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Switch Off and Unplug for an Entire Week

1/3/2017

This is post #2 on how to re-tool your life when it’s been dealt a life-altering change.

First, this is a good thing to do intentionally and willfully, but having it thrust upon me tells me I did not do a good job with other opportunities in the past. I’ve learned that if you don’t seize the opportunities to do some self-work, you end up doing it by force. The same thing with your physical health, if you don’t take time to rest, you’ll be in bed sick. The Universe conspires to change me into a better person.

We did a 40-day sabbatical, where we just unplugged from email, calendars and most other social activity. The location change to San Diego helped too. We had limited internet in the marina. The initial purpose of the 30-day vacation was to celebrate our 30th anniversary, that turned into a 40-day sabbatical as a result of losing both our jobs.

The second time I really got a dose of disconnection was our trip down the coast from San Diego to La Paz, BCS Mexico; about 1000 miles. As we left the States, our first overnight between San Diego and Ensenada, my iPhone decided to do a forced update, the problem was, in order to activate the phone, it just needed to check in with a Verizon cell tower, no problem right? There are none, there is no coverage for about 750 miles of the Baja.

What I learned was two things did not happen. I did not die and the world did not collapse due to my absence of influence. So, does that mean I’m not important? Does that mean it’s essential to have access to the internet? I guess not. That sounds kind of harsh, however being over 50 years old, I’ve seen a few of my friends die, and ironically, life goes on; at least with those left behind to fend for themselves.

It is strange, but our sense of importance, even being essential is potentially overblown. Try this experiment, even use your iPhone slo-mo filming mode, having your hand in water, pull it out and see if there is a handprint left behind, even one second later. Not so much, right? So what in the world is really important? Reminds me of Miracle Max in The Princess Bride, “Hello in there! what’s so important? Whatcha got worth living for?” It’s a good question. (a great movie too)

You’re probably wondering, how does he start asking you to give up tech for a week and now we’re talking about the meaning of life? Well, let’s be real, we have average of 22,000-30,000 days on the Earth, and what we do with it matters. I’ve heard myself say this to people often lately, “You can take two things with you when you die, your friends and your memories. Nothing tangible goes with you. I believe if you love well, tell your friends the truth, you’ll see them in Heaven.

Memories are the best things to create intentionally. You can create them out of nothing, and give them to people as a gift. They’ve done studies about happiness, and the people who buy things are happiest on the day they bring it home, the happiness drops dramatically as time carries on. In fact, the thing they loved, is now despised. However, if you invest in making memories and having experiences, you discover they get better with time. That vacation that was a disaster is now ‘the best vacation ever’ when your adults children are sitting around the Thanksgiving table talking about their childhood. It’s something the mind does, the pain, suffering and calamity fades out of focus to the blurry background, while the fun memories are all that remains.

We personally know really wealthy people who have many choices to do as they please. The happiest ones we know choose travel with friends as the best value versus buying that new Porsche. Now, they may go ahead and buy that car, but they’ll get it in Del Mar and drive up the Pacific Coast Highway to Oregon with an old college friend to make it a memorable experience.

I think the whole thing about unplugging, is to remove the stimulus, remove the addiction to how many Likes you got on that post or retweets and realize what is most important. Studies have shown that the dopamine addiction to social media is very real. A subtle change happens. You begin to see the person you meet, that little nudge to call that friend comes into better focus, you’re present in the moment. When you’re free from the constant pull. It’s taking in the moment called now, the only moment you really have.

Live a life worth people talking about for generations. If you want to live forever, have a meaningful life that changes those around you forever. Give the gift of experiences, make memories with others and be present to now.

This blog post series was inspired by the work of Dharam Barrett and can be read here
PS at the writing of this, we’ve had no cell coverage for 9 days, we’re still alive, try it!

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Retooling Yourself Part 1

12/2/2017

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La Paz, Mexico

On our Facebook page @svnewadventures we posed the question: “If you had the opportunity to retool yourself what would you do?” We asked because we really wanted to know, we only had a few responses, which was was disappointing.

This week Tim came across an article by Dharam Barrett called “How To Get Your Life Back On Track When You Feel Broken.” Barrett lists 26 things to do to help you get back on track after events like Tim and I have experienced. This list is quite robust and we are happy to see that we had touched on nearly every one of them. Somehow instinctively we already did about 23 out of 26 and we’re committed to the last 3 after reading the article. Over the next weeks, we'll be posting details of each step we've taken along this road of retooling ourselves.

