ARE YOU AN ADDICT OF DISTRACTION?
Written for the Rainbows Group Newsletter
What are you thinking right now? What were you thinking just before you started reading this article? How does your body feel? Are you tense in your shoulders? Are you holding your breath? Are you aware of how you are feeling?
Push your chair away from the computer or put aside your printed copy of this article and simply fold your hands in your lap, drop your eyesight and become aware of your breath. Make the intention to follow the sensation of your breath for one minute. One breath in, one breath out, one breath in, one breath out, one breath in…..
So is the minute up or did you give up? What happened? If you are like 99% of the population on this planet you would have found that even though your intention was to stay focused on the breath within a couple of seconds your mind decided to go somewhere else. It left your body sitting and breathing and maybe had a fantasy about what you are going to do this weekend. You may have started thinking about all the things you have to do or rehashed that fight you had with your sister, children, partner or work colleague, - “oh I wish I had said that to them.” Why, because your mind has an almost infinite storehouse of thoughts and feelings to distract you.
So lets face it, we may be one of the lucky ones who are not addicted to substances but pretty much every single one of us is addicted to distraction. It’s our favourite past time whether we like it or not.
There are many reasons for distraction. One is that we simply like entertainment and if the present moment is not stimulating enough our mind will create stimulus for us. This would be okay if all we had were happy, funny thoughts but often, something in our lives will trigger negative, unresolved thoughts and emotions and an entrenched mind state will arise. This mind state often feels like it is happening to us. It feels torturous and uncontrollable. It feels we are powerless.
This is the distracted, unsettled, habitually addicted mind. And its not just you its all of us. But just as it is possible to give up cigarettes (even though it takes a great deal of willpower and effort), so is it possible to settle the mind and develop our faculty to be mindful. We all have this faculty. If we neglect it, it remains dormant. If we work on it, it develops, grows and becomes our natural way of being. When this happens our lives naturally change for the better. We become aware of what is happening, while it is happening. It doesn’t mean we stop having thoughts. That is impossible. What it means is we slowly train our minds to not unconsciously engage in thinking without even knowing it. It is as if our minds are on autopilot and we are being dragged behind them half asleep.
This does not mean that when a horrid thing happens we don’t get sad. Of course we do. What it means is that we recognize our sadness and be with it as it is. We don’t add anything to it. We let it be because it is here. We let the sensation of tightness be in the chest, we let the tears fall and we watch the thoughts without engaging in them. When we see that we are starting to go down that same path of thinking that we know so well – “oh I’m stupid to be so sad, I’m bad to be so sad, I’m wrong to be so sad, I’m useless to be so sad.” We simply watch the thoughts without adding to them, without doing anything at all. And they will fade away. And when there is joy. Oh so much joy because there is less distraction from what we are feeling right now whatever it is.
We practice all of this with a great gentleness and kindness towards ourselves. We don’t add more thinking of how bad we are for being distracted. Instead we watch with the curiosity of a child. Oh look at that, I’ve been thinking and I didn’t even realize it. I thought I was following the breath. How interesting? This is my mind and my mind is addicted to distraction. That’s is okay. Now that I know it I have something to work with.
The wonderful thing is energy follows focus so if we put focus into old habits of distracted thinking and reacting we will strengthen distraction. If we focus on being here, now, following the breath, being distracted, realizing distraction, coming back to the breath, coming back to the breath, coming back to the breath… we are giving ourselves the greatest gift. We are slowly building our faculty to be here, to be home, to be mindful. We are giving ourselves each moment of our lives.
The ideas expressed here are based on the work of many mindfulness teachers. The words of the article are my own but the practice and inspiration comes from our wonderful teachers who guide us with such care and deep compassion. I dedicate what little benefit this article may be to my teachers and all sentient beings. May we all be truly happy and free from suffering.
