Tina 00:00:00 Hey, guys, today I have a special guest on. Her name is MJ Marie Vachon and she is a licensed clinical social worker and eMDR therapist. And she's also the creator of The Inner Challenge. And we'll talk a little bit about that. And the host of creating Midlife Calm podcast. And you're gonna love that podcast. But today. We had such an interesting conversation about cell phones. And as you can imagine, and you might. Have wondered this yourself how much time do I spend on them? How do I get back my. Time? How do I spend my time more productive? What does the what do what do the cell phones actually do to us? And how can we reduce our. Stress and anxiety by reducing our times on our cell phones. So this is such a great conversation and it was so interesting. Let's get into it. You are listening to the Soul Aligned Self-care podcast. I'm your host, Tina Stinson, and I had a stroke at the age of 39 from stress and burnout that shook my world.
Tina 00:01:05 Now I'm laying it all out. The deep level self-care practices and mindset shifts that I needed that kept me healthy, balanced, and thriving. Join me in this intimate space as we explore healing, resilience, and the soul's journey to alignment. This is where real conversations about deep level self-care happen. Let's get into it. Hello and welcome, MJ to the Soul Alliance Self-care podcast. It's so great for you to be here with me today.
MJ 00:01:40 I'm very excited just to have a conversation with you. Thank you so much for inviting me to be on.
Tina 00:01:45 Yeah. If if we to get started, if you could just tell me a little bit about yourself and what you're doing. And also, just before we hopped on, we were talking about your podcast, talk about, you know, that a little bit. I would love to start off that way.
MJ 00:02:02 Oh, absolutely. I am a licensed clinical social worker, so for almost 39 years I have seen clients. I did ten years in community mental health.
MJ 00:02:12 I have been in large group practices, small group practices. And now, because most of my cohort has retired and I'm still going at it, I'm in individual private practice and I see clients three days a week. And at this point in the game, my youngest client is eighth grade and my oldest client is 87. And that's one of the beautiful things about a long career, is that I just kept learning about different ages and stages and problems. And so now I see as many men as I do women, and I see as many young people as I do midlife and as many midlife as I don't see as many seniors as I do people in midlife and younger. So that's one hat. At about year seven, I was talking to a colleague and we were lamenting, this is in the 90s, how we had all this great information about mental health, mental wellness, but the public didn't have it and we decided to do a girls camp. We called it camp. We called it Inner Challenge, and every junior high sent two girls to the weeklong camp.
MJ 00:03:17 And we basically gave information about mental health and how they could cultivate mental health and adolescents. And that was its focus. And the third year, some parents came to us and asked us if we would make it part of the curriculum at their child's junior high. So I had this amazing opportunity for 21 years where I really had a lab where I had six seventh and eighth graders, and I played around every Monday and Friday and trying to figure out how to help them learn about this life stage of adolescence and how to cultivate mental health. And then I after 21 years, I wanted to do something else with it. And I had the chance to create a course at the University of Notre Dame, and I did it with Notre Dame football. And it was the football players who were my students who said to me, you should do a podcast with this. And I said, oh, I would never do a podcast. I'm not that good with tech. And they, of course, because what I had been saying to them is you got to try new things, you got to try new, new things.
MJ 00:04:20 You can't just be a football player. They're like, hey, you got to try new things. You got to try new things. You just can't be a professor. And so I took up the challenge and the the pandemic came. And so my initial podcast was called Inner Challenge. And it was just on mental wellness. And then I decided I would work with a group called Get More Listeners Academy, which are these three fantastic 20 somethings who took me through a whole process and said, this doesn't make sense. You've had 38 years of clinical work, 31 years of teaching mental wellness, but your podcast doesn't at all Focus on all the information you have about how do you make someone, healthy in a clinical way? Why don't you integrate them? And so last July, I shifted. And now my podcast is called Creating Midlife Calm, because it's really the people in midlife that are caring, the burden of responsibility, of opportunity and of raising the next generation. And they are getting it from every angle.
MJ 00:05:24 And so that podcast drops on Monday and Thursday, and there are about 10 to 12 minutes, because the research I did and what I asked all my clients is that that's about the time, you know, that's how long it takes to get to work or, you know, that kind of dosing of 10 or 12 minutes seemed to fit for them. So that's really the two hats I'm so lucky to be able to do, because the mental wellness informs my clinical work and the clinical work informs my mental wellness. And what I've really learned is that mental wellness is a junior high skill. If you went to junior high, you got enough information to be able to create mental health for yourself. You don't have to be a neuroscientist to do it. You might like some facts about it, but it really is just kind of, you know, some good, good old common sense that can be really helpful in helping people feel better.
Tina 00:06:23 Yeah, I really like the idea of your podcast. And I think that, getting like a couple of doses of, you know, you know, actionable things that you could do to help create a state of calm in your life a couple times a week like that would be it's just perfect for a lot of people.
Tina 00:06:41 And I think that, Yeah, I'll have to go check it out, and I'll definitely put a link in the show notes so everybody can check that out. So I think that's really cool. And talking about your the, the inner challenge thing inside of the school for so long. How? How amazing that must have been. I think that if we did more of that with all you know, within that age group, it would just change the trajectory of just the way we are as we, you know, grow into adults. And we could just be more healthy, you know, mentally healthy individuals. I think if we if we learned that as a regular thing, I think that just should be something normal that we learn about when we're in school, you know, how do how to calm the nervous system. And I know there's some, some schools that do do those kinds of things, but not not all of them. That's definitely not something I learned when I went to school. But yeah, that was a long time ago.
