Hack to cancel doom scrolling

I recently finished reading ‘Beyond Dreaming’ by Gene Hart. It talks about astral projection, which is the main reason I picked it up. I’m really interested in that. But what I loved the most and got such out of was how he spoke to consciousness, meditating, and thinking. In our world at the moment, the power of thinking and where we spend our attention is a big deal.

One quote from the book that really stood out to me as being so relevant in these times, in regards to wanting to astrally project - AND in maintaining an attention span, was one of his suggestions to help to quiet the mind, is to simply ask yourself;

‘What am I thinking?’

I practiced this, for a few days, and found it particularly helpful when I found myself in a doom scroll. The thing that I like about this question, is that there is no judgement, whereas before I would have shamed myself (unconsciously) saying to myself, ‘are you seriously watching another cake decorating video/hair tutorial/you know that this was just rage bait get out of the comments…’

Gene Harts’ suggestion in his book to simply ask the question and just BE is an absolutely amazing way to sit with what’s going on, not judge, not add any extra layers of interpretation, to just be and let thought pass by. Its a really great way to let those times when our minds wander to become an opportunity for meditation practice - which everyone is too ‘busy’ to do. We aren’t, we are just not taking advantage of all of these opportunities to still the mind for even just a minute. Our world is so fast, and technology is going to be such a big focus of the next 20ish years.

In his book, Gene Hart says:

‘Imagine for a moment that a man creates a small advanced device that echoes everything he says, and not just that, but it records everything in his life like a video camera does, and he can play back scenes whenever he likes by simply willing it. On top of this, the device is so powerful, it can play back hundreds of images, sounds and videos, with infinite storage capacity. The man then attaches this device inside his head.

As he goes about his day with this incredible and revolutionary tool, he enjoys being able replay scenes to study them in-depth and is able to do many things at once. Others marvel at his newly found cleverness and praise him. The man loves his device so much, which has enabled him to analyse and create more things than anyone else. He loves his ‘mind-tool’ more than anything in the world. However, after many years of use, he becomes so absorbed in this tool that he forgets that he even created it, and not only that, but the tool becomes so dysfunctional and out of control that he cannot turn it off anymore.

The device starts constantly playing multiple videos and images all at the same time. The man becomes overwhelmed and upset and cannot choose what videos to pay attention to anymore. Thus, he is no longer the controller of this tool and falls to the mercy of it – he falls BELOW the level of the mind. He becomes depressed and solemn and falls victim to any sense-perception presented by this ‘mind-tool’ that is running rampant. This leads to all sorts of physical and mental illnesses. Emotions are the reactions to our thoughts, and when we do not like or do not want specific thoughts because we lack control, we often develop negative emotions.

In turn, developing negative feelings in our body which give rise to ‘dis-ease’ (disease). The emotion of ‘ease’ is great medicine, not ‘dis-ease’. If the man is not careful and becomes too consumed by this tool, he may begin to not be able to identify the illusions of his mind-tool from reality; this is when we call a person insane.

The mind is a tool of reflection, the ability to recognise oneself and the world through a mirror, but the mind is so powerful that we unconsciously create many mirrors, and mirrors within mirrors, and mirrors battling against mirrors within us for power. The mirrors take a mind of their own and crave our attention; this is essentially the root of addiction and compulsion. This is what Buddhists call Maya; illusion, or delusion. This is the state of a large portion of humanity’s mind today in varying degrees.’

I think, that with the state of the world, this isn’t actually that far fetched. This is happening. This book was published in 2021, so technology was moving very fast, but even in the years to follow its publish date things have picked up pace. Everything is becoming so caught up in overthinking and detachment.

I wonder if Gene was talking about AI when he was talking about the device that man created. Well, actually I’m sure he was. And that man has forgotten how to create and how to emote without prompts… how to connect to his physical body, its all in the air.

And when the man was becoming upset because the device was playing multiple videos at one time, is that all of the shorts that we ‘have’ to watch, all while not realising we can just put the phone down and take a breath.

We don’t need to be inviting all of this negative emotion and drama into our minds. All of the rage bait, all of the cheesy hooks, promises to look a certain way, feel a certain way, potential new partners to swipe through, cakes way prettier than the ones you make your kids for their birthdays…

It makes you feel like crap (negative emotions - disease).

‘Through not giving useless thoughts our energy anymore, we begin to save energy for ourselves.’

• Gene Hart

I’m not saying that all thoughts are useless, and not all of the thoughts that arise after being on our phones and technology are useless either. There is always a little gem to be excavated. Its just learning how to slow down an what thoughts are authentic to us and are appropriate for us to act upon.

I have also noticed people saying when they will be happy they will do all of these things that are flashing before them in their phones.

“Realise deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.”

- Eckhart Tolle

I will be happy when I have this much money, this car, this outfit.

I mean, I’m excited for my new laptop bag to arrive, it puts the fear of god into me every time I bump my laptop when I take it somewhere. I’ve got some new essential oils arriving to experiment with. Thats also exciting. But I’m not making it my whole life. I can enjoy my day to day.

I think that the this mind control that technology has over us is leading to more people being miserable because they aren’t ‘like’ what they see on their phones. They don’t have as much money, as many shoes, they aren’t a YouTube travel blogger (I think that would be fun also not going to lie). All of these desirable things are within reach, 24/7, non stop, and designed to make us want to have them and buy them and be like them.

‘The mind is a tool of reflection, the ability to recognise oneself and the world through a mirror, but the mind is so powerful that we unconsciously create many mirrors, and mirrors within mirrors, and mirrors battling against mirrors within us for power. The mirrors take a mind of their own and crave our attention; this is essentially the root of addiction and compulsion. This is what Buddhists call Maya; illusion, or delusion. This is the state of a large portion of humanity’s mind today in varying degrees.’

• Gene Hart

It’s interesting that when we get on to a spiral of ‘wow I need that thing’, how quickly it falls away when you think:

‘What am I thinking?’

It really works. I thought I needed some beauty products yesterday, thought, ‘what am I thinking’, slowed down, didn’t judge my thoughts, and remembered, I don’t like wearing that much makeup. I don’t know how to contour. Why have I gone down a foundation rabbit hole and suddenly ready to whip my credit card out for a foundation and contour kit?

I might like to try it one day, but I was very much on an unconscious doom scroll session. I had not set out to purchase those items. I think I was checking my email to start.

I thought that I was pretty good in terms of my attention span, I am very aware, and I have turned off notifications for my social media on my phone, and am making a very conscious effort to shift away from it. But it can still happen, I have had a lot of success with this thought, I recommend trying it!

Thank you for reading!

Sarah ♥︎