I find myself a little “guilty” using Fabulous during my Disconnect time… it’s helped me to eliminate the TV but I feel like I’m cheating by doing a mediation or something on my phone. How do you overcome those feelings or what’s your perspective on this?

I don’t think someone should feel guilty about this. You can play meditation music and meditate for even an hour! Yeah, you don’t actually disconnect from your phone but you are not actively using it like I’m now writing this. It’s like listening to a music on a party. You are not the DJ.

I do feel like it's cheating only because being on my phone to do these check ins tempts me to look at other things on my phone. This can bring a spiral of me wanting to check all my socials or get distracted with googling something. I'm glad I have access to this app because it's cheaper than therapy, but I do wander off into the abyss that is the internet.

The time to disconnect is to give yourself time to think and/or prepare for bed. If meditation is what helps you relax and isn't raising your excitement so that you have a harder time sleeping then, in my opinion, that is fine. Using your phone is debatable. If you can use your phone without seeing the light coming from it, basically on stand-by, I think it would be better. I use my phone during disconnect to listen to music or an audiobook. With an app I use to listen to my book I can have my phone on stand-by and set a sleep timer of when the book will stop playing. I don't have music downloaded. So I keep my phone face down away from me so that I can listen without being kept awake. I don't know much about meditation so I'm afraid I can't help you with that as much. If your phone has to stay on, put it face down and plug in ear buds. If it doesn't and also doesn't make it difficult to fall asleep, then there's nothing to feel guilty about.

I try not to take things so literal. A phone is a tool, that's it's main purpose. To help make our lives easier. So, if there are apps on your phone that help you, like Fabulous, or a mediation app or a work out app, then you are using your phone as a tool to help make your goals a reality.

Also, most phones now have a Wellness feature (it's in the settings) that let you control how long you can use an app in a day. For example, I can only use Instagram and TikTok for 15 minutes a day. Once that time is met the app automatically shuts off. Now that my social media apps are self limiting I can focus on using my phone as a tool to help achieve the goals I've set. Like reading more books, so I got Audible. I wanted to meditate more so I have The Shine app.

There is nothing "wrong" with using your phone, especially when you want to disconnect and there are apps that help with that disconnections. The main thing is to be mindful of how you use your phone and how you spend your time.

The feeling of guilt may be normal, however, we have to admit that cellphones are devices that were designed to make our lives easier. Therefore, we set out alarms on it, we transfer funds at convenient hours, we Journal on it and plan our days, we check our calendar and meditate. This is not a bad thing. I always think of 'disconnecting' in terms of shutting out the noise of the busy 'market place', the social apps that influence our opinions about ourselves. When I discount I do things only for myself, which no one sees. So, I still use my meditating app, I set my alarm, listen to calming music and even speak to my boyfriend because these are things I do for myself. So I figure, it depends on your definition of 'disconnect'. To me disconnecting means shutting out outside influence not , not using my phone.
I hope this helps.