MJ 00:07:38 The principal was a visionary. I, I to be very honest, I don't think any of us understood how helpful it was to the students until the program wasn't there anymore. And the teachers who were there, They were. And that. It'll be always. One of my biggest mistakes in my life is that I didn't have a succession plan for it. And so when I left, it left. Yeah. And, the teachers who were there, the students who were there, they're like, there's just such a difference in students not having access to that information. And I think it is just now, like so many things, it's like retirement. You got to figure out your own retirement. We don't have an what I call an infrastructure in our country that promotes wellness, whether it's physical, whether it's mental or emotional, whether it's relational, whether it's spiritual, like everybody's kind of figuring out how to do it for themselves. And that is exhausting.
Tina 00:08:36 And especially when you, you know, when you're an adult and you're like, you know, I wish I would have learned this a long time ago.
Tina 00:08:44 You know, and I think a lot I think everyone does that. Yes. Everybody says that. Oh, well, getting into today's topic, I find it so interesting, talking about our cell phones and how much time we spend on our cell phones and the effect that it's had on us. And I think that as an me, as an older generation, I can I can see those effects. But I feel like some of the younger generations now I have, like my kids the, the span of age between my children. So I have a, I guess you would call her a millennial who's like 31. And then my youngest is, 24. And so there's even a big difference between those two age groups. And I have a middle child in there, but he's closer to the younger one. So, I see these differences, like in real time between myself, my, my oldest daughter, and then my youngest daughter. And I don't think that the younger generations really know the effects that our cell phones are having on us, because it was just always that's what they grew up with.
Tina 00:09:48 And it was it's just normal, and I feel like it's a really heavy load to bear when I think about, like, the way I grew up and if I had to, like, be on all the time because I feel like that's really what it does to you. with social media and everything like that, it it puts you in this state of having to be in this, like, almost like this performance state, kind of. And not like you never have that privacy to yourself that so you can develop yourself in a real way. And I just think I can't even begin to understand the effect that this has on these generations. And then in a simpler way. the amount of time that we just spend on our cell phones, that could be where we could be doing so many other things that are more beneficial. And I'm so like, guilty of this. I do this myself. And I've tried I've really tried to be more intentional and and I am making that happen. But I slip back.
Tina 00:10:48 And so. Yes. I would love for you to talk about how, you know, we can get better at. And I think you said you could save up to two hours a day. Did you say that or something? Yes. That's that's. Yeah. And I.
MJ 00:11:01 Think.
Tina 00:11:01 That's profound.
MJ 00:11:02 My client is I mean, we have to remember the iPhone is 17 years old. It's crazy. This is a very new piece of technology that snuck up on us. And so like what often happens is something occurs and we don't have the guardrails in place. And that's how I look at the phone. It came, it conquered. And now we're having to put guardrails in place. And the metaphor I use is that each individual, each family has to create an infrastructure in order to figure out how they can use the cell phone in a healthy way. And one of the motivations for that is to understand the science behind the cell phone. I often like to tell this story, which in my world isn't unique, but most people are surprised that, when I do assessments, people come usually anxiety, depression, maybe grief when they come.
MJ 00:12:10 My initial part of the assessment is about sleep cell phone exercise. And what I have seen since for the last ten years since I've been doing this. I have not had one client until last week, one new client who was not using their phone, you know, 4 to 14 hours a day. And what I want people to understand is that, like I say to people, how how many hours do you think you were on your phone last week per day, like the average? And most people say, oh, you know, probably 3 or 4. Okay. Well, they have their phone. No one comes to my office without it. Let's check. And everyone does the same thing. Phone shame.
Tina 00:12:57 Yeah.
MJ 00:12:58 And they're shocked. They're shocked.
Tina 00:13:00 Is it like double or triple?
MJ 00:13:02 It's often double.
Tina 00:13:04 Yeah.
MJ 00:13:04 Sometimes it's triple. Yeah. And then they say everybody says the same thing. Well, I was listening to music. Okay, great. Let's you can look at all your apps individually.
MJ 00:13:14 And so it's kind of like a scale. You can think you weigh 150, but when you actually get on the scale you might weigh 145 or 155. But the scale is the scale is the scale. And that's the same with the data on our phones. And so to me, there should be no shame when people understand the science. Then people understand that when the tech bros in Silicon Valley created this, they had three things. They wanted connectivity, which is what they sold it to, wouldn't be so connected. They wanted people to consume it. You know, and so to stay on it and they wanted people to spend money on it. Right. These are businesses. They're not like lounges where people are having coffee and chatting. They may be chatting, they may be having coffee, but it's a business. And so the whole purpose is to get us to spend money and to get us to look at advertisements. It's it's the television of today. And they used all the information from neuroscience.
MJ 00:14:18 And it's really helpful to understand that you are not more powerful than your cell phone. And you do not lack willpower because of your cell phone. It is set to hook up to the reward system of your brain. And it is set to give you hits of dopamine, which is one of the neurochemicals. So when you see a puppy, are you love that when you see something that mirrors your political view. You love that. And you? It feels good inside. And so people would say to me. What's wrong with that? Like, why shouldn't we use something that makes us feel good? The reason is because our reward system in our brain has evolved slowly over time, and it isn't used to the rapid and the urgent hits of dopamine that the phone gives us, because we can keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, and what we're scrolling for is to get another hit. And that depletes our dopamine system. So if we're on it too long and everyone's done this, we feel irritated.
