LIFE UNLOOPED
Discover what happens when you stop giving so much of your life to a screen
It’s become so automatic, hasn’t it?
Reaching for your phone while…
Stopped at the red light. In the grocery line. At the restaurant while your friend uses the bathroom. Even while you’re seated on the couch with your family “watching” a movie.
Any empty pocket or tiny lull and, there you are, scrolling.
The funny part is, you know you do it too much. You’re so incredibly aware of that fact. And yet, you still reach — swept up in the reflex before you can choose otherwise.
Which brings you to now — where you’ve been feeling this craving for change. Where you’ve been wondering…
What would happen if I didn’t?
What would happen if I stopped?
What if I just let there be space?
In the quiet. In the boredom. In your actual life.
Life Unlooped is a 45-day experiment designed to help you find out.
Not by throwing your phone into the ocean. Or disappearing completely from modern life. Or following a rigid set of digital rules forever.
But by intentionally stepping out of the loops that pull your attention away from the life happening right in front of you. Because it’s the act of creating space that allows you to reclaim something crucial: presence.
presence is what allows you to actually experience your life while you’re living it.
To notice the way your child’s face changes when she’s telling you a story. To taste the notes in your coffee. To get lost in a conversation. To feel the breeze when you’re walking outside. To follow a thought all the way to wherever it wants to take you.
These are small things. But they’re also your life. And when your attention is constantly being pulled somewhere else, it’s so easy to miss them.
The Idea Is Simple
For 45 days, we experiment with using our phones differently.
- We remove — or significantly reduce — the apps that tend to pull you into unconscious consumption.
- We interrupt the habit of reaching for your phone every time you have a spare second.
- We establish the necessary boundaries around the digital world that give you room to breathe.
And then… we pay attention to what you notice when you’re consuming less.
What do you naturally reach for instead?
What becomes interesting again?
What do you suddenly have time for?
What thoughts can you finally hear?
What parts of yourself start coming back online?
Because here’s what I’ve discovered:
When you stop filling every empty space, the space doesn’t stay empty for long, real life starts filling it.
- A book on the nightstand.
- A conversation that goes a little longer.
- A walk without anything playing in your ears.
- A hobby you forgot you loved.
- A new idea.
- A bird you’ve never noticed in your backyard.
- A desire you couldn’t hear underneath all that noise.
- A sudden urge to bake bread or plant something or call someone or write something or learn something.
Life Unlooped is about making enough room for those things to find you again.
Less Digital Everything. More Real Life.
I don’t believe technology is bad. Or that social media is all bad. And I’m not interested in creating another set of rules for you to perfectly follow.
I’m interested in something much bigger:
🌿 What happens to a human being when she reclaims her attention?
When she spends less time watching other people live and more time inhabiting
her own life? When she gets quiet enough to distinguish between what she actually wants
and what she’s simply been shown enough times to believe she wants?
When boredom returns.
When curiosity returns.
When creativity returns.
When she remembers that she doesn’t need to document an experience for it to matter.
That’s the experiment.
Why I Created Life Unlooped
Hey, I’m Blair Badenhop
Digital Entrepreneur turned Digital Minimalist
〰
After a decade of creating content for social, I deleted Instagram from my phone. Mostly because I was burned out and needed I space to hear myself think, figure out who I was becoming and what I wanted to create next. At first, it wasn’t some grand anti-technology statement. I just wanted to see what would happen.
And pretty quickly things started happening: There was this uncomfortable amount of breathing room around my days. Where I spent less time comparing my life to other people’s lives. I became more curious. More creative. More present with the people around me.
I started noticing what I was naturally drawn to when an algorithm wasn’t constantly putting things in front of me. And perhaps most importantly, I started hearing myself more clearly. My preferences. My ideas. My desires. Even my dreams began to change.
What started as an experiment with my phone became an experiment in what it means to create enough space to consciously choose how I want to live. And I couldn’t stop wondering: What would happen if other women tried this, too?
WHAT WE DO TOGETHER
Over the course of 45 days, you’ll be guided to reclaim your attention and reconnect with your life — via weekly journaling prompts delivered by email and bi-weekly live calls via Zoom.
1. CREATE FRICTION — We intentionally make the apps that pull you into unconscious consumption harder to access by creating firm tech boundaries or removing them altogether.
2. REMEMBER HOW TO BE BORED — With less to do on your phone, you will face many more moments of stillness and pause… and meet boredom again.
3. POINT YOUR ATTENTION TOWARD YOUR LIFE — You’ll practice bringing your attention back to the small details, pleasures, people, and moments that are easy to miss.
