An a-ha moment about distraction
I often hear people talk about emotional numbing and distractions, but I’ve always thought I don’t do it. It’s funny the things we convince ourselves of. Hint: if you’re adamant you don’t do something, you probably do. I’d been listening to Brene Brown’s sister series on Unlocking Us, where she and her two sisters talk through The Gifts of Imperfection; they mentioned numbing out on Netflix and, again, I just couldn’t resonate.
Then earlier this same week I was digging back into Steven Hayes’ fantastic book A Liberated Mind, which is all about acceptance and commitment therapy. In the book, Hayes talks about distraction from our own brains and how we never really just allow ourselves time for no stimulation. Our own brains seem to scare us. He was mentioning some of the ways in which he distracts himself, one of which was reading. It suddenly dawned on me that I do distract myself – I absolutely do! I had one of those precious ‘a-ha’ moments that so infrequently grace us. The reason I thought I didn’t before was that others talk about numbing through food or drink or Netflix or social media, and I don’t really do any of those excessively. Because my distractions are ‘intellectual’ (like reading) and I feel like they help me grow, I couldn’t see that they do in fact act as distractions at times. I was able to do the mental backflips to convince myself I never distract or avoid whatever is going on inside (oh, how we love to be holier than thou!).
This fascinated me as it made me think about times when books haven’t seemed attractive to me. It is uncomfortable for me when this happens, because reading is up there with my favourite things to do. Jungians would probably say that my psyche is trying to deliver a message and that I need to stop and listen; my soul is protesting. And, to be honest, this resonates with me. In these moments when we are doing something without real pleasure, enjoyment and flow, and an odd feeling underneath, stopping and sitting with ourselves is probably what is needed. But it’s so bloody hard!
I decided there and then to take a leaf out of my partner’s book and just do more of nothing. I mean this with all the respect in the world! He is a very hardworking, active person, but he carves out time specifically to just sit and look out of the window at the birds and the sea. It’s funny, when he sits and does nothing I feel like asking if he is okay. So bizarre is it to see someone just existing without distraction or entertainment that for a moment I’m actually a bit concerned. Surely this urge is more the cause for concern and a good reflection of the overly busy world we live in.
That day, I took a walk with no phone (and no podcast) and just existed with my brain. At first, it’s a little discombobulating. I was a bit concerned about what might arrive, a bit bored and eager to fill the gaping silence and nothingness. But after a while, curiosity, clarity and peace began to surface. I’ve been thinking recently about the soul, our inner voice, our intuition, our knowing. What is my inner voice? Does it speak to me? Do I have wiseness within that wants to be heard amongst the other brain chatterings? Will it even get a chance if I’m always doing something?
Although it’s daunting, starting to take more time for my brain to just exist is a new commitment I’ll try my best to make. I’m curious to see what happens!