Tina 00:15:23 Yeah I could feel it when I, when I scroll and I'm in like that.
Tina 00:15:28 You know I don't know it's like a it feels like a fit almost. And you could like I could feel it in my energy and I'm like, ooh, like feels icky. It doesn't feel good anymore. Right.
MJ 00:15:38 Our brain is an incredible machine and this is simplifying it. So if someone is a neuroscientist out there, you could do a much better job than me of explaining it. But for lay purposes that it's releasing all this dopamine very, very quickly and the brain is not meant to replenish it as fast as it's going out. And so for an adult who's, you know, has decent emotional regulation, you just get off and feel irritated. But for a child with an immature brain, take a nine year old off a video game they've been playing for three hours and there's a complete meltdown no matter what. Nice discussion they had. It's Saturday. You can you can play on this from 9 to 12, but then you have to be off. And it's a complete mental breakdown because their dopamine system has been asked to overwork and not had enough time to replenish.
MJ 00:16:29 So that's one of the like foundational sciences of it is it is wired to make you engage with it. And it isn't wired in a way that works with the evolutionary adaptation of your brain.
Tina 00:16:44 So I have a question. it is somebody that is in a state of anxiety, stress or depression more apt to scroll like that and stay on there because they're looking for that comfort of that, that dopamine hit. are they more susceptible to scrolling for longer periods of time?
MJ 00:17:06 That is a fantastic question. I think I started to say this and I didn't finish. I just want to share a clinical story. Can I share a clinical story? So I have this woman call me. She's 39 years old. I saw her at 16 and she said, can I come in to see you? I'm like depressed and anxious. Make a long story short. She'd been on her phone 6 to 9 hours a day because she was in an industry where she didn't have to work as much. And so I said, you know, and she wasn't stressed.
MJ 00:17:38 It was a planned type. It was a seasonal thing, and she thought she'd have all this energy. So I said to her, like, you're on your phone 6 to 9 hours a day. Like your your brain can't do that. So I'm happy to see you and talk about how anxious and depressed you are. Or you could go home and run your own experiment, get your phone used down to under two hours, which is what works for an adult, and see what happens. And so she came back in two weeks and she's like, oh my God, I'm so embarrassed. I, I made myself anxious and depressed. I said, no, you didn't. The phone made you accident depressed. So when we look at the continuum, overuse for many people will cause them to have a different mood than is their typical mood. If someone suffers from anxiety and depression, you know it doesn't necessarily make someone who doesn't suffer from it more if they don't overuse it. My clients case overuse. Someone who has it.
MJ 00:18:42 It's just going to make them feel worse because they're starting at a lower baseline of feeling good. My client started at a baseline of feeling good and went down and could pop back up. But if someone suffers from anxiety and depression for other reasons besides you know she had been overusing her phone for about six weeks. Okay. And you know, but someone could have that. And then it's just going to make them feel worse. Yeah. So when they get their phone use in, you know, in better shape, they're going to feel better, but they still might have some anxiety and depression if there are other influences and other lifestyle reasons that are feeding into that.
Tina 00:19:19 Yeah. I mean, yeah, obviously. and so you just you mentioned I want to like go deeper into that. you mentioned under two hours. Is that a week for an adult? Is that a day under two hours a day is something that is manageable for, like, the average person?
MJ 00:19:37 Yes. And again, it's like food.
MJ 00:19:40 If you have a milk allergy, I shouldn't tell you to, you know, have two glasses of milk a day, right?
Tina 00:19:43 Yeah.
MJ 00:19:44 Yeah. And so, I think that. So two hours or under is what we like adults to be on a day. And, some people will say, well, I don't feel all that different at three hours. The real rule is, are you getting everything done in your life that you want to get done? And then you can be on the phone for two hours. It's exactly what we would say to children. Hey you have to have your homework done. You got to do your chores. No you got to go to basketball. Then you can do the video game. So this isn't any fancy rule. It's just taking the the rules for our children and now applying them to ourself. Yeah. And so that's the number one rule. One is for the brain. Research has shown us I'm not just this is American Medical Association. I'm not just pulling out the two hours.
MJ 00:20:36 Research has shown that the adult brain should really be on devices two hours and under. Okay, but the common sense rule is are you getting everything done?
Tina 00:20:48 Yeah. It also sounds like a lot when you say two hours, but I know that a lot of people are on their phones a lot longer than that. You know, on an average, including probably me, I haven't checked that, but I'm going to do that after we. After we're done, I'm definitely going to go through my phone and check that. But, another question I have, and I'm not sure if you know the answer to this, but is there a certain amount of time, that someone, somebody's scrolling for getting those dopamine hits? Is there like a, a safe zone where you could say, well, I could my brain can manage those dopamine hits for, you know, 15, 20 minutes or an hour, whatever, you know. is there like, an amount of time where it's safe to get those dopamine hits, or is it really not really good for us at all.
MJ 00:21:37 No, some of it's good. It's just like alcohol. That we know. 0.08 and under you get the benefits of alcohol. Right. And so we ask people like you know have a glass of wine. But notice when you go from being relaxed to kind of feeling a little cloudy in your thought process. Or relaxed to for some people sleepy. And it's not illegal to not drink the rest of the wine if physically you, you know. So it's the same. I work with people to figure out individually how they can get the good hits of dopamine. So here's I can use a case example of me. The other night I sat down and I twice a week. I like to look at threads and I like to look at the parenting. And I'm always impressed. People give very good advice. And so I'm I'm looking and you know, every so often people give wacky advice. But for the most part, people I think are kind and lovely and helpful. And so I set my timer and I'm going to do this because I, I know I can do 10 to 15 minutes, get off and go do what I really need to be doing.