4. FOLLOW YOUR CURIOSITY — With more mental space, you’ll start to become more attuned to what’s calling you and spend more time exploring it.
5. RECONNECT WITH YOUR INNER TRUTH — You’ll start to hear your own thoughts, desires, preferences, and ideas again — so that you know what truly belongs to you.
6. CLARIFY HOW YOU’LL MOVE FORWARD — At the end of the 45 days, you’ll decide how to protect your attention and energy going forward.
➰ Life Unlooped is a “YES” for you if:
- You pick up your phone without even realizing you’ve done it.
- You open Instagram for “a second” and emerge 30 minutes later.
- You feel like your attention is constantly being fractured.
- You consume far more than you create.
- You miss reading books.
- You miss hobbies.
- You miss being bored.
- You miss having thoughts that feel entirely your own.
- You feel strangely overstimulated and undernourished at the same time.
- You want to be more present with your children, your partner, your friends—or yourself.
- You wonder who you might become if you weren’t constantly absorbing the lives of people on the internet.
What Will Change After 45 Days?
I can’t tell you exactly what your experience will be. But the women who have gone through Life Unlooped talk about:
📚 READING MORE
and actually finishing the books on their nightstands.
🎨 CREATING MORE
writing, making, cooking, gardening, dreaming.
🧘 FEELING CALMER
with less noise, input, and comparison running through their minds.
🌈 BEING MORE PRESENT
with their kids, their partners, their friends, and themselves.
🌳 SPENDING MORE TIME OUTSIDE
walking, noticing, wandering, simply being.
🧶 REKINDLING OLD INTERESTS
the things they used to love before scrolling filled the empty spaces.
🌊 FOLLOWING NEW CURIOSITIES
because there’s finally room to notice what’s calling them.
❤️ ATTUNING TO THEIR TRUTH
their own thoughts, preferences, ideas, and desires.
Their lives begin to feel more like their own. Not because they become more exciting, but because they’re actually there for them.
Your Life Is Here
In the morning light coming through your kitchen window. In the tiny shoes scattered across the entryway. In the book waiting beside your bed. In the person sitting across from you. In the ideas you haven’t had enough quiet to hear yet. In the ordinary afternoon you keep reaching for your phone to escape.
➰ Life Unlooped is an invitation to come back to it.
For 45 days, let’s see what happens when you stop looking elsewhere…
and start paying attention to what’s already here.
JOIN THE NEXT LIFE UNLOOPED →
$5/month. Cancel anytime.
When you click below, you’ll be taken to my Substack — This Season (where I write weekly about how to create a more spacious life in a modern world) — to become a paid subscriber. Then, you’ll get an email with all the details on the next Life Unlooped starting after the Fall Equinox / the week of September 28th.
FAQs
When is Life Unlooped happening?
Life Unlooped begins with each new season—winter, spring, summer, and fall. We move through the 45-day experiment together, so when you join, you’ll be invited to participate in the next seasonal round.
How do I join?
Life Unlooped is included with a paid subscription to This Season, my Substack community and home for experiences like this one. Once you become a paid subscriber, you’ll receive everything you need to join the next Life Unlooped. JOIN HERE.
Why is Life Unlooped offered through a subscription?
Because I don’t see Life Unlooped as a one-and-done challenge. Our relationship with technology — and with our attention — is something worth returning to. Your subscription allows you to join Life Unlooped each season, along with everything else I share with paid subscribers throughout the year.
Do I have to delete social media for 45 days?
Nope. Life Unlooped isn’t about following one rigid set of rules. You’ll be encouraged to experiment with removing or significantly reducing the apps and digital habits that pull you into unconscious consumption. The goal is to create enough space to notice what changes.
What if I can’t do it perfectly?
You’re not supposed to. This isn’t a 45-day streak or a test of willpower. It’s an experiment. If you find yourself scrolling one afternoon—or an entire weekend—you haven’t failed. You notice it, get curious about it, and keep going.
What happens when the 45 days are over?
You’ll reflect on what changed, what you learned about yourself, and which parts of Life Unlooped you want to carry forward. The goal isn’t to live without technology. It’s to build a relationship with it that leaves more room for the life you actually want to be living.
JOIN THE NEXT LIFE UNLOOPED →
$5/month. Cancel anytime.
When you click below, you’ll be taken to my Substack, This Season — where I write weekly about how to create a more spacious life in a modern world — to become a paid subscriber. Then, you’ll get an email with all the details on the next Life Unlooped starting after the Fall Equinox / the week of September 28th.