I have been giving a lot of thought these days, with Covid-19 afoot, about the various ways in which people maintain their individual sanity as all of the crazy stuff keeps happening all around us. I have noticed a number of folks on social media doing things like Gratitude lists on a daily basis. I think that this is incredibly positive. I have not done this myself because whenever I think about making a daily list of things my mind literally goes completely blank. That is, unless it is a grocery list or a to-do list for the day. But other than that…nothing….nada….zilch. So it always warms my heart when someone can actually sit down and make a list of things for which they are grateful. It makes me think that perhaps I should be recording my voice and just speaking it into the recorder, because then I might not have the pressure of a written list looming over me, making my mind evacuate all thoughts.
I have also noticed that I have a particular distraction that does seem to help with the stress as well as with boredom. Netflix…or Prime Video…or Sundance Now. Watching a series or a movie is a great mindless escape for me. I always feel relaxed when watching videos of stuff. And the more intriguing the plot line, the deeper I am in. Yes, I will even binge watch…but no more than 3-4 episodes of something in a sitting. It is not like I have a LOT of time on my hands, but I also like to fill the air with some sound. I often eat breakfast and lunch alone, so why not watch something while I eat? Right? And when I am not watching something I like to fill the air with gentle music. I find that 432hz music is excellent for this because it is very calming and can almost get lost in the background, so it doesn’t interfere with thought processes or conversations. In fact, I think it enhances both of those things.
I found another distraction today that I did not know was possible. I went to my tattoo artist to get an addition to an existing tattoo and, in our conversation, something came up that I had written about in my blog. So I searched for the entry until I finally found it. I began reading it aloud to her as she worked on my tattoo. Yes, the tattoo was painful, but once I began reading, the pain was almost non-existent. It would seem that the part of the brain that registers pain for me is a completely different part of the brain that I use to read something out loud. So I continued to read the next blog as well just to keep the pain at bay. And it worked!
It makes me wonder how often we are unaware of something that is happening to us because we are mentally distracted by something else? Can we truly hold two experiences simultaneously in full form? Or will one always outweigh the other? And that got me thinking about relationships. So often people find themselves in a situation wherein they are in love with someone with whom they are also extremely angry. Can one emotion (love) fully exist while the other emotion (anger) is in action? Can anger fully exist when love is in action? Humans are complicated beings. Perhaps that is why the line between pleasure and pain is so thin for so many. And what if we were to look at all our anger issues as simply being distractions from our experiences of love? How might that change how we view our entire life’s experiences?
I am going to experiment with this. The next time I am angry (or even slightly inconvenienced for that matter) I am going to focus on something or someone I love and see what kind of experience this prompts me to have! I invite you, the reader, to do the same.