Distractions are something that prevents us from giving our full attention to something else. Most of us have spent much of 2020 distracted. Going between actively looking for something else to hold our attention, take our minds off our "stuff", or desperately trying to stay present when our thoughts are going 100 different directions.
Distracted. Giving our attention to something else…
I’ve always been a voracious reader, fiction since I was a little girl, and education/self-exploration for the last ten years.
March came in like a bear and turned my world upside down. Trying to wrap my head around our business being closed, the kids being home from school and the stress that came with both left me DISTRACTED. I couldn’t read without feeling lost by the end of the page.
Trying to do little tasks became HARD.
Answering emails. Cleaning the kitchen. Making dinner. Everything felt huge.
I needed something to distract me from life, but at the same time I could keep my attention on nothing.
Actively seeking a way out while desperately trying to bring myself back in and stay present. It was a mind fuck.
I have solid distractions techniques, honed in from years of self-sabotage...
Food was always there. Mindlessly eating. Sitting in front of the TV in an almost catatonic state. Feeling completely disconnected from my body... That was super helpful and made me feel great😶😔 …. Distraction.
Scrolling Facebook, because my own anger, frustration, confusion, and fear wasn’t enough to focus on, I could also see what everyone I went to high school thought about it too. Again, super NOT helpful.😶 Distraction.
Wine too. I rarely drink now, for a lot of reasons but mainly because I value sleep over any self-care practice, it’s my foundation and drinking jacks it all up. I don’t like what a hangover does to my nutrition, mainly the cravings, I like to make eating as well as I can as easy as I can- hangovers mean I am face deep in endless grilled cheeses. And it makes me moody and sad… so no thanks.
But, back in the day wine was my go to. Most of the time it was one glass a night (I say one glass, but I know because of my obsessive calorie counting and measuring the wine on a food scale that it was really about two glasses in one big old goblet). This made sense. At the time I worked at a Wine Store. Selling and ordering wine was my job, which meant knowing wine was my job. It made drinking 3-5 days a week seem normal.
And I was never getting drunk so it was fine, right?
Looking back, I see what I was doing, at the time I had no idea. Sometimes, when you are knee deep in it, it is almost impossible to see the forest through the trees.
Looking back, I was distracting myself from reality (almost) every night. I was a single mom, making barely enough money with no plan on how to change that. I was fighting like hell with my body, under the female delusion that if I just got skinny enough, fit enough, I would be fixed, and my life would magically change. I was a functional mess looking for a nightly escape, just enough to be able to go to sleep without thinking about all the things I should have done that day or needed to do tomorrow.
That is why I hate Mommy wine culture.
We are normalizing escapism.
Do I think every woman who drinks is looking to escape something? Not at all. But the bullshit marketing implying that you can’t be a parent without getting buzzed is just gross.
And really, if your kids are such assholes you can't deal with them without a White Claw- its time to deal with your kids... but I digress.
There is a difference between really enjoying something and THINKING you enjoy it.
This is the curse of distractions.
We think we like them. We convince ourselves we enjoy them even.
When really, all they are doing is pulling us away from reality.
But. This is confusing. Because distractions CAN be helpful.
Context matters.
Can you fix the situation? Can action help shift things in your favor? If your dealing with people, your kids (see above), your partner, your boss, your friends; almost always YES. You can and should DO something. Eating, drinking, watching Netflix for hours is all fine and dandy IF it is tagged teamed with ACTION. If your just instead of dealing you are only making your problems bigger.
Loss of a job, have your pity party then action. Look at whatever is happening and be honest.
If you can do something to move the situation to a better place by doing something- you must do it. Don't let a distraction become another (self imposed!) obstacle!
Be brutally honest with yourself whenever you are "checking out". Is it serving you or is it self-destruction? Allowing yourself an hour, a day, even a week to process or just BE is fine. Allowing yourself to further dig yourself in a hole is not.
Back to books, reading these past eight months, even though half the time I have no idea if I am even enjoying the book, has been a god send. It is DISTACTING me without HARMING me.
Because not every situation can be fixed with actions... hello 2020. BUT distractions shouldn't make us feel worse. Drinking or eating to much, scrolling Facebook for hours; that ain't it. Take your mind of off things by being productive. Clean a closet. Clean your fridge.
Do something, even the smallest five minute task will help you feel better.
Eating mindlessly, consuming simply to occupy my busy brain- not helpful. It is going to cause me to feel worse, physically, and mentally. Bloated and upset. Disconnected from myself and my emotions. Because even the most stressful situations I still need to feel.
We all still need to feel.
Feelings are our thermometer, our check engine light. Turning them off in the bad means turning them off in the good.
To cope with stress/fear/frustration we are robbing ourselves of future joy.
Alcohol; I am not going back into a dissertation so stick with me. Alcohol is a myopic agent. (*Myopic means narrow minded, single focused) That means whatever you are feeling when you drink will become bigger, it will become your focus. We drink because it will help us escape, if you are drinking when you are stressed/angry/scared you are going to become more stressed/angry/scared. For the sake of time I will spare you the research on depression and drinking.
Facebook scrolling, looking at everyone else’s opinions, many of whom you would NEVER take advice from makes things confusing. In reality you give no shits what that weird guy from your tenth grade bio classes thinks about the world, you could care less what your friend of a friend has to say about how things about being handled. But when you see them over and over on Facebook, read them in your home, they become personal. They start to feel like they are attacks on you.
Distractions can HARM. They become mindless consumption, of things and information, that is not helping you in your current situation.
Distractions can be comfort IF they are used correctly. This is not making your current situation more fucked up
(see above. Treating your body like shit with food or drink NEVER made a problem better*). But, turning off the news, stepping away from the chips and Facebook and cleaning a closet, taking a walk, reading a book, turning on music and dancing in your kitchen, taking a nap or going to bed! Those can all be wonderful distractions that put you back into your body, or in the least do not take you to far out.
Lastly, know when to use them.
2020 is the year to be distracted, but some situations we need to stay present for. These are anything you can or should be aiming to fix or elevate. Like homeschooling, I can’t spend my day on Facebook. I need to be there.
Even closure of the gym, it is totally out of my control BUT staying distracted ain’t helping.
Give yourself a limit on you pity party.
Tonight, I can cry,
I can eat some ice cream (not the whole kitchen) I can watch trash TV and
then I will go to bed and wake up and my pity party is over…
Being upset is fine,
living upset is not.
Know when you are distracting yourself. Acknowledge it. That is enough to call your bullshit.
If you are willing to admit your distraction to yourself chances are it is not that harmful, and you are present enough to know when to stop. If you are unwilling to question your behavior, or don’t want to look at it; that is harmful distraction. Step away from the kitchen, put down the White Claw and delete Facebook from your phone.
We have enough going on, don’t allow your distractions to make it worse...