Thank you for tuning your heart's in for another episode of the Hearts Rise up podcast. I'm carol chapman your host along with my co host and Siri and Concetta antonelli. We share our own personal experiences, tips and strategies along with powerful stories and compelling insights from guest interviews. We're here to inspire and empower your conscious evolution, help you tap into your inner wisdom and rise to your heart centered higher self Together we can rise to a higher level of consciousness, an elevated state of being and experience more love, joy and freedom. Mhm. Welcome to all our heart centered listeners. My name is Concetta antonelli and I'll be your host for today's episode featuring johan Verstegen. Today we'll learn more about what led him to become a life coach and digital wellness consultant and eventually create social media breakup where his mission is to help people live their lives with purpose and free from technology addiction.

We'll hear about how a single photo posted on social media was the wake up call that started his journey into what he refers to as his uncomfortable zone where johann says he finds inspiration to live his life mindfully and on purpose. So let's get right to it. A few years ago, johann struggled and suffered from cell phone and social media addiction when he realized and accepted the adverse effects on his life. He knew he had to find a way to unhook himself from screens. He knew that he couldn't completely abstain from technology. After all, it was part of his livelihood in the I. T. Industry accepting that there was a way to take charge of his screen time rather than feel driven by it. He began to explore ways first to first disengage from mindless interaction with his devices and re engage with them mindfully. As he continued his exploration he became more and more aware of the detrimental effects screens can have on us such as increased risk of physical issues like disturbed sleep and heart disease, mental health issues like attention deficit disorder and learning difficulties and emotional issues like increased anxiety and poor social skills.

He noted that by giving the power over to his devices he became too dependent on them which damaged his relationships and the addiction began to take him away from his goals and dreams as he began to heal himself. He found there were others struggling with the same addiction which allowed him clarity about his life to help others become a better version of themselves. This motivated him to become a life coach and digital wellness consultant and eventually along with his partner, Yuval to create social media breakup where he helps individuals and families to recover from phone and social media addiction. Welcome to the show johan, thank you for having me Concetta. Thank you. This is such a timely topic when we think about this year in particular that we've experienced a lot of people are inside and definitely spending more time on their screens partially because of all the changes that they were estimate For example people were working from home and um they need to look at their screens and there's also all the zoom meetings that and the Skype meetings that were taking place and so something that was perhaps used more pleasurably or in this case, what you have discovered is that it's one of those things where we have to look at our screens more and yet we kind of get addicted to them.

Tell me about how you arrived at bringing this to light because basically I don't know, you'll have to tell our listeners was this something that people acknowledged that they were when you start, when you yourself named this as an addiction. So tell us more about that. So I had this issue of using facebook excessively a lot 10 years ago including using smartphones a lot. So I received my smartphone back in 2009 which actually had the very first android os and there's a lot of problems because of that excessive use, it was a novelty. So if facebook was already big around 2000 and 10 twitter and instagram, not so much but facebook yes, So in around 2013 I was able to overcome this problem so that many years later now or I have to say 2000 and 18 because that's where I started social media up, I noticed that more people were starting to talk about social media addiction screen addiction, phone addiction and personally I never really thought about the word addiction back in those days.

I saw that a lot of people took the social media invention very seriously Back in those days I thought well we all do it, it's a normality, it's not really an addiction. But now then after 2014 I noticed that more and more people Were complaining about excessive screen time. The smartphone was introduced in 2007 became much more sophisticated and now you have devices, smartphones, Androids devices which are so so sophisticated, you can basically do everything, even watching movies you can do on those phones and 10 years ago you could then In 2018 because it was kind of exploding. I thought okay you know what, let me help people with their phone addiction or compulsive usage or problematic use however you want to call it for me, what matters is is that when you're not satisfied with your screen time then it's a problem, you can call it an addiction or norma phobia or whatever, as long as you acknowledge the fact that you want to solve it and it's a problem. Now everyone is talking about excessive screen time Which is logical, it's it's because we're home and we use our phones so much, we use screens so much.

