{"id":158,"date":"2010-10-29T09:37:35","date_gmt":"2010-10-29T09:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html"},"modified":"2010-10-29T09:37:35","modified_gmt":"2010-10-29T09:37:35","slug":"freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html","title":{"rendered":"Freeform Friday :: Talking to Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Thumbnail image for 29170.JPG\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/96\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/10\/29170-thumb-300x198-18884.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"198\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<div>Welcome the new technological age! Today, I&#8217;d like to discuss some on our relationship to technology.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Having spent many years working in mental hospitals, I am accustomed to people talking to themselves.&nbsp;Not long ago, if you overheard someone talking to themselves on the street, you might assume they had some issues. Now, this is a common occurrence as people,&nbsp;and I dare say I am sometimes among them,&nbsp;walk around talking on their mobile phones. I&#8217;ll come up behind someone and they are appear to be talking into the air &#8212; are they psychotic or oh so cool on a blue tooth?<\/p>\n<div><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>Why is this so bothersome? We don&#8217;t modulate our voices. We are often shouting into our phones. Now we have noise pollution. Talking on the phone and walking around town we are disconnected from the reality around us &#8212; stumbling into people, buildings, and cars. Texting is worse. Recently, someone told me about a man texting on a bicycle on Burlington&#8217;s waterfront bike path. Really?!<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>We walk around, plugged into our technological devices, communicating with others in this multitasking way. Are we being more mindful or less? Is there a new form of mindfulness emerging on the technological horizon &#8212; a new social reality populated by status updates and text messages, smart phones and 24-hour and nearly global availability?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I don&#8217;t know about this.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>There are actually parts of Vermont that don&#8217;t get cell service. The initial response to this might be consternation, but for me it is followed by a sense of relief and even nostalgia. I&#8217;m inaccessible.&nbsp;I misplaced my cell phone a few years ago for a couple of days. After the panic subsided, I felt a great sense of quiet, as if a hush had come over the world. I was inaccessible and this felt like a delicious guilty pleasure.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As a culture we have developed a collective case of <i>infomania<\/i>. We obsessively check our phones for voicemails and text messages, glue ourselves to Facebook, wait for that life transforming email.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>We are not all like this, of course. Not everyone is on Facebook. Not everyone has a cell phone or smart phone. Not everyone checks email every day. Those of us who do take it personally when someone does not respond immediately.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Technology is changing our landscape of expectations and the way we relate to the world. I think its probably a good idea to unplug once and a while. At the very least, we can do this when we practice mindfulness meditation daily.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>See what it feels like to unplug.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome the new technological age! Today, I&#8217;d like to discuss some on our relationship to technology.&nbsp; Having spent many years working in mental hospitals, I am accustomed to people talking to themselves.&nbsp;Not long ago, if you overheard someone talking to themselves on the street, you might assume they had some issues. Now, this is a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9,10,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mindful-living","category-mindfulnesss","category-spider-mind-world-of-interconnections","category-stress-reduction"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Freeform Friday :: Talking to Yourself - Mindfulness Matters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Freeform Friday :: Talking to Yourself - Mindfulness Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Welcome the new technological age! Today, I&#8217;d like to discuss some on our relationship to technology.&nbsp; Having spent many years working in mental hospitals, I am accustomed to people talking to themselves.&nbsp;Not long ago, if you overheard someone talking to themselves on the street, you might assume they had some issues. Now, this is a&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mindfulness Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-29T09:37:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/10\/29170-thumb-300x198-18884.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dr. Arnie Kozak\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Freeform Friday :: Talking to Yourself - Mindfulness Matters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Freeform Friday :: Talking to Yourself - Mindfulness Matters","og_description":"Welcome the new technological age! Today, I&#8217;d like to discuss some on our relationship to technology.&nbsp; Having spent many years working in mental hospitals, I am accustomed to people talking to themselves.&nbsp;Not long ago, if you overheard someone talking to themselves on the street, you might assume they had some issues. Now, this is a&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html","og_site_name":"Mindfulness Matters","article_published_time":"2010-10-29T09:37:35+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/10\/29170-thumb-300x198-18884.jpg"}],"author":"Dr. Arnie Kozak","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html","name":"Freeform Friday :: Talking to Yourself - Mindfulness Matters","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/10\/29170-thumb-300x198-18884.jpg","datePublished":"2010-10-29T09:37:35+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-29T09:37:35+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/#\/schema\/person\/5f92cf2ae15fbe04e74ca47527ac68d8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/10\/29170-thumb-300x198-18884.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/10\/29170-thumb-300x198-18884.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/10\/freeform-friday-talking-to-yourself.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Freeform Friday :: Talking to Yourself"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/","name":"Mindfulness Matters","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Arnie Kozak","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/#\/schema\/person\/5f92cf2ae15fbe04e74ca47527ac68d8","name":"Dr. Arnie Kozak","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6ab\/6abd6f3205265768510a13d66ac2aff7x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6ab\/6abd6f3205265768510a13d66ac2aff7x96.jpg","caption":"Dr. Arnie Kozak"},"description":"Recognized as an innovator in the field of mindfulness-based psychology, Dr. Arnie Kozak is northern New England's leading expert in the field. Dr. Kozak's ability to translate ancient healing traditions into pragmatic applications suitable for modern lifestyles through the use of metaphors have made him a strong voice in healthcare and business. Beginning with a journey to India in the 80\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where he took the Bodhisattva vows from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Arnie Dr. Kozak began his lifelong practice in mindfulness meditation. Intent on finding a way to bring the practical healing attributes of mindfulness he began incorporating these techniques in his private practice. In 2002 Dr. Kozak created Exquisite Mind in Burlington, Vermont as a vehicle that could expand his wisdom to larger audiences beyond individual psychotherapy to professionals and corporations, health care providers, public groups and, most recently with Exquisite Mind Golf, amateur and professional golfers. His award-winning new book, Wild Chickens and Petty Tyrants: 108 Metaphors for Mindfulness (Wisdom Publications, 2009) is a thoughtful, funny, and inspiring translation of mindfulness practice through the inventive use of metaphor applicable to our daily lives. In addition to his work with Exquisite Mind, Arnie Kozak, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist\u00e2\u20ac\u201dDoctorate has been a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Vermont and is a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry and Medicine, University of Vermont College of Medicine. He has studied and practiced clinical psychology, meditation, and yoga for more than 25 years. He has studied with several meditation masters, including S. N. Goenka, Larry Rosenberg, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. After receiving his bachelors degree with honors from Tufts University, he was awarded a Presidential Fellowship to get his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University at Buffalo. He completed his training as a Psychological Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. Prior to founding the Exquisite Mind in 2002, Arnie worked ten years in the private sector for the PKC Corporation consulting on mental health content for this revolutionary software company.","sameAs":["http:\/\/exquisitemind.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/author\/akozak"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}