The Art of Disconnecting: Why Midlife Women Must Unplug to Find Joy
I don’t know about you but I was raised to believe that being constantly available makes us better mothers, wives, friends, and women…it wasn’t until I hit my late 50’s that I realized that idea is a big fat lie.
We wear our 24/7 connectivity like a badge of honor; phone always charged, notifications always on, ready to respond to every ping, buzz, and ring that demands our attention.
But what if your addiction to staying plugged in is actually stealing the very thing you’ve been searching for your entire adult life? What if the “normalcy” of being a ping away was actually preventing you from being happy?
I mean how can you find joy when your authentic self is buried under an avalanche of other people’s needs, social media comparisons, and the relentless noise of a world that profits from your distraction?
YOU CAN’T!
You can’t hear your own thoughts over the chaos, and you definitely can’t find genuine joy when your nervous system is constantly hijacked by the next urgent-but-not-important demand for your attention.
If you’re ready to shift there’s no better time than now…
Tomorrow morning, before you reach for your phone, sit in silence for exactly 10 minutes. No podcasts, no music, no scrolling.
Just you and the quiet.
Notice what comes up.
Notice how uncomfortable it feels at first.
That discomfort? That’s decades of conditioning telling you that your thoughts alone aren’t enough.
Here’s what’s really happening: We’ve become so accustomed to external input that we’ve forgotten how to access our own internal wisdom. Every time you reflexively grab your phone when you feel bored, anxious, or uncertain, you’re choosing someone else’s voice over your own. You’re letting the algorithm decide what you should feel, think, or want next.
The constant stream of other people’s highlight reels, political outrage, breaking news, and manufactured urgency has trained your brain to believe that the most important things are always happening somewhere else, to someone else. Meanwhile, your own life, your real desires, your genuine emotions, your actual priorities, sits in the corner, waiting patiently for you to remember it exists.
What I’ve learned over time is that your joy isn’t hiding in your next purchase, vacation, or life milestone. It’s not going to be delivered via notification or discovered in someone else’s story. Your joy is already inside you, but it can only come out in the spaces between all the stimulation. It requires silence and it demands stillness.
This isn’t about becoming a digital hermit or abandoning technology altogether. Unplugging to find joy is about recognizing that disconnecting regularly isn’t selfish, it’s an act of self-respect.
When you create spaces of silence in your life, you’re not checking out of your responsibilities. You’re checking back into what’s important. You’re giving yourself permission to remember who you are underneath all the roles you play and all the expectations you carry.
The woman who makes disconnecting from tech a priority is more present with her family, more creative in her work, more generous in her relationships, and infinitely more joyful in her daily existence. She knows the difference between what matters and what merely feels urgent. She trusts her own voice because she’s taken the time to listen to it.
Remember:
You are someone who values her own thoughts enough to protect them from constant invasion.
You understand that in a world designed to steal your attention, choosing where to place it is an act of selflove.
I recommend you pick one hour this week where you go completely offline. No phone, no laptop, no smartwatch. Use that hour to remember what it feels like to be alone with yourself. Pay attention to what your mind does when it’s not being managed by external input.
Your happiness is waiting in that quiet space.
______
~Judy Davis is a motivational speaker, published author and Veteran Caregiver who shares candid stories, transformative mindset shifts, and practical strategies to help midlife women navigate the unexpected twists of life.