The modern day dis-ease of distraction
Lost in an endless cycle of ‘busyness’? In this extract from his acclaimed new book, performance psychologist, ‘The Soul Coach’ Gerry Hussey explains why self-limiting beliefs prevent us from breaking free to a better life
Letting go of the dis-ease of distraction
Distraction steals our health. A distracted mind is not capable of seeing the opportunities in the external world, it is limited to seeing and experiencing only the chaos inside.
As you rush around in a distracted state, there is little or no time to take in the world around you – life becomes a blur of activity that you aren’t able to enjoy or be present in. In this chronic stress state, the conscious part of your brain is shut off and you are limited to operating from your unconscious mind.
When we operate from our unconscious mind, we are not really observing the world or situation as it is, we are simply projecting our inner beliefs and expectations on to the limited, self-created version of reality. We are no longer present or aware in our own lives. We are simply reliving old stories and old versions of reality again and again, and wondering why the same thing keeps happening to us.
We become non-thinking, perpetualmotion machines, preconditioned reflexes convinced that doing is more valuable than being. We pride ourselves on how much we get done, but we don’t ask ourselves: Was I efficient? Did I enjoy doing it? Was there a better way of doing it? Is it actually what I want to be doing? Without these questions to trigger us out of this unconscious, non-thinking state of busy distraction, we continue into the next thing and the next thing, becoming more and more distracted as we go.
We get distracted by the urgent and ignore the important
In today’s always-on, busy external world, we tend to be constantly giving our attention, energy and time to the things that are urgent but not important. Very often we are distracted by the immediate things of day-to-day life and rarely get a chance to get to the important things – like minding our physical and mental health, spending time with the people we love and telling them that we love them, or actually pursuing our dreams.
We get so distracted by the immediate that we even forget to ask ourselves the important questions: Am I really happy? Is there enough fun and laughter in my life? Do I actually love my job? What is it I really want from this short life?
Our life ends up revolving and not evolving
If we are attending to the immediate all the time and ignoring the important, it is quite possible that we are revolving in life, going around in circles, rather than evolving and expanding our minds, our hearts and our spirits.
Most of us rarely stop to look at our lives and ask if we are revolving or evolving. We forget to ask ourselves questions like: Am I healthier this year than last year? Have I more self-confidence this year than last? Have I more inner peace? Am I closer to my dreams?
I believe there comes a time in all our lives when revolving becomes boring. It becomes stale and, when it does, our minds and our souls become stale too, and we lose our inner spark and extinguish our inner magic.
I believe the new age of busy, the always-on phenomenon that is driving this state of constant distraction, is also leading us to experience more ill-health and lack of ease in our mind, body and soul
We normalise tiredness, exhaustion and even ill-health
In this type of always-on world, where we live and think in this distracted haze, constant distraction becomes our new normal – to the point where we no longer even notice how distracted we are. We develop the disease of distraction and we don’t even realise it. We often live in communities of equally distracted people who can’t see it either.
If you live in a community where everyone is infected with the disease of distraction, you begin to see it as a common and normal thing, but what is common is often what is not normal. We need to wake up to the truth that distraction, fatigue and busyness are not at all normal and, in fact, have a very real and damaging impact on our quality of life and our health.
We have come to believe – wrongly – that tiredness is simply a consequence of life. It’s not, it’s absolutely not. Exhaustion is a consequence of either not proactively minding our health and well-being, and not being able to switch off when we need to, or a consequence of being in a life that is simply revolving and has become stale and boring.
It is perfectly OK for life to be about vitality, fun, laughter, passion and inner peace. Very often, it’s not life that exhausts us, it’s the decisions we make about and in life.
The problem is that because you are moving at such pace – revolving at such a pace – you never get the chance to step off the treadmill, and this is what will drive your illhealth in so many ways. If you live a life where you allow yourself to be constantly activated and busy and hold emotions of fear or attack, you are burning yourself out.
It is time to ask ourselves if we are focusing on the urgent or the important.
Investing in our health
If we don’t take time to invest in our health, we will be forced to take the time to invest in our sickness. This level of distraction has two main issues. First, it takes us out of the present moment and stops us from enjoying each moment as it unfolds. It keeps us locked into a swing where our mind is constantly moving between the past and the future and misses the present, thereby preventing us from slowing down long enough to identify or become our true selves.