MJ 00:22:46 So I do that, but I the timer goes off and I blow right through it because and honestly, I didn't really want to wash my kitchen floor from being a way to relax to being a distractor right now, I, I could I would always have a podcast I could listen to while I clean my kitchen floor. That's a twofer. I like those, yeah, but I'm scrolling and I scrolled for like 45 minutes. Yeah. And so then when I get off, I'm frustrated. We all know the drill. Yeah. And so what I say to people is set timers for one at ten, one at 15. And that was probably what I did not do. I just set the 15 and I would start there. I, you know, that's what the. And this is not like, you know, this is my little practice in South Bend, Indiana, but so I don't have research on this and there probably is someone who has. But the majority of my clients, their reports to me is that they can do scrolling for 10 or 15 minutes and get off and feel like, oh, that was fun.
MJ 00:23:52 I like those puppies or, you know, go Superbowl or whatever people are into.
Tina 00:23:57 Absolutely. Yeah. And one of my practices I like TikTok and I also realize that TikTok is extremely addictive, like really addictive for me and I think for a lot of people. but I do love TikTok, and I love how you can take control of your algorithm and kind of like, you know, if it if it goes south at some point you could really control that just by your actions on there. So I do like that part also. But my practice that works that I don't always do, but this is what works for me, is like when I'm going to hop on to do like a, I'm getting ready to talk to a client or I'm doing this like this interview, for example. I always have at least five minutes where I'm just sitting here and staring at my computer, waiting for that five minutes to go by. Like, I am perpetually early for everything because I don't want to be late.
Tina 00:24:44 And so, like, I'm always here. So like, even before you came on with me, I was sitting here for five minutes. And so that's when I go on TikTok, because it's basically like I could watch 2 or 3 TikToks and be like, oh, cool. Or oh, God, why? Yeah, whatever it might be. And then I'm done because I have to be done. You know, and so that's why if I stick to that, you know, it works for me. Yeah, it don't always stick to that, but that definitely.
MJ 00:25:15 That's why I really talk about outsmarting our smartphones. Yeah. And that the acronym that I use is act one is awareness. You have to be aware of the science. Okay. It is no different than cigarettes. They are addicting. No matter how disciplined you are. And if we understand, oh, the cell phone is addicting. It's not that I don't have discipline, it's that I have to have an infrastructure. And that example of yours is beautiful.
MJ 00:25:44 I am going to do five minutes, because I know that I'm not going to show up for this meeting.
Tina 00:25:50 Yeah. Sorry. I'm scrolling on TikTok.
MJ 00:25:53 Yeah. You know, and again, tick, tick tock. I'm sure everybody knows this by now. It's it's the Jaguar of all apps because it it is so pleasurable. And the other piece of the science, I have a whole cell phone episode that goes through all like 11 points of the science, and it was recently and it has Tick Tock in its title. Like, I don't know, it's like 123 or something, but, is that those initial sense of like that initial feeling of I love this. It decreases in time just because there's not any dopamine to love it as much. But the mind remembers it. And that's why people keep going. Because they want that same hit. So when we create an infrastructure that really respects the science that I have to have a boundary, I have to set it. TikTok's not going to set it for you.
MJ 00:26:49 They want you on it. They're making money the longer you're on it. then you that boundary will protect your brain. But more importantly, that boundary will let you have the good part of the cell phone. Like, I'm not afraid of the cell phone. I'm not a Luddite. I completely believe in people's agency to manage things themselves. But if they don't have the knowledge, it's not fair. Yeah.
Tina 00:27:14 That's true. Yeah.
MJ 00:27:16 And so? So. And the other really piece is overuse. One of the really little known consequences is what used to be pleasurable no longer is pleasurable Because the phone has changed our baseline for enjoyment. Where we used to get enjoyment of oh, look at that sunset. Oh, I love taking a walk in the woods. Oh, look at that cute baby or whatever people's enjoyment were. You know, now because of we have lots of experiences of dopamine being urgent and intense when it dumps into our brain, just like a drug. That's why people get addicted to drugs.
MJ 00:27:58 Not because they like losing their job, not because they want rips in their family, but that that really beginning feeling of, oh, that felt great. Yeah, people are searching for it and it makes other things. So I'm actually doing, a research project N equals one on me where I am not having the cell phone by me when I watch shows. Because what I love to do is during the commercial. I like to pick it up so I don't have to have my brain be whatever. Just I no longer take it into social gatherings. I no longer have it in the car where I might check it at a stoplight. I'm actually like going through this, like custodial divorce process with it, where I love it and I use it, but I'm not allowing it to companion me. So when I have to wait in line, I'm on it doing something and it is very uncomfortable.
Tina 00:29:03 It is very uncomfortable. I heard someone talk about that. Like when you're on a train ride. Yes, or something like that.
