Do you pay attention to where you place your attention?

Distraction is everywhere! If we allow ourselves to engage like a kid in a candy shop, taking it all in with gusto, we can end up frazzled and fragmented, feeling less than safe and sound within. 

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Distractions abound these days. We are pushed from pillar to post, needed in so many ways and it takes us out of ourselves continually.

We can be like a kid in a candy shop because distraction is accessible at all times and very easy as a go to, as a kind of adult soother.

I find I can be doomscrolling quite often and quite easily, and it takes me out of myself, takes away my sense of focus. It takes away my locus of control and I can feel discombobulated very quickly.

And yet, I’m the one in control of how I spend my time, where I place my energy, where I place my focus.

Being that kid in the candy shop doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to be distracted and wrenched out of ourselves.

Because it really disempowers us, disengages us; it disconnects us from ourselves, it disconnects us from our nearest and dearest.

As we connect externally, we disconnect internally. And we can feel then quite disempowered, disconnected and confused, discombobulated and it doesn’t leave us feeling very good. I’ve had to really wean myself away from my device, put my phone next door for instance for periods of time, disconnect from the Internet, from doomscrolling. And it’s left me feeling much better in and of myself.

Because as we place our focus and our locus control outside of ourselves, of course we’re disconnected and we can feel then in that disconnection unsafe. And as human beings in order to thrive, in order to feel well, we need to feel safe.

Instead as we place our focus outside of ourselves, we can increase that sense of stress, the confusion, the conflict in our heads, between our heads, our minds and bodies, and we can feel disengaged and disempowered.

There’s a lot of Ds there that I’m sharing and none of them are that good or positive!

So when you find yourself disconnecting and outside of yourself and the stress is increasing, I invite you to drop into the body, come back to the body. That’s where our power lies, that’s where our agency is - to reconnect with ourselves through the breath.

And that can bring us into that sense of connection again with ourselves, sense of safety and sense of control.