I was really busy helping people beating this addiction since 2018 wow all these problems around 10 years ago and I was able to Probably since 2013 I can't explain what happens, what made me disconnection on facebook, What made me disconnect from my smartphone. That would be great. Let us know because I know a little bit about the story but tell us, what was that? Wake up call that that let you know this is a problem for me. Yes. So I I was always used to get out of my comfort zone. I wanted that uncomfortable because I knew that all the things I want in life is outside of that comfort zone before I started to use facebook. So I started to use Facebook a little bit and then a bit more and then I started to date and then I had a girlfriend and she loved Facebook, she was constantly on Facebook and she was posting about us 24/7 like 56 days she was posting about us.

Mhm And in the beginning it was fine. I posted as well because she expected me to post as well about a relationship about our relationship, about me, about my feelings for her and so the more I was doing that, the more I kind of was losing myself because I wasn't really resonating with the quote, I don't want to die stupid my mantra and it's because I was doing something repetitive lee, I was doing something, I already knew how to do it. I was just doing it constantly. I was used to do new things to get curious to experiment to research to learn more about myself and then the more my girlfriend demanded post from me, the more it became an obligation, the more I became frustrated and annoyed me, it started to annoy me and we even started to fight, I wasn't posting enough. Then one time we for example we were walking on the beach and what happened was she was drawing a heart on the sand and then both johann loves nanda, that's her name and she asked me johan can you please kneel in front of the heart and smile for a photo?

So she took the photo and then a few hours later she posted a photo and said look what johan made me, he's such a fantastic boyfriend. So I know she tried to now post content to kind of reinforce the fact that we are quote unquote happy and like full of love and doing great things together And so she wanted to show off, show off this relationship that didn't really exist actually, but she wanted to show off to her friends how fantastic we are together. It woke me up because I just realized that we give so much power away now to social media, to all these platforms to facebook like why is it so why is this invention by Mark Zuckerberg, why is it so important? Why do we have to take it so serious? Why can't we have this 11 to 1 interaction, even if it's online we can use Skype for example because Skype was back then why now use this facebook? That is helping with the communication, like why can't we just take facebook out of the equation?

So eventually we broke up because the more I started to work on myself and I started to produce and then not just producing posts on facebook would actually produce websites, I wanted to make something of myself because I knew like you cannot consume all the time you have to produce. So when I started to produce she became more frustrated because I wasn't there now to show everyone that I'm thinking about her. So we ended up breaking up. It was a huge relief because I really felt this frustration of constantly having to post online and when when she stopped when she wasn't there in my life anymore, I could really fully focus on on the thing I wanted to focus on and there was a reason for me to be on facebook because I was so much on facebook that I didn't really care when people ask me, hey johan have you checked my post? And I say no and then they say well you know how would you know if if you're not using facebook, how would you know about my life if you're not using facebook and in the early days I would say ah yes sorry let me yeah true, I I will log in tonight or yes I will I will log in tomorrow.

I will check my facebook account. But then after the relationship I told people look if you if you want me to know something, if you want me to, if you want to update me about your life, if there's something I need to know then contact me directly. Don't expect me now to be on facebook so I can see your post. No contact me directly. So started to become more serious about where I want to go in my life. And I understood at the same time that if I just waste of my time on facebook then yeah it doesn't really bring me anywhere right. And it sounds like what happened is that in a sense you went from one end of the continuum to another. You went in facebook, you lost yourself some ways you you you began to lose yourself or in a way of losing yourself into the sometimes the imaginary world that that we like to create that world that says look how wonderful everything is. And you know you told us a little bit about your mantra which is I don't want to die stupid. And you've told me before that you have to go through your failures and you can't go above it under it or around it.

