There’s something unmistakably tender about how we care for babies and children. We offer them presence, love, warmth, good food, and rest. We protect them from harm. We shield them from violence, processed junk masquerading as food, overstimulation, and harmful screens and content. We make space for them to breathe and grow.

And yet, the moment that child becomes an adult—or we ourselves cross some invisible threshold—we seem to let all of that go. We throw ourselves into the very world we once guarded them from. We take on the noise, the stress, the endless scrolling that we know a child would suffer in. Not because we want to. Because its just “what we do.” To belong, be distracted and to avoid the threat of being different.

There’s a primal safety in doing what the tribe does. If they’re watching White Lotus, we are too. If everyone’s scrolling, so are we. Like sitting in a room, when their phones come out, so do ours. If fries come with every meal, we go with it. We don’t want to be the one who steps back, who doesn’t join in, who starts asking difficult questions. “Ya! lets all do it!” Because to go against the tribe is to risk judgment, exclusion, and the slow, quiet loneliness of being deemed “weird.” And weird, in tribal language, can mean unsafe.

But my journey—both as a coach and a human—has taken me further and further from the main road. I eat differently now: almost entirely carnivore, once a day. I stopped going to restaurants when I became aware of the silent toxicity of seed oils. I stopped going to movies when the trailers and ads began to feel like a full assault. And I started taking one full day each week with no tech at all.

That last one—disconnecting from screens—was the most powerful shift. Ironically, it was the one I least expected. Now, more and more often, I leave my phone off entirely. I use a desktop when I work, but otherwise, I’ve created space. A silence.

We all carry a cultural image that to let go of technology means returning to horse-and-buggy days. That it’s extreme, backwards, impossible. But I’ve found the opposite to be true. Turning off all technology—screens, phones, even microwaves—was the most profound return to old ways I could’ve imagined. And it only took four or five hours before I settled into it. Less time than it takes to digest your lunch. That fast.

Suddenly, time stretched. My internal clock started ticking loudly again. The silence, rather than feeling empty, felt full. Time elongated. Awareness deepened. Presence returned.

From inside the culture—when you’re bathed in dopamine cycles and headlines and hashtags—it all seems impossible to step away from. Even pointless. You wonder, Why bother? Isn’t this just how things are now? But once the wind of change catches your sail, it’s hard not to feel its pull.

And you begin to suspect: maybe there’s a true north inside. A direction your life longs to go. A signal so quiet it’s drowned in the constant hum.

We’re like whales in what was once a vast, quiet ocean. A place where our calls echoed for hundreds of miles. Now the water’s thick with the hum of shipping lanes and industry. Giant boats cross oceans so that one country, desperate for work, earns five dollars a day, while another pays five dollars for a coffee to be delivered to their doorstep. Everything’s in motion. And the cost of convenience is deafening.

The more I step away from that world, the more I want to keep going. Not to reject the world entirely, but to rediscover what’s real. What’s nourishing. What’s true. And not just in food or tech or consumption—but in rhythm, in breath, in presence.

Sometimes, we don’t know what we want. But we do know what we don’t want. And that’s enough. That’s a direction. Leaving something behind—whether it’s a habit, a screen, or a way of life—can be just as powerful as moving toward something new.

For me, stepping away from screens—even for a day—was like tuning an old radio and finally catching a whisper of a frequency. The more I listened, the clearer it became. Sometimes the whisper brings fear or grief. But it also brings guidance. And with each step I take, the signal gets stronger. I’m not drifting. I’m coming home.

There’s a path for each of us. But you can’t hear its call until you quiet the noise. Step back. Get still. Remember how you treat children—with tenderness, nourishment, presence. Then offer the same to yourself.

That’s where the journey begins.