Tina 00:29:08 And I do take the train quite a bit. So this kind of like really sit with me is to just not be on your phone. And I'm like, yeah, I don't, I don't. Now, I do listen to books when I take a train ride. So, I'm on my phone, but I could read a book, you know, I could just read a physical book And. And I think that it could be it's really difficult for us because we're so used to being stimulated to just sit with ourselves. You know, something that like. Like. And like I said, generationally, I think, this is the effect that I'm talking about. So it's almost like, well, I'm going to ask you, is it almost like we're desensitized to, like, the pleasure? So it's almost like we need something more to experience that dopamine hit because we're so used to the scrolling. So like in our regular lives, like something that normally would be very pleasurable is we're not having the same reaction to it, so we almost seek out more.
Tina 00:30:05 Is that what you're saying?
MJ 00:30:07 It's really twofold. One is that that's the science that our brain has gotten accustomed to, just like drug use, to these intense experiences of pleasure. And it's chasing that. Yeah. But the other thing is, we now live in an attention economy. You know, we used to be agrarian. Those farmers. I was like, you know, growing corn. Then we went to the industrial, you know, making stuff. And now we're into attention that everyone is vying for our attention. And one of the I think, little discussed consequences of that is we don't know how to just sit without someone directing our attention to where they want it to be. And so I have I have no problem with someone reading their phone on the train. But I also want people to understand that it is really valuable for your brain to not be stimulated. To be able to just have its own thoughts. To have some time when it's not working so hard the, you know, it's a harder read on a phone than in a book.
MJ 00:31:17 And so again read your phone on the train. But when you get home and that's really what I'm trying to do with myself, is that I went through the whole Christmas season, did all the parties and all the fun stuff. Leaving my phone in the car. And of course, what I thought is I won't be able to take pictures. I never take pictures. And if I do take pictures, I don't do anything with them anyways. Yeah, and it was, it was so different because I was at the party and when I was changing from one room to the other, I didn't look at my phone to be like, oh no, that's terrible, that's happening. Or oh, and it would take me away from being present. And and how would I see. Because I do still work with teenagers and college students. My concern is they don't have an inner life. And 40 years ago I worked in Chicago and I did in-home therapy with low income families, mostly in the housing projects.
MJ 00:32:13 Often police escorted us. It was a blast. It was the most interesting. I was a rural kid from Indiana. Never been exposed to any of that. And I also see college students today. And those kids who had almost no resources. Had better interior lives, better communication skills than the college students I see today. Now there's exceptions. The one young woman who I did an assessment last week is the first person since 1012 years when I looked at her phone. She was under two hours and I've never had that. And I said to her, oh, I noticed you use your phone like hour and 50 minutes a day. Why is that? She goes, oh, she goes, I am so lucky. I just have this incredible attention span and concentration and I just want to keep it.
Tina 00:33:14 So she's being intentional about it.
MJ 00:33:16 She's intentional. Yeah. And so I reversed engineered the answer. And she has parents who are teaching her that.
Tina 00:33:23 Okay. Let's see. I was going to ask.
Tina 00:33:25 I was going to say, what's different about this girl? What's different? And so she's just.
MJ 00:33:29 She has words for her experience.
Tina 00:33:31 She's she's aware of the science like you were talking about.
MJ 00:33:37 Yes. And she's in therapy to get herself prepared for college. She's a straight-A student. An athlete. Gets enough sleep. I mean, she just has a home life where the parents have really updated themselves about lifestyle.
Tina 00:33:57 I bet they work in tech.
MJ 00:33:59 No, no, the mom is a therapist, and the dad's a professor.
Tina 00:34:03 Okay.
MJ 00:34:04 So, the information is out there. But I do I will say this, I think one of the things is that she was not born in this country, and she, she came here when she was fairly old. So I think she grew up with a different set of wellness values.
Tina 00:34:21 Yeah, that's that's interesting. That could be a whole nother podcast.
MJ 00:34:25 Because the one thing you talked about and I just want to when I taught the football players, it was really fun.
MJ 00:34:32 And I was kind of winging a lot of it. Like I had my mental wellness program that wasn't, but I had to adapt it to their needs. Yeah. And one of the things that spontaneously came up was this concept of the performance. I know, and for many of them, it's Notre Dame football. Like it's an it is the best place. I knew nothing about the inside workings and I what a great organization. And they talked about this tricky thing for an 18 year old boy where you are a performer and people think that's who you are. And how do you hold on to your real self? when you are so often viewed as this one small part of you? Yeah, and you said that at the beginning, like one of the consequences of the phone is we all become performers. Instagram blah blah blah. And we can think that is our real self. And our performer self is really our self esteem connected to what we do. It's kind of like the weather. It's up it's down.
MJ 00:35:52 We don't have as much agency and influence on it as we like to think. And then our real self is we're great. Yeah. From the minute we're born, we're valuable. The person who's homeless is as wonderful and as honorable and should get the same respect as the person who's a doctor. I mean, I understand that doesn't happen, but we're all born with dignity. We're all born with a self-worth that never changes. But our culture has conflated them. Yeah, we're the rich and the powerful. We treat as if they're worthy, even though they may have actions that are abhorrent. And we see that all over today. And so it's for people's mental wellness. We stabilize ourself by understanding like oh that which we do. It goes up. It goes down.
Tina 00:36:43 It's it's exhausting to and this is one of the things why I think I always say I think today's kids have it so much harder than I did because of the, even though there's so many good things that come from the technology that we have today, I think they it's so much harder to grow up in the state that they have to grow up in.