You must go through it. And it sounds like to me that's what you did is that you went through all of that so that you could find yourself again. True. And it sounds like to me in some ways that's what you wanted to do. Why why you created your company? The social media breakup is to help others do the same thing. Exactly. Exactly. That's why I always say like if someone asked me johann, how how did you become so successful now? Like how how did you manage to transform yourself? So because there's a big difference between me and 2010 and me and 2020 and then I experience the necessary failures and hardships for success. Mm hmm You need those failures in order to start seeing again basically because a lot of us are blind and then when we start seeing when we understand wow this. So this is how life can look like Then it's just impossible to close your eyes again. And then when you see other people still being blind or essentially blind I mean people who are not able to find themselves yet or people who just focus on the wrong things or people who don't have that confidence or belief in themselves to start progressing in their lives.

That's what I mean by being blind so that I want to serve I want to help people and initially actually I want to just focus on life coaching. But then just because of this whole issue of screen addiction, social media addiction that I thought well I over I overcame this problem many years ago. And Okay now there are many more platforms. The devices are much more sophisticated. As I said earlier. Still the principles are the same. There are a few strategies that you really need to implement in order for you to disconnect from tech but not just disconnect forever but disconnect so you can reconnect with yourself with other people. And again devices and with social media and now it's even becoming much worse and it's exploding a lot more so. And now you also notice that there are more people in this space. More people now want to help people with their digital habits. Which is a great development. People told me, well, I've never heard this before.

Like you said, I gave it a name to be honest. Like people say I understand. Yes, this is a problem. Yes. Like Children have this problem of being on their screens all the time or Yes, I know someone who's always using social media or Yes, I know someone or I use my smartphone a bit too much. So you see people who are acknowledging the problem but they never really thought about it. It's because it's it's a normality still I always call phone addiction always compare phone addiction or social media addiction addiction to smoking in the 50s. In the 50 people were smoking because it was a normality it was a social norm. Everyone was smoking. So just because while I was smoking it's easy for you to smoke as well. Even I can imagine that many people in the 50s thoughts. Mm Hmm. This amount of smoking can't be good. Can't be good. There must be some detrimental effects. But they would still do it. And that's why I compare education with smoking addiction with smoking in the 50s.

Because we understand deep down that it can't be good to be on social media so much or on our smartphones so much. We know it deep down but we're not fully aware of the fact that we should and can disconnect in order for I can speak from personal experience that draws me in. I mean I use it for writing and doing research and those sort of things. Now. They're having studies that say that even just the sitting even it's interesting when you look at these studies, they say sitting for four hours increases your chance of having a heart attack. Which is so interesting that that the position and in and of itself and I know there's all, there's all biological reasons for that. But even that hasn't, I think um even that risk hasn't necessarily gotten people to get up or to put their phones down or to step away from from the computer.

I and myself have had to put in Things like I set up an alarm for every 30 minutes or every 45 minutes I have to get up and move around, drink water. You know do something so that that I am not mindlessly just scrolling and it isn't an easy just like with anything that brings us or takes us away from ourselves. I think that's what you're saying is that you've indicated that you want to help people figure out how to use it as a tool instead of it using them. And you noted that there's a, you've talked about with me a six step formula for actually taking charge of this screen time. Could you tell us a little bit more about that? Yes. So the six step formulas indeed the formula used to help people with their excessive screen use step one is self awareness. So self awareness. I mean you want to understand how much you use your screens and you can use apps like forest or or rescue time but you can also use screen time which is an apple app or digital well being, which is an android app and android feature.

So you won't understand how much he used your device, how much use social media, what you feel and what you think when you want to go for your phone and when you are using your phone and then you also want to understand how it is impacting your life, how is it impacting your relationships, your self development, your career, your studies, you want to become very clear about how it is affecting that because when you want to improve your screen time, it can be sometimes hard because it is a social norm. So if everyone is doing it, you might tell yourself that you know what it's fine. I think I don't really need to change because I really need my phone. So in order to take a serious you need to understand where you are and then also how you do want to see your relationships, How do you do want to see your life and your future, your desired self? You want to become very clear about how your phone is used by your desired self. So when you know that that's step one self awareness, Step two which is inside. So insight is all about understanding the detrimental effects of excessive screen news that for example, explain about cuckoo dementia.

