Brett Eldredge Offers Flip Phone Challenge to Stay Focused on the Present

Brett Eldredge kicked off 2019 by looking to the past. The “Love Someone” singer shared in a post on social media that he was going old-school when it comes to technology, at least for a while.

“To start 2019, I am going to go back in time to 2002,” Eldredge wrote, along with a picture of a notebook and a flip phone. “That was the year I got my first color flip phone with a lil megapixel camera on it…I felt like a bad ass…I would carry it everywhere I went but never look at it to check the never ending ‘Breaking News’ or constantly compare my life to someone else’s…I wouldn’t sit at the dinner table and be halfway paying attention to my buddies convo’s because I was watching someone’s story about how good, or bad they were at ‘Flossing’ or how quick someone could chug a bottle of vodka and do a triple backflip into a pool…”

“I was there, in the moment, with my friends, with life,” he added. “Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of amazing things about a smart phone…but I gotta take a moment to experiment and see what it’s like to be here, RIGHT NOW, lost in the music and not in a screen…if ya need me, I’ll be on the T9 text machine…here goes the Flip Phone Challenge.”

Eldredge, who wrote in his journal, “This year I will” at the top of a blank page, has previously opened up about how helpful using a journal has been for him, especially as he overcomes his struggle with anxiety.

“I realized that if I’m going to be the best version of me, I’ve got to take care of me,” Eldredge told PEOPLE. “That’s translated into practicing meditation, keeping a gratitude journal and making time for physical recreation with his road crew.”

The Illinois native went public with his anxiety issues to show others in a similar situation that they are not alone.

“It became a very important thing for me,” Eldredge told PopCulture.com. “Especially when you do have anxiety and issues like that, you feel like you’re completely alone but you realize quickly that it’s one of the most human thing. Everybody deals with worries and all that stuff and so, I was like, I want to make it a passion of mine to show that, I’ve dealt with that. It’s not like I have it all the time, but we all have waves of it and different things.”

“Everybody has all sorts of stuff going on in their world,” he continued. “It’s how we deal with it and I’ve tried to figure it out for a long time. You take two steps forward and a step back every once in a while and you keep pushing yourself and trying to better yourself and wellness and so, mindfulness, became a big thing for me and mediation and journaling and seeing that thoughts are just thoughts, and everything’s all right.”

Eldredge has several concerts scheduled in 2019, including a series of shows in Australia. Find dates at BrettEldredge.com.

Photo Credit: Getty images / Angela Weiss