What I'm working on: Who has access to me
- Phil McAuliffe
- Mar 5
- 8 min read
I’m working on being more discerning about who has access to me.
What I’m learning can help you feel more connected and bring peace.
Hello, you wonderful human.
Perhaps like you, I have a love/hate relationship with my phone.
I love how it helps me connect with the world, especially with those most important to me. How wondrous is the device that with a few taps of the screen, I can check in with Jeff and the kids to see how their days are going, or to message a friend or relative on the other side of the world.
I love how, as a weather nerd, I can see what the weather is here or anywhere in the world in moments. Similarly, as a plane nerd, I love how I can look up at the sky and see a plane and then open an app to see where it’s flying to, how old the plane is and almost the entire history of flights that plane has done.
It’s a tool of marvel and a feeder of curiosity.
But I dislike how it interrupts my day. I dislike how much attention and energy I give over to it, especially in wondering how HUMANS:CONNECTING's latest post on social media is faring.
I dislike the hold it seems to have on me, where it’s almost always a few centimetres away from my hand and how frequently I reach for it, open it up and start scrolling.
I dislike how it gets in between me and other humans when we’re connecting. It feels like rather than sitting in front of someone, it’s best for me to get and hold their attention by messaging them while I stand in front of them.
What I most dislike is how I’d reach for it as soon as I woke up (it is my alarm, after all) and start scrolling social media, catch up on the news and check email. All this before I was even awake and out of bed.
Then, throughout the day, I’d follow this cycle:
Check Instagram to see how that day’s post is faring
Check Facebook to see if anyone has left a comment (and delete the hateful ones)
Check LinkedIn to see if anyone’s commented on that day’s post
Open email and see if anyone’s seeking a meeting or wanting to explore an opportunity
Open WhatsApp and check and respond to messages
Do a little bit of the work that I want to get done that day
Get distracted
Repeat
My mind was constantly telling me that I wasn’t doing enough, saying enough, writing enough, producing enough.
I was a comparison machine.
I’d look at what others were creating and sharing and compare it to what we were producing and sharing. I would look at the fit and beautiful men and business coaches in my feed and compare myself and what I saw in the mirror to them.
I’d see ads – so many ads – for products and services that I’d trained the algorithm to tell me that I needed.
Fitness influencers selling coaching programs with posts containing their perfect bodies and vacuous quotes meant to inspire me. Business coaches telling me ways that I could use AI to generate enough content in a few moments to fill screens for weeks.
It never stopped.
Something had to give
I was run ragged. I was a perpetual motion machine whose attention was constantly spraying in every direction. I was looking for ways to remind myself that I wasn’t successful/rich/fit enough.
After hearing a few episodes of various podcasts – such as The Mel Robbins podcast, The Imperfects and The Daily Stoic – I began to take the hint and realise that nothing would change unless I did.
I needed to get more discerning about who and what I let into my life.
Limiting access to me
After some reflection, and trial and error, I settled on these rules:
Create and defend my time each morning. The time between waking up and 9am is time for Phil. It’s my time to work out, connect with the family before they head out for the day, and connect with my self through journaling. This means that there’s no social media, no email and no news media during that time. If it happened overnight, then it’ll stay just as happened until I’m ready for it and my reserves have been topped up.
No calls outside of my work hours. I believed that it would be great to make myself available for people in other time zones by making myself available at all hours, just in case someone wanted me and our services. What happened instead was that I was not getting a good sleep, and I would be half-awake trying to have serious conversations. This was suboptimal and it needed to stop.
Recentre through the day. I prioritise coming back to myself and recentring through the day. I aim to drink 3L of water and the act of intentionally drinking water brings me into the present. I incorporate some movement into my day – like jumping rope and sets of push-ups and sit-ups – between tasks. I get at least 15 minutes of quiet time daily, when I make a coffee and, when I can, sit outside in the sunshine. I notice the sights and sounds around me; I find this really helps me to be where I am.