So with google dementia, I mean that we outsource our brain, we can immediately ask someone if we want to know something or we can google. So that's why digital dementia is also called google effect. And we can find anything we want right? Like if there's something we need to know, we can find it instead of contemplating. Yes, that is so true. I just I'm laughing because I think of how many times in the last I'll say five years that I've sat around the table and someone will say let's ask mr or MS google. And it's true. It's it gets exciting to go and and get the answer right away. So I love that google dementia because we can't remember phone numbers anymore, right? We don't because we can use our phones and there's no space and room for contemplation reflection because there's always, you know, something or someone that knows the answer. So we have to be careful with that. It's like if my if my left arm is going to be covered by a robot arm, a robot arm is going to now take care of my left arm, I will become stronger because of that robot arm.

But when you take it away again, then you see that my left arm is going to be very weak. So wow, initially it's an advantage because I'm stronger with that robot arm. But essentially it also means I'm outsourcing my power. I'm not training in a left arm. That's why you want to become mindful that you don't just use technology for everything that you don't outsource your whole being. And that's what we do. Like even with this online persona that we create, we like with insight, I want to make people aware of the fact that now there is an offline version of you and there's an online version of you and that the internet and social media wants you to stay on that platform as much as possible and wants wants you to work on that online persona as much as possible because you see this world on social media on facebook and you think that's the world, but it's not it's just a a highly sophisticated world created by the algorithms based on your desires and interests. And that's why facebook oftentimes knows you better than your spouse knows you because those deep desires and interests are known because of your online behavior the way you serve the web, the links on facebook.

So because of that you will see this world that is fascinating to you and it makes you stay online longer and facebook and any other platform wants to monetize your eyeballs so it wants to ensure that you stay as long as possible. So you want I'm aware of that fact that whatever you see it's just a world made for you. It's not the world, it's just how you see things. So but that's step two is all about insights and detrimental effects, how it affects your spine, eyes and neck and also the depression, loneliness. So that's all. Step two step three is digital citizenship. So with digital citizenship it's all about learning how to use tax because we all use our smartphones but do we want to replace our smartphone for a flip phone for for a feature phone or a dumb phone? Probably not. So let's just raise our smartphone let's get to know our smartphone. What are the settings? How can we transform the device in a way that's going to become our ally instead of an enemy because there are many on the device that can help you like there are many features that you want to become aware of and also privacy settings and security settings and the same applies to social if you use facebook a lot of instagram a lot know how it works, know how those platforms work and also you leave a digital footprint behind so you have to be careful by the way you behave online.

Netiquette internet etiquette. How do you portray yourself? Are you, are you showing yourself as a kind person who is helpful, who's excited, who is positive or do you engage in cyber bullying or do you post a lot of hate related posts content? What is it exactly that you do online? So you want to become mindful of the way you use the internet, you want to become mindful of the dangers. You want to become mindful of the fact that the internet remembers. So this little citizenship is all about facts like don't use the same password twice. Use the two factor authentication on your iphone know that there is a private account on instagram for your close friends. So all of those facts are included. How do you get online, know about cyberbullying, flaming trolling? Deepfakes understands that people can take your photo and put it in google search So they can find out where the photo was taken for example, so you want to become mindful about anything that you share.

So that's step three, step four is digital habits, step four, it's all about setting boundaries so you really take action then. So it's all about setting boundaries. So you know about the do not disturb, How are you going to use it? How are you going to use dark mode? Are you going to use the notifications? Are you going to disable all of them? What kind of boundaries are and limits are you going to set? Are you going to introduce the no phone zone rule for example, or the phone lounge rule? So with phone lounge, I mean that when an area in your house, for example becomes a no phone zone when you eat or when you sleep you need a side place for your devices and you need to know where it is you want to know already in advance. But I mean with a phone lounge, there are many, many ideas like a wallpaper that's going to count to trigger you to stay away from your phone wallpaper that says don't use me too much or stay away or introduce the no screen Tuesday or do a one hour digital detox every evening because I don't like to say go for a week digital detox that last week or for a month because people probably will fail.

