Today’s article was written by Change Coach Sarah Edwards
I used to have a full-blown relationship with my Apple Watch. I would gaze at it several times a minute to check how my day was going…emails, texts, step count, calories burned, my bank balance, my diary…signs of atrial fibrillation.
Technology for a busy person perpetually in forward motion getting things done. Until one day forward motion became a dead stop.
A sudden diagnosis of arthritis was followed by a hip replacement…which was followed the day after by a fall, a broken shoulder and a fractured cheekbone. I had passed out and fallen face down onto a hard hospital floor. I came round with four nurses trying to revive me. My first instinct was to apologize (I’m British). My second was to check my watch hadn’t broken.
The following weeks felt like someone had taken my batteries out. I couldn’t walk, cook, sit on a toilet, put my clothes on or have a shower without help. All I could do was sleep, rest, stare out of the window. My routine completely disappeared and daily life was unrecognisable.
The Apple watch came off and it sat gathering dust on my bedside table. As far as I was concerned there was nothing going on worth tracking.
Little did I know, the pace of life that I was now forced to endure was completely and utterly necessary and created a change in me that a million tracked steps would not have achieved, and an Apple Watch wouldn’t be able to capture. It cannot capture or track a feeling. A smart watch is like the brain – it can give you the data but the thoughts that come up as a result of that information are not real.
I was surprisingly completely peaceful in all of this and when finally I woke up one morning and decided I could leave the house and go for a walk…the Apple Watch remained on the side.
A slow walk into the woods where the world was pulled into sharp focus and the trees were greener, the wildlife louder than ever before. Whilst I had slept nature had steadfastly continued its thing and for an hour I stopped and looked at it, and really heard it. If I had worn my watch it would have sent me an accusing message “Have you stopped your workout?” or “TIME to stand up!” I was just being still and in the moment and my world expanded beyond any measurement.
That fall was an almighty nudge to point me to the NOW. Not when all else was done and certainly not when my watch tells me it’s done. Just here and now. I can walk much faster now, I just choose not to.