Tina 00:37:04 And I feel like what? And just one of those things is the fact that they feel like they always have to be on. And I always compare this to when I used to sell real estate. and I would do like an open house or something like that, and I would come home exhausted. Even though I was just, I wasn't really doing anything physical, but it was because the whole time I had to be on, turned on, do like this. I had to be this person that I was. Like you said, it's like a performance. And and as you put it, it is only it was only one small part of who I was. But when and then when you go home and you could just be like, And this, like, turn it over to the real you and just relax, you know? Then that's when I would be, like, exhausted from it, and I, I didn't I hated being that way. That's how I feel. I'm not sure if this is true, but I feel like maybe that's how the kids of today might feel, but not even realize it, because they've never even been able to have that that private time to themselves because they're always turned on.
MJ 00:38:12 Yeah, that's a beautiful lead in like the first part of act is awareness of the science. The second is create phone free time. And I agree with you. It's very different to be a kid today. But it's also really different to be a parent today. Oh gosh. And that's one of the things I want to say to parents that, you know, I really invite you to create an infrastructure for phone use in your home because your children desperately need you to do it. When I was in the junior high, it was the number one thing the kid said to me, hey, MJ. Like, I'm not as bad in my phone as my parents. I'm like, well, yeah, it's an equal opportunity. A doctor like. Yeah. And so the see and act is to have a family meeting. If you're an individual living by yourself. Meet with yourself and really commit to. This is our van. This is our phone free time. And that will be different. Some days are different.
MJ 00:39:11 I have in the last year, I've had a lot of families Lies by boxes lofty yonder, because it's it is so difficult to always be negotiating with kids. And if everybody decides you put the decision phone free time. A lot of families I work with, it's, you know, if their kids are, you know, under high school age, it seems to be about like 530 to 7 30 or 8 a little bit later with high school kids, and everybody comes home and they put their phone in a unified place. And I have some families that lock them up because kids sneak them out, blah, blah, blah. And that I, I am starting to see for children. I'm encouraging families as they're, you know, sixth or seventh graders, whatever age people get their phones is that they have a box and they have a lock on it, and they look at it like a gun safe. That they are probably more dangerous in all honesty long term because everybody locks their guns up. Except there's always the exception.
MJ 00:40:15 But, you know, I live in Indiana. A lot of people have guns. Yeah, and they all have gun safes. Yeah. And so I'm starting, and I know it sounds extreme, and they're probably like pushing to listen to the next podcast, but you know what? What it says to kids is we're going to teach you just like we do with the car. Right? We're going to teach you how to use this. So it adds to your life. And it doesn't take away from your life or even cost you your life. Yeah. We have no government regulation. Europe does. Yeah. You know, go to Europe. I was in, Spain a while ago. I was in Italy in October. People are not walking around like this. And I was fascinated by that. And I asked somebody and they're like, oh, we're not rich like Americans.
Tina 00:41:03 That's really funny. That's interesting.
MJ 00:41:06 So I mean, it's so unfair. And one of the reasons I pivoted my podcast is because if people in midlife are healthy, their kids will be healthy.
MJ 00:41:21 But a kid is never going to be able to outpace their parent in health. And so and the phone the phone is always that they need parents to do with the phone what they do with driving. I've never yet met a parent that the kid turned 16 and said, here's the keys. Have at it. Yeah. They go to driver's ed. They, you know, and this state regulates it.
Tina 00:41:44 Yeah. Yeah. So the phone is actually more dangerous. There's so many, you know, there's you know, there's so many topics we could talk about like this predators. There's. Yeah, there's just so many things I have to say when my kids because my kids are all adults right now. I was like on the cusp of that. So my oldest daughter, it wasn't really that much of a thing yet when my oldest daughter was growing up, and I ended up getting her a phone because she played lots of sports, and then my two youngest ones is like a six year difference between them.
Tina 00:42:14 Yes. And so like, they were really little and I would come to show up to pick them up, pick her up from sports and I would end up sitting in the car sometimes for an hour with two little kids. And it was like, wow, you know. So I was that's that's when I gave into the phone because she played every sport. I'm not even exaggerating. She she played every sport. And so it was a constant thing. And I was a single parent. So it was just, you know, it was not there was no other way around it. That's how I felt. But that's what we used it for. I don't remember it wasn't like a thing yet because it was like on the cusp. And then my two younger ones, I didn't view it as something bad because it wasn't really. We didn't know that much about it yet. And so I had you had limited minutes. Yeah. You had limited tricks, but I had no structure. Yeah, I, I regret that definitely.
Tina 00:43:02 I had no structure with my kids and I and I see it, I saw it the most with my youngest child as she grew up. And now she's very intelligent and just she's deleted her, you know, social media apps for that reason. Like so she's she's definitely aware and takes care of care of it herself, which is really nice. so I think that I do not envy parents today. They have so many things that they have to deal with. I feel I feel kind of a lot. It's a lot. I don't know if I would have kids if it was.
MJ 00:43:39 The saddest part for me is the number one tension when I do family work, between parents and their kids is the phone. Yeah. And I used to be, I say really patient. And then people didn't make changes. And now I only take people who understand that we're going to assess the family's phone use. And if they're not interested in creating, see phone free time, then, they'll be frustrated working with me.
