Distracting.
We grow by either willfully shedding or being broken open.
Episode 39. SHIFT: 5 of 5 in Series: Escape through Distracting.
Escape through Distracting.
What happens when we are waiting in line, or stopped at a red light? We reach for our phone to take up the space of a momentary pause. What happens when an external trigger overwhelms our mind, or a stressful thought tenses our body? We immediately avoid that unwelcome sensation with some instant gratification of distraction.
A study in the journal Science, revealed that 67% of male subjects preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves, rather than be left alone with their thoughts. Most people seem to prefer doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative.
We have a low threshold of tolerance for a moment of boredom or a pulse of anxiety. Our autopilot urge to avoid any potential for these vulnerable “stillness” moments hijacks us into distraction and numbing. Scroll, scroll, scroll. Multi-task to fill any window of silence with “important” assignments. Drown ourselves in work. Drown ourselves in drinks.
Distract. Avoid. Sabotage.
We repel against silence, sensation, discomfort, stillness. We are pros at pushing the easy button before we get even a little taste of what is actually coming up for us. We are zoning out instead of tuning in.
Numbing. Ignoring. Suppressing.
Instead of sitting with ourselves.
Our strategies for warding off reality can manifest as relatively benign distractions… extra hours at work, pouring another drink, mindless instagram scrolling, hyperfocusing on problem solving or self-improvement… But we are unaware. That is the trance of numbing. We are so habituated, that we just do. We block out our inner alignment to be.
Distracting acts as a pressure cooker. And since we are very successful at escaping through distracting, the pressure steadily accumulates with zest. We have subconsciously crafted life on our terms to protect and preserve our maladaptive coping mechanisms that we justify and even glamourize. We can go through our days, and for the most part, we feel good avoiding the deeply seeded “stuff”. And why dig deep and unearth buried pain and loss, regret and guilt, fear and rejection? That doesn’t feel good. That isn’t “being positive.” So, we suppress...
But as we escape and avoid and suppress, that pressure cooker gets stuck in the ‘on’ position. When we don’t deal with our demons, they go into the cellar of our bodies, of our hearts, of our souls; and they lift weights. They compound strength. They fortify themselves, so that when some trigger deep in us is activated, we are right on the edge, primed for an unraveling; a full collapse. Or something more insidious, and just as destructive- a manifestation of patterns that keep arising in each failed relationship; scenarios that tend to replay at work; family dynamics that perpetuate agonizing strain; a habituation of self-sabotage that confines us to the periphery of actually knowing true joy.
These demons that we numb to escape are like wounds that we don’t really heal…they are applied band aids and Neosporin and even sutures, in the form of our distraction protocols… and they scab, and then re-open, and then we feel the ache of discomfort and the drip of blood emerge- and we do the only thing we know… distract, ignore, avoid, and sabotage...
We can escape reality through distracting and numbing. We can do this pretty effectively for a lifetime. We can persist on autopilot and keep layering band aids to staunch the bleeding, cover the wounds, and then turn to self-sabotage when the throbbing pain overwhelms our analgesics and the sight of blood blurs our vision toward a path to wholeness. We can keep doing this.
Or we can shift out of escape-mode to recognize the actual wound that keeps us overworking and overtraining and overscrolling and overcriticizing and overthinking and overeating and overstressing…
Because our big escape from the big wounds also distracts us from the full experience of a full life. This is a fullness in joy and an openness in deeper love and connection. Numb is numb. Distracted is distracted. Not just from the tough stuff, but from the sensual, moving, alive stuff too. Do we want to miss this?
We all have the capacity to relate to our fear and pain to foster an inner freedom...we can all find a way to regain trust and live in truth.
How? It is not easy. I claim not to be an expert. Just another human faced with these challenges daily. Just slivers of awareness and some grenades of devastation and sirens of wake-up calls…
Waking up… from the cycle of distracted numbing…
Opening… to the embodied experience of the moment…
Embodied?
Nothing mystical- just making a conscious shift from our head into our heart and body. Notice the head, “thinking, thinking”… then, using our awareness of that trance of thinking, consciously shift ourselves back to the here; the now… feel a sensation in our body, notice a breath coming in, hear a sound in the room, smell a scent in the air, see a visual point of focus...
This is a skill. This is a practice.
It is tangible.
It is one conscious breath.
Right here. Feel it.
Inhale. (no, really, do it- actually breathe in and feel it….)
This is freeing ourselves from the hijacking, from being reverted back to habituated numbing- again and again.
This is expanding our window of tolerance for that moment of boredom or that pulse of anxiety.
This is getting off autopilot and embracing our “stillness” moments.
As our brain is driven to escape a tense or vulnerable state, we can intercept; we can focus here; we can absorb the now; we can be in this one inhale; this one exhale.
We can.
This was another long one... thanks for hanging with me til the end...
Walking through it,
Jessica
“When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.”
-Viktor Frankl
“Deep in the soul, below pain, below all the distraction of life, is a silence vast and grand – an infinite ocean of calm, which nothing can disturb. Nature’s own exceeding peace, which passes understanding. That which we seek with passionate longing, here and there, upward and outward; we find at last within ourselves.”
-Richard Maurice Bucke
SHIFT 5-Part Series: Escape through Illusion of Control.
Exploring our tendencies to escape life through an illusion of control....
We feel a sense of control through rushing, enduring, judging, obsessing, distracting...
When we are controlling our experience, we are not fully experiencing our life.
1. Escape through Rushing
2. Escape through Enduring
3. Escape through Judging
4. Escape through Obsessing
5. Escape through Distracting
Thank you for joining me through the journey. I am grateful.
Do it all with Love. Nothing is promised. But everything is workable.
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