It's like going to the gym, if someone tells me I'm going to the gym four times a week and he never went then I know he's not going to go four times a week. I know he's not going maybe once and that's it. So I always say are small because you want to keep it small, we want to keep those promises to yourself. That's why if you say okay our, you probably can be offline for one hour. So start small, just one hour of no tech. So, so that's, that's one of those initial first strategies that I introduced. Just try to be offline for one hour. It's about those strategies of when can I use my phone, how can I use my phone? What settings am I going to use? And so that that's all step forward digital habits and then step five, it sounds like to me that in essence your, these are tools and in thinking about taking small steps, it actually can help us change our behavior as you said. If you can be successful at those small steps then you begin to build because I can imagine well as I said earlier we have to use our devices were even more so definitely need our computers to work.

And it is very tempting to I guess relax or get get, take a moment and look at facebook instagram all those other things. Even while I'm working, even while I'm using my computer for administrative things that I need to get done or research and and also my writing and those kinds of things, but it's extremely tempting to check my facebook And so I can relate to this small step. I'm really excited to get to step five and 6 because these are great tools and even myself, I didn't, some of the things that you're talking about, I wouldn't have known about they absolutely right. There's little signals that we can use to say yes. You know, it starts me that it's a little bit like what you said about, let's know where our phone is, it's like saying it's an extension of us. So we want to, we want to know where that is and is it safe and I think that it does take some of the anxiety away when we, we know where it is and we can get to it when we need to, you know, when I think about the same thing as and when I decide to give up any substance, you know and what you're saying or what I'm experiencing is that the usage of our our devices is a bit like a substance.

It gives us something just like perhaps sugar or alcohol or drug and you were talking about the smoking and so if we can treat it like that and when I think back on times when I would let's say decided to give up sugar for awhile. Exactly, exactly. It's best to do that in small doses as far as I'm concerned because I have anyway, I suspect there are other our listeners out there as well are looking forward to hearing about five and six because already I'm ready to sign up and see if you can help me with, with you know, turning my my devices into the tools. They're meant to be Exactly. And you said you said as well. Yes. Small steps. Because the thing is if I if I say Concerto, let's meet saturday and I don't show up and I tell you again, Concetta, let's meet saturday and I don't show up again. And I say, yeah, you know what Concetta, this time we're going to meet. So let's meet saturday. You'll be like, well johan, I don't believe you.

So we do that to ourselves all the time. If we don't take small steps, it's when you want to change the habits, it's not so much about the intensity. You know, it's it should not be big as long as it's something small. Yes. So step five is embraced life. That's the name of step five. Step five is is something different. And also important because sometimes we focus too much on pushing our phones away. And it's not just about pushing our phones away because when you put your phone away, you're still looking at your phone, what you need aside from pushing your phone away is you need an activity that pulls you away from your phone. So you will turn around and then you will place your energy and focus on that activity, embrace life is all about finding different activities you want to focus on and this can be yourself or with family or with your friends and I want one of the hobbies that I recommend is playing board games because there are no screens involved when it comes to board games as an activity. You can like people say, okay, what about movies?

I say that's fine, but as long as you're going to take that activity serious. So again, leave your phone somewhere in the phone lounge. So you as a family or as a couple can engage fully in that experience together and not that you're like kind of multitasking that you're kind of with one eye watching the movie and with the other eye you're on your phone be completely immersed together. I prefer for people to take on different activities. And now with this pandemic, I always, every time I say card game, boardgame, boardgame, even people say yeah, but the board games is not for Children. No, like can I play it with my girlfriend? Yes, for sure. Even if they're not, yes, you can still play board games. Even I play sometimes by myself and it's something I've done for the first time this year. Again, I don't want to die stupid. So it was, it was an interesting experience for for me and when you engage in a different activity like like board gaming, you completely forget your phone because you immerse yourself in such an experience that you don't even think about. And there's so many activities out there indoors outdoors with with couples who want to become creative, try to make a photo collage or make a playlist together.