MJ 00:44:12 And I just say, okay, here we are. We've tried it for five weeks. There's been no change. I'm a I'm failing you. Go find someone else because I'm not making it happen. So the key is that it's also cultivate your content and so curate, curate your content. Yeah. That you get one mind. And what you put in your mind really impacts how you are what your kids put into theirs. And so again we cultivate what they watch in movies and shows. We need to do the same. And we need to help kids understand that nothing on their phone is private. So there should never be an agreement between parent and child that this is my private diary. I have a key to it. Don't read it because I can't tell you how many teenagers I've had where their phones have been subpoenaed. Really good kids. Because there has been something sexting pressure to, you know, take a picture of themselves and it's crossed the state line, and somehow it ends up in the school counselor office.
MJ 00:45:14 And then they're in the police station. Yeah. And, you know, and maybe that's just small town Indiana. They're probably not doing that in New York City, but it is really. they need to understand. So I say to parents, you know, the phone is yours, you don't give it as a birthday gift. You're probably, you know, maybe you're giving a car to your kid at 16, but you're probably making sure they can drive first and say, you know, we did. This is a phone that we're giving you to use, but we have the right to take it away and we have the right to check it. And I will just tell you, the teenagers push back there and then in my office. They're so grateful. Yeah. Because they're like, I was thinking about getting on a porn site. Porn is the number one thing used on the internet. average age in the United States of boy or girl seeing porn is down to eight, eight and a half.
MJ 00:46:03 Oh, yeah. And so what we're seeing is sexual development that is actually being formed by porn. Not by that cute boy or girl in social studies class in seventh grade. And so that really curating that what's on your feed is very important. Yeah. And the whole thing with algorithm, I have a nice episode on the political divide that talks about what the algorithm is and how if you're not careful, you just get one part.
Tina 00:46:33 Yeah.
MJ 00:46:34 And just to be sensitive to time that the T and the act A is awareness of science. See as curate you know create free time curate what's your content. The t is the hardest part and that's take it out of the bedroom.
Tina 00:46:48 Yeah. Yeah. That is hard. That is hard. So I have a question for you, because my biggest reason for not taking it out of my bedroom is because it's my phone. And if my kids want to get Ahold of me, I want them to be able to get Ahold of me. So that's my biggest excuse.
Tina 00:47:07 I also have to add though. I'm really, really good in the morning not going on my phone. I, I just don't. That's great. But at night I'm not. I, I sometimes use it as a distraction when I'm falling asleep. But it's it backfires. A lot of that time. So what what is your suggestion when someone gives you that excuse? Because I know.
MJ 00:47:28 Everyone gives that excuse. Yeah. The two most thing is I use it as my alarm and. Okay, Amazon, you can buy an alarm for nine bucks. Yeah. You can go to thrift store and get one for two. the second thing is this is that I do understand the, the child thing. Yeah. When you're on your phone at night it disrupts your melatonin. Yes. Right. And so melatonin you know rises in the morning. Sets at night. The blue light from this and devices. So we just want people off their devices 90 minutes to 2 hours before bed. Okay. I just I had a client we have really, arm wrestled with getting this phone out of her bedroom.
MJ 00:48:07 And it really disrupts her sleep. And she finally is in week number two. And she has many children and they're all ages. And what's the solution? You plug it outside in the hallway of your bedroom because nobody gets up in the middle of the night. Typically, I mean, you might go to the bathroom, but you're probably not going to go down. Some people might go eat or whatever, right? But I look at this as M&Ms. Nobody has M&Ms on their bed stand because they need them. So just so it's just being logical, right? Yeah. If you put the phone in the hallway, you decrease the chance.
Tina 00:48:45 Yeah. So, like, if I just have it. So it's not like right next to me, but it's within an earshot. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. Hear it. Yeah.
MJ 00:48:53 And she actually during the session today created a new rule. And she's like, I'm only letting myself use my phone when I'm sitting up. I have to be in a chair sitting up.
MJ 00:49:03 So she said, that stops me from if I'm cooking. Looking at my phone and then losing 15 minutes and I've, you know, burned something or it's just such it is wired to make us intensely involved.
Tina 00:49:17 Yeah.
MJ 00:49:17 And one of the reasons my new kik I was having a kik is to to be separate from it is because I notice I have I have incredible attention span because all I do is listen to people all day. But I get home and I wouldn't be that attentive to my husband. I'd be out with somebody, I wouldn't be that attentive. And I'm like, that doesn't make sense. I get like super power attention in the office. And but once I've let go of the phone, I notice, like, yeah, I'm present to where I'm at, you know.
Tina 00:49:48 So it's.
MJ 00:49:48 About I use it every day. I love the thing I love. Yeah.
Tina 00:49:52 So it's about it's it's really about setting those parameters for yourself and sticking to them. Right. Do you have any before we get off? Do you have any more suggestions on how to help people stick to their the boundaries that they're setting for themselves and the parameters that they set for themselves?
MJ 00:50:14 The first is to create the infrastructure and to understand that you will fall off the wagon, just like I did the other day.
MJ 00:50:21 Yeah, like you will fall off the way.
Tina 00:50:23 I do it all the time.
MJ 00:50:24 Just because that's how powerful it is. Not because I'm very disciplined. Yeah, I get to work every day. I pay my taxes. I pay my bills on time. I have so many. I work out five times a week. I have lots of examples of being disciplined, but I don't have more discipline than something that is completely wired to make me hooked in. So I have to create structure. I have to, you know, if we said to kids, hey, show up for school when you want, they wouldn't show up. Yeah, right. So create the infrastructure. Expect yourself to fall off of it. And when you do. Don't lie to yourself. Yeah. When I got off the phone the other night, I was like, God, why did I do that?
