it in half. So, what you're about to hear may be based on those particulars about my own walk with my cell phone, right? So, based what I'm about to share on your own usage of your phone, and it may be more difficult or easier for you, depending on where you're at, with your addiction to the blue screens. So it was about three o'clock last Friday, so it will be a full week today at three o'clock, and I had taken my last break, and as I was getting ready to go back on the warehouse floor, I reached for my phone so I can put my new whatever it was I was going to put in my earbuds, and that was the moment that I recognized my phone was gone. And it was immediate. I mean, immediately I felt my heart like drop to my feet, and it it was like in my head I heard, oh shite, and and then I just sat there for a second, and I recalled and I remembered where I was, and you know, I'm uh I'm a faith gal, so I you know, I walked toward the warehouse and I thought, oh, it's gonna be there. I'll I'm gonna go right back to where I was and it'll be on the cart, no problem. And of course I get up to the second floor and it was not there. And what occurred then was kind of like um I I I picture, for example, a heroin addict. I picture um somebody that has to have their their fix and they will steal, they will beg, they will, they will do whatever it takes. And and I, like I said, don't feel like I have a massive addiction. But what occurred then was um I literally walked up and down. I I went up to every single cart. I looked on the top of the cart, on the bottom of the cart. And after about 10 minutes of that, I recognized, you know, hey man, you you need to get back to work. You need to get to work here, okay? Um even if you lost something, you you you still have to do your job. So I I begin doing my job, but everywhere I turn, I'm I'm not focused on my job. I am focused on, well, where could it be? And and you know, is it on the floor? And oh, it's okay. You know, I remember the day I I lost my glasses and I prayed and and turned the corner and there they were, and and this ping-pong was going on in my head of, you know, oh I'll find it. Oh my gosh, what if I don't? Oh, you know, it that what's that I see over there in the distance? Oh, it's just a piece of trash. Oh, you know, and on and on for, you know, and I I recognized at that point um my cortisol level. Uh cortisol is the fight or flight chemical that gets released in your body, and you can have cortisol overload. And I, you know, just as a sidebar, I want you to think about children that are allowed to scroll, and they are seeing things that they don't understand, scary things, and a lot of things are scary for a six or a seven-year-old because they have not experienced life. So imagine the cortisol overload that our children are receiving, and they have no idea what the heck is going on. That's just a little sidebar. Because I'm gonna do a whole show about that, but so excuse me. So then uh I literally I I started to tell myself, you know, I paused in the aisle and I used my moving meditations, I took a deep breath, I reminded myself to come back to my center, that it's okay, it's just a phone, it's no big deal, it's gonna be fine. And that worked for about two minutes, and then the loop started again. The loop in your mind, remember, between your ears is the biggest battle. And finally, I literally, in an aisle, nobody was in the aisle with me, I literally said, out loud, now, whether you're a believer or not, this is still effective, and I'm a I am a believer. I believe, right? I believe in God 3,000 percent. And I literally stopped in an aisle and I said, get behind me, Satan. I am not my phone, and you need to stop this assault in my head. And it stopped, and I just, and every time, so I began working again, and every time it started to resurrect, I would just say, no, we're not going there. So I got through the workday, you know, I get off at 5 30, and then the next wave of it came in as I'm driving home, and I'm thinking to myself, oh my gosh, you know, I really don't want to drop the money on a phone. Because remember, in December, my dopamine hits were spending, you know, because I was trying to cover up my dark night of the soul. December was a dark month for me, at least the first two weeks. The second two weeks were pretty good. But I was thinking, you know, I just spent all this money, I don't really wanna, and oh my gosh, what about my pictures? You know, I last the week prior to that, I was talking about getting, um, in fact, I had already bought it, one of these Omni sticks. And uh we'll we'll talk about that in a minute. But um so I'm thinking about the money and the contacts and and uh all the things quote unquote lost. And then as I'm getting closer to home, I'm thinking, man, what's my husband gonna think? Now, my old version of my husband that I left two years ago, my cortisol was rising because I was thinking of that version. Oh, he's gonna be pissed off, he's gonna say, you know, great, now we have another bill to pay, and don't expect me to pay for it, and and that type of stuff. And so all of these things were rolling in my head as I rolled myself home from work last Friday. And I get home, and um, my husband said, Well, uh, you know, didn't you get my text? And I said, Um, well, I I don't have a phone. And he said, What? I said, um, you know, I told him the story, and he said, Oh, I'm sorry, babe. But that was it. That was all he said. That right there, we could do a whole show about that, because that is absolute a witness and and a complete um piece of true transformation in my husband's life. It it he was not even phased, it was amazing. And uh so, you know, I just let it go. And then the next morning, the next phase started, and I'm driving to work, and I'm thinking to myself, thank you, God, for the honest person that turned in the phone. Thank you that it's gonna be sitting at security, thank you that you know all things work together for good, and uh not a problem. It's it's gonna be fine, it's gonna be waiting for me. Saint Anthony, who is the patron saint of lost items, he's already located it, and it's gonna be great, right? And when I arrived, there was no phone, and