I want to talk about something I came home from holiday thinking about and haven't been able to shake since.

Staying off my phone. And what happens when you actually do it.

I spent most of this holiday genuinely disconnected. Just quietly. Book in hand. People watching. Sitting with my own thoughts. Letting time move at its own pace without filling every second of it with a screen.

And something happened that I keep coming back to and it's shaping how I am spending my evenings.

The moment at the pool

I met a guy called Alex at the pool. We'd had a few conversations but on the Saturday, at breakfast, I told him I was going clubbing on my own that night and he got just as excited about it as I was.

The next morning I spotted him at the pool bar, I was on my sunlounger. Hat on, sunglasses on, letting my tiredness take a back seat to the wonderful feeling of not doing anything.

He looked over. He waved. I took my glasses off and waved back and I felt this genuine rush of excitement.

That feeling of someone being happy to see you.

I called him over and couldn't wait to tell him about my night, because I knew he was genuinely excited for me to experience that night but also he genuinely wanted to hear how it went.

And my immediate thought was - if I was on my phone right now, I would have completely missed this.

Not the wave but the feeling. The warmth of it. The way a tiny moment of human connection can make you feel like you're actually part of something.

That is what we are scrolling past. Every single day.

What we're actually missing

Connection is one of the most powerful things we have access to as human beings. It lights us up. It energises us. It reminds us that we're not just going through the motions.

And we are starving ourselves of it. Not because there are fewer opportunities for it. But because we are too distracted to notice when it's right in front of us.

The conversations that come from nowhere. The eye contact across a room. The moment a stranger says exactly the right thing.

These things are happening all the time. We are just not present enough to receive them.

The bit nobody talks about

I hear it all the time. I watch Netflix to switch off. But are you really switching off or just filling the silence with something else? Especially when you're watching with someone and scrolling on your phone at the same time.

Switching off doesn't have to be fancy. It can just mean being with your own thoughts. And that is a skill we have almost entirely lost.

Because when you stop reaching for your phone in the quiet moments, something interesting starts to happen. You start to replay your day. Your week. The moments that actually felt good.

That catch up with your friend where you left feeling lighter than when you arrived. The conversation that made you laugh until your stomach hurt. The moment someone looked at you and you felt truly seen.

You then sit back in that. Revisit it. Let yourself feel it again.

The more you replay the moments that fill you up, the more you recognise how good they feel. And the more you recognise how good they feel, the more you will actively seek them out.

You will start making choices that lead you toward more of those moments and away from the things that quietly drain you.

The only question that matters

Your phone isn't evil. Scrolling isn't the worst thing in the world.

But it is a very effective way of never quite arriving anywhere. Half present everywhere and fully present nowhere.

Connection is the thing. Real, human, in-the-room connection.

And we get to choose, every evening, every weekend, every quiet moment of every day, do we want to experience our lives or observe them from behind a screen?

Put the phone down. Sit in the energy of the good things that happened today.

The more you do it, the more you will wonder why you ever did anything else.

When did you last put your phone away and actually feel better for it?

And if you don't want to miss next Friday's post, drop your email below and I'll send it straight to your inbox every week.

Emma x