Tuesday morning I went to a yoga class. That seems like a pretty ordinary thing but for me, it was a Big Deal. It’s been over a decade since I’ve done yoga. I’m not sure why it’s been so long, other than I went to a few bad classes many years ago and just stopped going. Then, I had a kid and you know the rest – time flies!
It felt good to be back on the yoga mat – breathing and feeling my body. But here’s what surprised me: many of the attendees brought their cell phone to class. I do not remember this being the case over ten years ago or maybe I was oblivious. One lady’s phone would ding. She’d leave her pose to check her text messages. I heard another phone ring twice and then a door open and shut each time. Not sure if it was the same person or two different ones.
And I’m in my pose or resting, thinking to myself, “Namaste, motherfuckers.”
Because when I was at the height of my cell phone use and super engaged with social media, I would NOT have brought my phone to a freaking yoga class!!!
Tell me, is this a thing now? Am I that out of the loop? I mean, who in the holy fuck needs their phone during a yoga class? No one is that important. And if you are, then hire a private yoga instructor, stay at home, do your poses with your cell phone in your bra, and radiate the fuck out of yourself AND your teacher, ok?
Think about it for a moment: I got rid of my cell phone when I realized its effects on my cardiovascular and nervous systems. I could feel my cell phone affecting my heart and making me sweat. Isn’t yoga a heart-based practice? I go to a goddamn yoga class to relax. Tune into my body. Breathe. Be present. And calm my heart. Not to be assaulted in a small space by your invisible secondhand smoke called wireless radiation.
So the question swimming through my head is this: will I have the guts at the next class to ask the instructor to tell people to put their phone in airplane mode so that the environment will be safer? And does asking even matter? Because addicts are fucking liars.
After all, at the end of the day, we are all a bunch of cell phone and screen addicts. We can’t help ourselves; technology has hijacked our brains. That is, until it doesn’t and we wake up…
Now, I’m going to take a minute to hit the pause button in our little one-way conversation to say that a few months ago, I was completely unaware of the health hazards of wireless technology. I know that. But can you put yourself in my shoes and empathize with my newfound anger?
My cell phone made my heart skip beats. It made it race. It made it thump. It made it flutter.
My cell phone made me sweat. It made me anxious.
My cell phone gave me a rising feeling in my chest of trapped energy that had nowhere to go.
My cell phone made my body buzz.
My cell phone gave me sleep onset insomnia and made my legs squirmy at night.