then all of the loop-to-loops commenced again, and I thought about I surrender all, and I found myself singing, I surrender all, all to Jesus, I surrender. And it was relentless for quite a while, until again I I literally said, get behind me. God's got this and he's got my phone. And then Saturday, by first break, I literally I'm I'm gonna read some of my entries. I have a little smaller version of a journal that I bring to work, and I literally wrote January 3rd, 1126 a.m. first break. Well, my cell has been missing since last break, 3 p.m. yesterday. And I'm all in, God. Show me the ins and outs of this stronghold. Teach me. Then my last break at 3 o'clock, I wrote, My observations of no cell phone all day here at work. I had prayed numerous times on my way for Saint Anthony and the Holy Spirit to locate it and have it waiting. And this was after all the fear thoughts on my way home last night, uh, which I already shared. And now I'm going to continue. Wednesday, this past Wednesday, first break. Almost five days now without my cell, and I didn't even check with security when I arrived today. I don't really want it back. I am since Saturday when I felt the shift. And let me explain the shift on Saturday. Now I can't tell you if it was actually the phone, but I believe in my heart that it was. Because Saturday when I got up, I uh it it was uncanny. I I had such joy. I I smiled my way through the day. I felt lighter, freer. It it was amazing. So that's what I'm writing about. And I said I I am since Saturday when I felt the shift, as if I was cut free, so full of joy and great energy. Now I can't say for sure that it is actually due to not having my cell, but I am rolling with it until you, and I'm I'm speaking of God, tell me different. I had a great three-day break, including a visit with my children. And the word that kept coming to my brain since I lost my phone is untethered. Literally, I I have this picture of this huge hot air balloon with the ropes holding it down and the wind kicking up, and the last rope gets cut or loosened, and the and I I just had this floating feeling within my whole being, it was really, really amazing. Just amazing. Um and then I began to think of all the things that I had fallen prey to just last month on that blue screen. Now, if we remember that it is part of the darkness, it is trying to capture our attention, keep us distracted, keep us from a deeper connection with God, and most definitely to rob us of our energy, our spark, our particles of God, and our true essence of who we are. If that is the goal, think about what I'm about to say, right? So I I I'm gonna share again with my journal. Things I fell prey to on the internet last month, or we, you know, my husband, the bearskin hoodie. How many of you seen the bearskin hoodie? Oh, it's military grade and over and over and over again. And he purchased um quite a few of them, one, two, three, four, like five of them to give to people. And I'm gonna tell you flat out that they're not that what they're were how they advertise them. It it's they're not like that. I mean, they're good, they're a good hoodie, but it's not like the whoopty-doo thing that they talked about. What I got caught on was the quasi face masks. Have you seen the quasi face mask? Oh your face will look like glass. Really? Well, after weeks of hearing it, I fell prey to it. Durillo pillows, or however you say it. The ones that contour, you know, your neck hurts because you're not sleeping correctly, and we have been very uncomfortable and we've talked about it for months, and so I dropped the money on the pillows, and they haven't even arrived yet, and that was like a month ago. Another thing that we got that I'm gonna do a whole show on is um a new version of ping pong, and I'm not gonna talk about that until that day because uh it has a lot of value to it. I purchased a Slack board. Um, if you've never seen these Slack uh things, uh they've been advertised a lot. So just in the month of December, because I was feeling down and low emotionally, what did I do? I dropped money like an addict in order to make me not feel that way anymore, right? And uh it's it's just amazing the traps. I mean, it it's almost like a minefield of traps as we scroll. Whatever it is that we think about, we are gonna be fed ads to fill that need. Okay, we know this. So then Wednesday comes. So Friday I lose the phone, and now Wednesday I go back to work. And before I left, my husband said, Get your phone. And I said to him, I'm not ready. Said get it anyway, and I said, No, I'm not getting it. And as I go to work, I'm thinking about how my husband, he is also going through his own um withdrawal of his own addiction, addiction to control, addiction to being the protector, uh, addiction to being connected with me. And remember, you know, we we were a year and a half, a little over a year and a half apart. And we both have abandonment issues. Um, my husband's a little bit um deeper than mine, and now he has no way of making sure I'm safe. Um, he worries that something's gonna happen in my vehicle. Um, and he likes to know where I'm at because he has a bit of a controller issue too, right? And I was thinking, no, no, I'm not getting it. And uh so I have had numerous loops of, well, I could get it and not look at it. Um, and the reason I say that is because my first day back at work at the huddle, you know, the morning huddle when everybody meets together, the PA that's doing the announcement at the very end says, and by the way, if you find something that doesn't belong to you, for example, a cell phone was found in a bin last night and it was returned. And we ask you that if you find something on the floor or in a bin or on a shelf, that you would bring it to security, and immediately I thought, oh, that's my phone. And that's all I thought. I didn't run to security to get my phone. I just thought, yep, my phone's been found, so now I know. And let me backtrack just a moment and say that um I think it was oh Monday or Tuesday, I'm online on my laptop, and I pulled something up, and my phone popped up and it said activity on on your phone, and I'm like, what? So I clicked it, and here on my laptop, I was able to