Romance that think that contained romantic songs or build a paper house or if you have Children, there are dozens of other activities. But basically the essence of step life is to become curious and try to experiment with different activities. Yes. And and it will sounds like to me that this will help also with that google dementia because you're actually engaging other parts of your brain and you're being creative. I mean uh possibly we're going to have to look up online some of the ideas or but we can set a timer on something like that and then actually go and do something with our hands and build something and something tangible and three D. Actually because when we're on our phones I know there's the technology that we can see things in three D. But it's not quite the same thing as having that tactile experience and it and it will re engage different parts of our brain. Exactly. Well said yes, you train your brain a lot of benefits in terms of cognition communication and because of our phones we're getting good at being distracted, you're going to get good at it.

So unfortunately we trained to become distracted and then yeah when you immerse yourself in experience like board game or reading your training to focus again because now it's hard to focus even when you read a block, you think you're so immersed, but it's impossible because there are all these call to actions everywhere there are links, there are images, flashy links, this, so so you cannot really focus on that article, but when you engage, when you engage yourself in a book, there is no distraction, maybe a dog barking outside, but you can really fully immersed in that book to train your focus and by focusing on different activities, that's exactly what you what will happen. So yeah, well said So, step six is, is a big one, it's very connected to what you do, it's embraced myself. So with Step step Six is all about improving the story. You tell yourself about yourself when you're by yourself, when we are online, on social media, we want for people to say good things about us, we need that validation, that confirmation.

And that's very dangerous because if you believe the good, then you're also going to believe the bad, it's very dangerous social happiness like that, that you're going to create this online persona that's going to be liked and that's not never the case, that is going to be liked by everyone, maybe sometimes no one is going to like your photo, So now there are people who will take that photo of line and then post another one just to see if that's going to gain likes, so if you outsource your happiness like that, then you're never in control and that's why with step six is all about progressing and also building your self confidence, that self love, because we want to become our own biggest fan. A lot of us are our own biggest critic. We criticize ourselves in ways that you would never criticize a friend never, but to ourselves, we criticize ourselves so much subconsciously as well, and then we need someone else to make us feel good about ourselves. But you want to become your biggest fan, so you don't, people's like for you to feel good, other people's likes are just a bonus, but you won't need those likes and that confirmation for you to feel good about yourself.

Yes, and I hear what you're saying about step six is that it's about it's an inside job and you've got to come, it's got to come from within. Yes. And then the rest is not as important. Exactly. And then one of the topics that you talk about a lot of meditation, mindfulness to to create that space between trigger and response that you use that that space, that freedom of choice to decide consciously to take on a different action, like I say, when you justly go for your phone it's fine because you're going to be aware of why you're going for your phone. So it's still fine if you consciously decide to go for your phone, but at least you give yourself that time to reflect that that quick moment of reflection or that question that pops up in your mind, Okay, should I really go or not like you know what you're doing? That's mindfulness, it's all about noticing, noticing things, You are aware of your awareness, you are aware of your thoughts, you are aware of the triggers, you are aware of your own mental conditioning, your own programming and when once you're aware you can change it, you can change that programming.

First we have become and then having said this clear intention for how you want to program yourself, but That's step six. So even if you master step six alone, You will automatically be much more motivated to stay away from social media or at least not to use it so much because you're so thankful about the fact that it is a waste of time because in in 50 years from now, 40, 30 years from now, you're not going to remember those moments, the best moments of your life, we're not going to make the social media and that's not what you're going to be thinking about. When you get life from a macro level, that's a big step, you're absolutely right. That's what you said it was. It's a big step. It is achievable and it sounds like to me that sometimes you may have to go back through steps one through five or it's a continuous process. Yes, but well worth it to reengage with life and find what's meaningful to you as an individual and it sounds like that you are helping people do just that And so looking forward, what do you see in your future?