Our lives can pass us by and we’re not even aware of it. Valuable, priceless moments are happening right in front of us, moments that may never happen again, and we might be missing them completely. The second issue is the very real and profound impact this level of distraction has on our physical health and well-being.
We must invest our time wisely
We must also be aware that
distraction is constantly taking us out of the moment, so that what should be our life becomes a blurred reality. The opportunity to be happy, to be at ease and to experience joy exists only in the present moment. The more distracted we are, the less ease, peace and joy we experience. This becomes especially important when we begin to realise how short life is and how special each and every moment is.
Create a healthy relationship with time – and remember the magic number is 900
In our modern world, we are bombarded with so many numbers – the number of steps we need to walk in a day, the number of calories we need to eat and then burn, the number of hours we need to sleep, the number of pieces of fruit we are meant to eat per day: the numbers never seem to stop. Yet, in my experience, there is only one number that inspires me and motivates me every day of my life. In fact, I think it’s the most important number for all of us and when we hear it our eyes, ears, minds and hearts immediately pay attention to it. The magic number is 900.
The average human lifespan is only 900 months. If that shocks you, wait a second.
Out of that 900 we sleep 300. We have approximately 600 waking months on this planet and, depending on your age right now, you can quickly work out roughly how many months you have left.
As shocking and frightening as this may be, it is also liberating. What is even more shocking is how few people take a moment to realise how special time is, and how special each day and each month is.
I experienced this incredible realisation during my time in hospital. It shocked me, and motivated me to begin to truly appreciate how precious my time was. I also realised that none of us ever knows exactly how much or how little time we will get. Most of us don’t treat time with the respect and sacredness it deserves. We allow our time to be filled with things that are not really important in the long term or in the bigger picture.
When I ask people what the most important things in their lives are, most will answer: my parents, my children, my siblings, my loved ones and my health.
Then I ask them what three things take up most of their time, and the answer is often very different. In a world where we are often rushing to the future – to the weekend, to Christmas, to summer – we need to be careful that we are not rushing and wishing our life away.
Beware of the time and energy thieves
We have 168 hours every single week. That never changes and yet ask most people to account for their 168 hours and they can’t – in spite of feeling like they have no spare time.
For most of us, twenty to thirty hours each week go missing. We lose, on average, one day every week because we are distracted or we are spending more time on things that I call ‘time thieves’. We are unconsciously scrolling our time away, watching meaningless television shows or doing things that are not actually adding value or happiness to our lives, but which use up our valuable time.
I now see how precious each moment, each conversation, each hug and each breath are. I promised myself one major thing when I was in hospital: when I left, I was finally going to start living in a whole new way. No more wasting time on unimportant things, no more waiting for someone to give me permission to start living my life, no more time for regrets. I promised myself that I would become much more present in my own life, more present in each day and in each moment. I would no longer take time or experiences for granted. I identified the things that I will miss most when I am gone, and I promised to cherish them while I am still here.
With each hug, I have learned to take an extra second to really feel it in case it is my last with that person. I vowed to extract as much joy and ease as I possibly could from each moment. I was going to start being more selective about the things I would allow to take up my time and energy, about the things I would invest my precious time and energy into.
For me, this was another big wake-up call. I had spent so much of my time rushing and focusing on the wrong things, chasing the wrong things and giving my time to the wrong things. Because I was chasing external approval, I was chasing the things other people wanted and not the things I really wanted. Because I was always chasing, always distracted, I had never even taken the time to stop and actually ask myself what I really wanted and what was important to me. I began to ask if it was possible to slow down time and if it was possible to live in a way that would enable me to experience more of the right things in the time I have.
Of course, the answer is yes. It is absolutely possible.
I started to learn how to slow down time.
I started to understand the power of the breath and how many of us are breathing in a threat state. In this state, we breathe far too quickly and far too shallowly. We should be taking eight to ten breaths a minute, but many of us are taking twenty-plus.
Learning to harness the centring and calming power of the breath is a really incredible way of changing the state of not just your mind but also your body and your physical sensations. It is one of the most powerful gateways to rebalance your nervous system, get out of fear-based thinking, break out of subconscious programmes and finally find the inner space to live a life of more ease and more calm.