What does your relationship with technology look like, and what are you really handing over with each scroll, email, or voice note?
In this episode of Walking the Path of Love, Charlyn is digging into those questions and more with Joni Staaf-Stamford, a professional counselor, mindfulness teacher, author, and retreat leader. Joni’s work brings together mindfulness and our daily interactions with technology to understand how we can remain authentic in a tech-driven world. For this conversation, the two explore the timely discussion of artificial intelligence and the questions that go far beyond technology.
From GPS and sleep trackers to couples using ChatGPT to talk to each other, she shows how people outsource decisions, awareness, and even relationships. She moves on to an alarming finding by the Surgeon General that reports chronic loneliness as the same health risk as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The bottom line: Human connection isn't just nice-to-have. It is vital to our health, well-being, happiness, and mental and emotional health.
Instead of abandoning technology, Joni offers practical ways to use AI skillfully. The key, she says, is applying an 80/20 balance and, most importantly, releasing the urge to turn to AI for emotional comfort. She also opens up about her path from anxiety and panic attacks to a non-negotiable daily practice and why curiosity and presence may be the most important human qualities we can protect.
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