Where will this take you? What would you like to see happen? I want to help a lot of people to become more aware of their screen news. I want to become I want to make people more aware of the fact that this is the moment now that we're able to disconnect easily. And I say easily because if you think about the future we have seen nothing yet. I mean ai is kind of smart but it's going to become smarter. Or what about augmented reality then offline, The offline world is going to be infused with the online world. And what about virtual reality? I don't know if you have seen the movie Ready Player one. So it's a great movie because you see people are so immersed in the online world, like they totally neglect their real self. They're offline version. I say offline version, but it's just the real you that virtual reality that they take that a lot more serious than their real self. And you already notice that people take their online persona much more serious and it's just a screen still you're looking at a screen but people already invest more time in that online persona and their online activities than offline activities.

So what happens when virtual reality becomes mainstream? What happens then when we can immerse ourselves, we can use our senses, even our five senses in that virtual world, it can be destabilizing. I would imagine I've not tried it myself, but I can imagine that trying to step back into this world, it reminds me a little bit of the Matrix movies, there was that reality that God created. Our reality is not as extremists, their Matrix reality, but some days, you know, banking that comparison to what's in the virtual world to what reality is can be yeah, it can be destabilizing. So it sounds like to me that that definitely there's a um there's a need for what you're offering in the world, thank you for sharing this and bringing this to our attention and now we're going to move on to our lightning round and this is this is where we're going to ask you a few questions and okay, let's see where this takes us today.

So what lifts you up when I see that light in people's eyes when I talk about this topic, when I see this light bulb is turning on in people's minds, that just it makes me happy because there comes a point in life where you are happier when you give them when you receive when I was young, I like to receive. But the more mature you become, the more you realize that tattoo happiness is really in giving and when you see how you have impact in someone's life, that's just that, that's fulfillment right there. I think that's what you want to achieve to, to inspire people to help people, to, to serve. And I think that's also the way to achieve greatness, to be able to impact a lot of people, so that that really makes me happy because it basically means that I am gaining those results that I want to achieve in life, like that's that's the end result that all that hard work that you do and you focus on that is paying off that people are actually benefiting comments.

So what helps you feel grounded and centered listening to deep house music, when I listen to that music, I connect to my future self, like my biggest hero is my future self and when I listen to that music, it just makes me realize what's important in life and it just makes me focus and I just enter my flow playing board games, that makes me really feel happy, but more with them. When I play with more people, it's an amazing experience. I love reading books, there was a, there was a time where I was just reading books and I felt this sense of accomplishment, but it isn't because you're actually consuming, so I really make sure that I consume plus produce. So when I read a book, I want to make sure that I do something with that information. Speaking of books, do you have some go to books or favorite books that you recommend for folks? Yes, so there's the book called mindset by Carol Dweck, That book is all about fixed mindset and growth mindset.

So when you read that book then you understand that you are not who you are, that they're not people who are luckier than you or like people who achieved great success that they had, that they are more resourceful than you or that they were blessed and you are not. That book really made me realize that we all have the minimal requirements for success for greatness and you see people achieving like success on, on extreme levels and you think, wow, I will never be able to do that. But that book made me realize that if you enter the growth mindset, if you understand that by acquiring skills can make you move forward. That that that's what that book made me realize that you can work and achieve the same results as someone who's talented even because if someone who is talented but doesn't really do the work, but you do the work, but you're not talented, then there are cases that you can win and beat that person can let you have the minimal requirements to do anything you want in life. The other book is breaking the habit of being yourself by joe spencer, We've talked about that one.

Amazing. Yeah, I like it because that book really makes a combined spirituality with science. I love that because yeah, I'm used to reading when it comes to spirituality. I'm used to reading books by Esther Hicks, Gabrielle Bernstein louis, hey wayne dyer and then joe dispenser gives it like a twist and connects it to science and yeah, very light. So that's definitely a book I I recommend as well for people to read. So they really understand how they are programmed and that they are able to change that programming and so they have to unlearn in order to really relearn. And so both books basically connect mindset and breaking the habit of being yourself now for something that's not quite scientific. But I'm waiting to see if they can find out how the genie in the bottle works. So I wanted to ask you if you had a genie in a bottle and have one wish, what would that wish? The wish would be that the tallest humans that we're all able to perceive life consistently from a macro level, so that we always prioritize the the essence of life, which is connection and purpose, which is basically, that are permanent, understands that we don't really Uh worry about petty things that we always remind ourselves of the fundamental aspects of life, what is needed in order for us to connect and to serve in the world and then when we're 80 when we're 90, we're not going to remember those moments on social media but we're going to remember that connection that walk with our daughter or that conversation with our dad or that moment where we are in that same experience immersing ourselves in that same experience, those moments will be remembered and and that's what I mean, seeing life from a macro level, make sure that your intentions are connected to that macro level, to the fundamental aspects of life, to your desired self.

