February 08, 2018

294 Digital Self Mastery With Dr. Heidi Forbes Oste

29 minutes

Dr. Forbes Öste is a behavioral scientist & best-selling author. She teaches people how Mindfulness and Technology are connected and she has devoted years to doing scholarly research in the human relationship with technology. Dr. Forbes Öste is a consultant in the field of Social Strategy. In addition to all this, she has a passion for the topic of wellbeing. Dr. Forbes Öste founded the movement for Digital Self Mastery to support the transition into the digital era without losing humanity in the process.

Contact Info

Website: www.2Balanceu.com

Book: Digital Self Mastery: Conquer Your Digital Habits To Boost Your Relationships and Business Growth

Podcast: Evolving Digital Self Podcast

Most Influential Person

My Grandmother

Effect on Emotions

Mindfulness enables me to be more stable. About five years ago we were still living in Sweden. We now live in California.

I had season affective disorder that became progressively worse every year. It can result in very deep depression and it was on the extreme.

I came to California for some meetings and felt normal because it was sunny every day and I was outside. I was with friends who were doing yoga everyday.

They had a mindfulness practice of their own in that way. Just being part of that after being deep in a depression that had lasted several years, I was brought out enough in order to get that prospective look at what was going on.

I saw that chemical response that was happening in my system. I knew that something needed to change. Not being able to get that awareness and prospective is where you get stuck without mindfulness.

Thoughts on Breathing

It's yogic breathing if anything. I used to teach yoga and I that type of breathing comes most naturally to me.

Suggested Resources

Book: Digital Self Mastery: Conquer Your Digital Habits To Boost Your Relationships and Business Growth

App: The Breathe App on the Apple Watch (now available on other devices)

Bullying Story

I can give you a current story because I had an interesting experience just last week while I was speaking at a conference in Warsaw. It was a tech conference.

My presentation was more of a story-telling thing. This was not a typical tech talk; instead I was telling people you need to be grateful for technology. This does not necessarily resonate with everyone.

Later in the day I talked more about the research and the science behind it and the neurological implications. While I was speaking, somebody tweeted a nasty, trolling comment that was like, 'that was the most boring presentation, what does that have to do with tech ....'. I was raised that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Anyway, it was unnecessary. I went back into the green room after my talk and I was looking at some of the comments and I saw that and my heart kind of sank. I thought, that wasn't a very nice thing to say.

There were two or three people sitting around me when I read it and they said, 'that's awful'.

Actually, the response was that they tweeted replies to the comment saying, that's so wrong, it was amazing. It was just this beautiful moment of support and wonderfulness.

What I found from my own awareness of that response was that instead of it ruining my day, my response was; 'that's a shame', and, 'she must have been having a bad day.' I took a moment to breathe and I thought, 'that's really sad'. I felt sorry for her more than for me.

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By Bruce Langford

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