Tina 00:51:11 Yeah.
MJ 00:51:12 Oh, I know why I did it. Because that's the science and I want. I didn't really want to wash the kitchen floor.
MJ 00:51:19 Yeah. So I made myself go in and wash the kitchen floor. I didn't coddle myself and be like, well, now I don't have to do what I was really going to do. So I had a client who fell off the wagon. She was supposed to go work out. And she just said, I'm holding myself accountable. I'm holding when I fall off the wagon. I'm not going to pretend that I didn't, that I didn't let myself down. I'm not going to beat myself up. I'm just going to go do what I wanted to do. I do not have a large kitchen floor. This took me all of 15 minutes.
Tina 00:51:53 I know.
MJ 00:51:55 And when I was done, I was like, hey, I got my agency back. The phone one. round one, but I won the match. Yeah. And so I have this internal conversation with yourself. But the other thing is this is very passive. It makes us feel like we're doing something and we're doing nothing.
Tina 00:52:16 Yeah.
MJ 00:52:17 And one of the hardest parts of life today is a lot of people have a lot of on their plates, a lot that's expected of them.
MJ 00:52:26 And then when they have free time, they're little paralyzed and they don't know what to do. Yeah. And that's a separate episode. Yeah. That's a dynamic, you know. That's a dynamic I like people to be aware of. Sometimes it's easier to be on the phone for 3.5 hours a day, then to say, oh, what am I going to do? And I have this every day in my office. Someone who says, oh my gosh, I've got so much time and I'm overwhelmed and I'm on my phone all the time and I don't really know what I want to do because we're so programmed. It's about when we.
Tina 00:53:01 And hopping off that hamster wheel like that that you know when you have the blinders on you're just doing do and doing and just stopping and hopping off the hamster wheel and just being present with it.
MJ 00:53:11 And so I say to people ground your feet. Close your eyes and sit. Terrifying feeling of not knowing what to do. And our emotions work on a bell curve.
MJ 00:53:22 They last about 90s. And all my clients do this. Pretty much everybody learns it because I have my own emotional regulation way, and that's how I teach it. But they'll sit with I don't know what to do. I feel overwhelmed, I'll feel. I'll feel overwhelmed. I'll feel, you know, and then somebody like this little voice inside will say, go work on your train track.
Tina 00:53:40 Yeah.
MJ 00:53:41 Go for a walk.
Tina 00:53:42 Yeah.
MJ 00:53:44 Go pull some weeds. Like, those are very satisfying things to do. We don't always have to do something fantastic.
Tina 00:53:52 Exactly.
MJ 00:53:53 Sometimes it's just beautiful to do the normal and the ordinary. And I think that's one of the, the unintended consequences of the phone. Everybody wants a big life. Oh, no no no no. It's so great to have an ordinary life. I have such an ordinary life. I get my ordinary car and I drive to my ordinary job. Yeah, and I see my ordinary friends, and we drink ordinary coffee. And I admire, like I admire people who are in the media doing good things.
MJ 00:54:19 And, you know, maybe things just fell their way or whatever, but I don't admire them more than I admire my neighbour who teaches piano lessons to kids. And I think that's where our worth really grounds us that our self esteem is passing. You know, I'll do this podcast for a few years and then it'll be done. But I'll still be my same self. And so doing this it often grounds people in what really they desire and they need that isn't fancy. It's not going to get any likes but is truly unique to them. And it's really connected to who they are. Not the performer self, the real self. And that's what separating ourselves from our phone and our children don't even get a real self. Because they know that the phone is telling them all the time who to be.
Tina 00:55:13 Yeah.
MJ 00:55:14 And we can.
Tina 00:55:15 But we can cultivate that for them as a parent you know. Yeah. As you, as you said. And I think that we need to take that into our own hands and create that for them.
Tina 00:55:25 And, I think that's a perfect place to end, you know? that was I that conversation talking about time that went by like that, but I know I.
MJ 00:55:35 Couldn't believe it. When I looked, I was like.
Tina 00:55:37 Yeah, it's just so.
MJ 00:55:39 Because I have my own podcast and I edit, I never want anyone to have like 90 minutes to edit. That's a nightmare. So yeah, so I looked at the time, I'm like, I have to save her from all her huge editing project.
Tina 00:55:51 Oh, well, before we get off, can you tell people the best way to connect with you?
MJ 00:56:00 MJ Marie Vachon v h o n.com. Okay, that's my website and it's a little clunky. that's on my list of to do's, but if you go there it'll say contact okay.
Tina 00:56:14 And that's where you could also find your website and anything else you got your hands in.
MJ 00:56:19 My podcast is on all, you know Spotify, Apple it's on all that. So you can also just listen to that.
Tina 00:56:24 Yeah okay.
MJ 00:56:25 Cool.
Tina 00:56:25 We'll put that in the show notes. It's been such a pleasure having you on. I loved our conversation.
MJ 00:56:31 It's a really fun way, right, to get to know other people. Yes. This is really, really fun.
Tina 00:56:36 I love interviewing people. I, I, and I learned so much. I feel like it's almost like I'm getting like, this free education. I feel so lucky.
MJ 00:56:44 I know you're a very good interviewer, too. You're a really, really good interviewer. Very good interviewer. Yeah. So I really appreciate it.
Tina 00:56:51 Okay. Well, thanks again for coming on. I thank you so much. Here.
MJ 00:56:54 Okay. Super fun.