In some ways it makes me imagine when I think of the macro, I think of rising up, you know, getting a perspective and so finally here, what do you have some advice for our listeners on how they can rise up to their loving heart centered selves? Anything else you want to add to this? Yes. So again, to improve the story you tell yourself about yourself. I think that is vital. I think we should be very mindful about the way we talk to ourselves because Oftentimes that's very critical and we need to be very mindful about our environment because it rubs off on us the way people are around us and that's why you want to find a different environment or retreat in order to do some introspection because it's hard to really change yourself when you're surrounded by people who are against that when you approve yourself and your environment is telling you, Hey, I don't know what you're doing, but you know, come back, come back and they do that because they themselves are not progressing.

They know deep down that they should but they don't, that's why they don't want for you to progress and that's why you have to be very conscious about the environment you find yourself in. And then when you have that moment of solitude where you're not connected to your environment, that's why meditation is very important by the way and you probably you know you want to be very mindful about your ego because I think ego makes you very complacent and whatever dream you might have or objective or goal, like beating social media addiction, your ego is the first to tell you, you know it's it's not really necessary, it's fine because it likes the comfort zone. So you really need to be mindful that this voice that says you can do better, you demand better for yourself, You should expect what you accept. If that voice is louder than your ego then you really set yourself up for success. But when ego is stronger so it tells you that it's okay, the bad habits that you that you're still having, it's okay that you're eating that pizza, it's okay to just go once a week to the gym instead of three times.

That's that's the voice you want to catch in the act, that's the voice you want to recognize so you can then tell the voice No that's not going to happen. So I think at the end of the day you see this is not even directly connected to social media addiction, but I think if you improve your self confidence, you do some introspection, you are aware of your environment, aware of your ego and you start to love yourself thus you improve your habits. Then you're going to give yourself more space to envision that desire itself and then you're also in a better position to think about the steps that are required for you to achieve or become that desired self right? It sounds like in a way there's no stopping you once all that lines up, you know, and and I really appreciate you sharing with us today. I'm excited to see where this goes next. Tell our listeners where can we find you on the, on the web? Yes. So my website is social media breakup dot com.

I'm on twitter and instagram. You see social media is good. I, I don't, I don't want to forget that the social media and tech is okay by the way. I'm not against against social media. So just just to be clear, I use twitter. Um, so my handle his phone breakup and instagram handle his tech breakup and I'm also on youtube. What I want to offer your audience Concetta is I have a um of course where I teach how to use the iphone properly how to transform the iphone into an ally and if your audience sends an email to johan at social media breakup dot com then I will send them a free link so they can access the entire course for free. That sounds wonderful. And we'll have all just so everyone knows this is all in our show notes. So you'll be able to find johan again. I'm going to thank you for spending some time with us today. Thank you. And we'll look forward to seeing what's next. Thank you Concetta, Thank you for giving me the time to talk about it and I highly appreciate it.

Thank you. We hope today's show helped to bring a bit more joy and happiness into your heart. We hope it inspired you to unleash your inner power and rise up to your best and loving, heart centered, highest self. We'd be grateful if you'd leave us a review on Itunes. Those reviews are important to spreading this valuable message. We'd love for you to subscribe to our podcast and share the show with others. Visit hearts rise up dot com for heart centered courses, guided meditations and are popular notes from your higher self Until next time. Keep rising up and may all that you love thrive