Remind myself that I’m awesome just as I am. Three times a day, I stand in front of a mirror, put my right hand over my heart, kindly look myself in the eyes and say ‘I love you’ on the inhale, and ‘Thank you’ on the exhale. I inhale and exhale slowly and intentionally five times. I find this so helpful in reminding myself that I am enough, and the comparisons and never-enoughness the stems from the endless parade of awesomeness and ways that I’m failing I see on social media is put back in its place.
Fridays are for me. I work from home and I’m my own boss. Fridays are my catch-up day. It’s the day when I do life admin. It’s also the day when I have fun and play Flight Simulator. Having Fridays like this helps all in the family spend less time running around over the weekends and it also makes sure that I get a mental and emotional break.
My phone is out of the bedroom at night. My phone is my alarm, so I believed that I needed to have it close by to switch it off. What actually happened was that I would engage in endless rounds of snoozing the alarm and then scrolling on socials, checking email and the news before I got out of bed.
I now charge my phone in the bathroom. The acoustics in there boost the volume of my alarm, compelling me to leap out of bed to switch it off lest I wake the neighbours three houses away. The bedroom for me is for sleep and sex. You and the rest of the world don’t need to be there.
These rules help me to stay being me when I feel like I’m being pulled in multiple different directions. They help me stop – or at least slow down – the negative self-talk and comparisons I’m running internally.
What I’ve learned
I’ve been following these rules since January 2024. Here’s what I’ve learned:
The pull is strong. I often want to do ‘just one more thing’ and then try to bend the time/space continuum to get what I want to do in five minutes.
I hustle for connection. When I hustle to do evermore things, I’ve learned that this is a symptom that I’m hustling for connection. I am doing things in the hope that I’m seen and heard. Ouch.
No one gives me permission to rest. I was waiting for someone to tell me, ‘Wow, you’ve worked hard. You deserve some time off.’ That never comes, because there’s always more and more to do. I needed to create the space and time for me to rest and then defend that space and time; even when I felt pulled.
Just because I can work hard, doesn’t mean that I need to all the time. I spent years working hard in tough jobs to prove that I was worthy of the next promotion or opportunity. I thrived, until I didn’t. I’ve learned that I get to explore other ways of working beyond hard and fast.
Sustainability is key. I need to work sustainably so the amount of the work I’m called to do doesn’t overwhelm me. I need to be well rested, well connected, well fed, hydrated and physically, mentally, emotionally and socially well to meet this challenge of destigmatising loneliness and helping you get the connection you need and deserve.
This is a practice. I don’t need perfection. If I fall off the wagon for a while, I review my choices, make any changes and then go again.
The result of all this is that you have access to me, but only once I’m good and ready for you.
Let’s end your loneliness
I invite you to reflect on your life as it is right now. Who and what has access to you?
Do random people on social media have access to you when your defences are down? Does the immensity of what’s happening in the world on any given day have access to you when you’re not able to respond?
Is that access welcome? And what’s the price you’re paying for that?
It may be time to set some rules to determine who and what has access to you, so you can have the time and space to prioritise who and what is important to you.
Do connection first; the world beyond can wait.
Thank you, Mel Robbins!
I wrote the words that you've just read in January 2025 and this has been programmed to publish since mid-February. I must be onto something important, because the AMAZING Mel Robbins dropped an episode of her podcast earlier this week (on 2 March 2025) about taking back control of who has access to you through your phone. It's an episode that's full of amazing insights and perspectives beyond this article.
That’s it for this article
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Until next time, be awesomely you.
~ Phil
Important:
All views expressed above are the author’s and are intended to inform, support, challenge and inspire you to consider the issue of loneliness and increase awareness of the need for authentic connection with your self, with those most important to you and your communities as an antidote to loneliness. Unless otherwise declared, the author is not a licensed mental health professional and these words are not intended to be crisis support. If you’re in crisis, this page has some links for immediate support for where you may be in the world.
If you’re in crisis, please don’t wait. Get support now.
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