i stopped checking my texts for two weeks
why? to open portals
For the last two weeks of October, I completely stopped checking my texts and set boundaries to only use my phone from 1 PM to 7 PM:
Here’s a list of a few things that have shifted for me since then:
I relearned how to stop desperately clinging to outcomes.
I relearned how taking ownership of my own actions frees me in a way blaming anyone else never could.
I reconnected with why my day job matters and how it perfectly fits where I am in my life right now.
I reopened the door to forgiveness.
I reconnected to a long-time dream that I thought I had completely abandoned.
I developed a new level of connection to many of the people I love.
I deepened my understanding around intuition.
I reimplemented movement into my daily practice and danced A LOT.
I fell back in love with my creative process.
I fell back in love with myself.
The epiphany came a few days after coming back from a co-created retreat that I went on with six other friends. Since my 33rd birthday gathering—captured in How Crying to a Group of Strangers About Loneliness Led to Big Friendships—these friendships have blossomed beyond anything I could have imagined. After spending this weekend together, I realize I’m forever changed.
During a moment we were all gathered in the living room of our beautiful Airbnb in Idyllwild, playing one of those deep question card games, this prompt came up:
If you had an unlimited budget to bring any project to life, what would you create?
The moment I heard this, I felt an immediate pain in my body. I had been reflecting on a specific dream project I’ve had, ruminating on it for the past few days just before the retreat. This introspection often led me to a place of self-loathing and frustration as I confronted how many times I had seemingly abandoned that dream. I confessed this to the group I was with, and after sharing, while I felt incredibly supported by everyone around me, I still felt stuck.
Then, I was utterly shaken after my friend Jessie read a poem from the collection she had curated and printed out on for us that night, titled “The Dream.”
There was a specific line in the poem that sparked one of the most transformative reframes. Since then, its message has stuck with me.
Shortly after I returned home from the trip, I had this incredibly clear download:
“Give up texting until the end of the month to cultivate a deeper relationship with this dream.”
The weekend I spent in Idyllwild was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. We all opened so many portals1 together. And I didn’t want the opening of these portals to end once I entered back into the chaos of daily life.
It’s a lot easier to be inspired when the environment we’re in is intentionally curated to be a safe space that invites us to grow. But the reality is, we are always up against external forces that have the power to take us off our course, if we allow it to. Because I’ve become more and more aware of this over time, I knew I had to make it a personal mission to sustain the epiphanies from this trip.
Choosing to alter this toxic relationship I had with my phone—which was highly hindering my ability to be in my creative process long enough to output the things I truly desire in this life—was me making the conscious decision to enter another portal. And within this portal, I found many more portals asking to be opened.
A couple of years ago, I frequently came across tweets asking the question: How can you tell whether you’re being guided by intuition or driven by anxiety? It was something I often asked my mentors and coaches, and it took me a long time to fully understand. But after those past two weeks without texting and intermittent fasting from my phone entirely, I have been more in tune with the wisdom in my body and I am certain that I know the difference between the two.
In the upcoming emails, I’ll be sharing more about all the downloads that I’ve been receiving from this experience.
Stay tuned.
-Val
To put simply, for me, a portal is an entry point to transformation, imagination, or new possibilities. It’s a passageway that invites someone to move beyond the known and familiar, stepping into a realm of expanded vision, ideas, and self-discovery.