Number 24 on the list is: “Try something that genuinely scares you.” Yep, that is a work in progress for me! In June last year right after my job ended, Tim and I spent six days in an American Sailing Association Intensive to be certified to bareboat charter anywhere on the globe that accepts these credentials. There are three courses which each had textbooks that had to be read and study guides to be completed prior to our intensive. Each of the three courses have a written test and a practical test. These six days were the greatest skill challenge I’ve had in my life! Beyond the challenge of Air Force boot camp! I was so scared I wasn’t going to make it successfully, there was just so much new information and I wasn’t sleeping at night because of the mistakes I made during the day. I had a huge emotional melt down on the fifth day before going to class.

Try something that genuinely scares you

Here’s how the week was laid out: we lived on boats for the week. We were sleeping on a 37 foot Beneteau for the first four nights. Days 1 & 2 were spent certifying on another boat, the Capri 22 for ASA 101 Basic Keelboat. Days 3 & 4 were spent sailing the Beneteau 37 for the 103 Coastal Cruising. Days 5 & 6 were spent on a 40 foot Beneteau Oceanis for the 104 Bareboat Chartering. Click the links to ASA requirements we had to master, super easy right?

Here’s some background for you: When Tim and I owned our Cal 20 Sailboat 17 years ago I was good at tacking the jib, keeping the kids happy and handling the tiller for short periods of time. I had a good working vocabulary of all the “thingy’s” on the our Cal 20 and an idea of the function of the item. I was just learning to drive this little boat under power in and out of our marina slip 14 years ago, right before we sold it to make room in our budget for a larger boat that has only now materialized. For comparison, Tim could SAIL the Cal 20 out of the slip and then back in again when we were done. Tim has spent years around many different sailboats driving, sailing and racing them. What we embarked on was nearly 100% new everything for me! For Tim this was heaven with only a little new. His challenge was dealing with my emotions. I must note that this intensive was MY idea!

During this intensive when I was crewing and doing what Tim called out, things were great! However, to be certified I had to be the skipper and call out and be fully in command. It was so hard because of our roles we have always had. To tell Tim what to do when I knew he could do it better was scary and tough. I was so afraid to mess up! I suppose my instructor did not make it a safe place for me to fail gracefully. So let me admit where I had a strength, I was better at driving the boat out of the slip than Tim and he was better at parking it in the slip. I even pulled off some better docking than Tim did. I had to prove I could do all these practical things.

One of my biggest fears was driving the boat. The first boat I ever truly drove was a 37 ft sailboat! Never mind starting small? The wheel was so big! (See the pictures) I wasn’t supposed to reach through the wheel to adjust the transmission, but I couldn’t reach it any other way! On our second day of drilling with this 37 foot boat, I was on the helm (the giant wheel), driving into an anchorage to practice anchoring. Also there in the small anchorage were a bunch of kids doing some club racing and I had to avoid them, the wind was blowing the bow of the boat closer to them and I decided to just reverse a bit and make room. After following procedure to shift into reverse and backing up, the shifter would not come out of reverse! Our instructor jerked it out and then the transmission was no longer working and we had to call it a day and sail the boat into the slip. Our instructor was not kind and said I should not have jammed into reverse, but I did not jam it, I wasn’t panicking. I was frustrated because Tim was telling me one thing, the instructor’s body language another and I was supposed to be in charge! The day before, Tim was the helmsman and I did the anchor and we reversed it so we could get the practice. Well, we should not have. We found out that the cable servicing the transmission shifter was completely corroded and just needed to be replaced, I had nothing to do with it getting stuck and breaking.

That was just our intensive. Once we purchased our own boat, I’m still doing things to overcome my fears. Fears such as: sailing at night, check! Sailing alone on watch at night, done! Spending several days on rough seas to see if I got sick, check- no sea sickness! Am I still facing fears, yes! I haven’t encountered squalls or storms, very tall seas over 10 feet, or winds over 25 knots. The marina has been a nice reprieve. There is no doubt in my mind that I am retooling into a skilled sailor and getting free from the land life.

Step out! What will you do to retool yourself?

Lynette

For those of you that are following us here, we also have a Facebook page called S/V New Adventures @svnewadventures. We have done several videos there that have not arrived here on the blog yet! If you do social media check it out! Perhaps the video of us eating cloves of garlic!

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Lynette Jenne a wife of 30+ years, mother of four successful adult children, passionate high school science teacher with a masters in education. Now on a New Adventure sailing, learning and growing evermore as person.

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