unlock my phone because the screen came up and I was able to do my phone unlock. I was able to put another passcode on it and remove all of my wallet, right? And then I was able to put a message on the front screen saying, I lost my phone at this location. Please call my husband with his phone number. And lo and behold, the GPS on my phone shows me right where it is: Amazon Warehouse, Joby Jackson, Murfreesboro, Tennessee. And so I was like, oh, wow, this is pretty cool. I know exactly where it is. Maybe it's somewhere in the building, but it's still there. Nobody had taken it from the building. And now that day when he made that announcement, I knew it was in the security box in the security office, and I was not gonna get it because I really, really am all in. I really wanted to see how I would feel and what I would do. But then knowing that it was there, I went through some more loops in my mind. I could get it and not look at it, pinging back and forth with no way that would happen. I would get my phone and I immediately want to open it. I knew that. And I just realized just how incredible it is to have something that is not even important, so rule our life. It it is just amazing that we have allowed ourselves to get so distracted, so distracted, Humanityville. It really is crazy when you think about it. And then, like human nature does, I didn't have my phone, but then I was thinking about I I had told my husband over last weekend, well, the last of my spending binge will all be arriving this week. And so taking the focus off the phone, always seeking. You see, we when we are so used to dopamine spikes, oh, it feels good. Oh, you know, wow, I I did I just want to watch this for one more second. That's all dopamine. So I was seeking more dopamine, and so I began to think about the slack board coming, or the complete bedding set that I I purchased. Um, or whatever other oh, oh, the omni stick. Yeah, you talk about the irony. The irony of, you know, I don't know if this has happened to you on your computer or your phone. You're out of storage, you're out of storage. Just you are do you want to purchase more storage? And it is all a ploy to get us not only to give up our energy, but energy is more than just our attention, it's feeding the money machine too. And I didn't want to spend more money on storage, but I wanted to back up my photo, so I got sucked into this Omni photo stick. You know, you've seen the picture, put it in any device. Effortless photo and video backup. Well, it arrived. Oh, I was so excited. Dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. I'm gonna I'm gonna offload everything on my laptop, and then when I eventually get my phone back, I'll do the same. An hour and a half in, I still cannot get it to just keep scrolling. So I don't know if it's just a piece of shit or if I just don't know what I'm doing, but I was so frustrated I just took it out of my laptop and we'll deal with that another time. This is what they're doing to us. No, let me rephrase that. This is what we are allowing, folks. We are allowing ourselves to be sucked in. And so looking for that dopamine hit, I started thinking about the food that was waiting for me in the cafeteria. Oh, I, you know, I just I just want to go and feel better. So then I faced the boredom yesterday, day six, yesterday afternoon, no phone. I'm on, you know, the second full day of my shift, and as boredom settled in, I found myself reaching for my phone, and I realized that that's what I do, and it has literally ruled my day, and that is the reason why I am gonna continue, I'm gonna continue with this experiment and and see how far I can go. I'm not gonna get my phone back until God tells me to. And I found myself at the rest of the day observing others, really being uber aware, and literally, literally for the last two hours at work yesterday, and and I'm this is no lie, every person that I saw the last two hours of my shift yesterday in every aisle was either walking with their phone, earphones on, or literally the people that were doing um what I was doing yesterday, which is um quality, they were sitting or leaning over their car doing what messing with their phone. So in closing today, um I just I just want us to know, and and you might think, oh well, you know, I could do it easily. Maybe you could, and maybe that's what you need to consider doing. Maybe what I just shared about being without my phone will spur you on to experimenting. You don't have to actually lose it. Um but maybe you could choose to start backing away from it a little bit. And I will continue to give you updates um as we continue. Scrolling the blue is killing the real you as we come back tomorrow on the next episode. I just really want us to think about what it is we're allowing in our life. You know, uh going back to what I opened with, if you knew you were gonna die five years from now or for today, would we live differently? Live like you were dying, it's kind of a brilliant idea. And of course it means different things for different people depending on what you believe comes next after death, right? And if you don't believe in God and you think that this life is all there is, the idea of living like you were dying would be an invitation to recklessly indulge in every hedonistic appetite imaginable, right? But are we not doing that right now to certain degrees? Oh, there are people that say they're Christians, but are we indulging in everything on online, just like everybody else in the world? If you believe in God, then maybe live like you were dying would be a sobering reminder that life is short and eternity is long, and there are consequences to the way we choose to live our lives. Nonbelievers, live like you were dying would lead to a life of colossal selfishness and devouring hopelessness. And that, my dear friends, is what a lot of us are doing right now. So I just ask you what do you spend your time doing? How much time do you spend on the screen? Do you recognize that the blue screen is contributing to the loss of who you really are? And I just leave you as always with thoughts that we all have the greatest health, with vibrant energy today and every day, and I wish you so much peace.