Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, I want to talk about why we often distract ourselves. Now, a lot of the distractions, "distractions" that we have, which we could just look at as various forms of stimulation, don't really have much to do with what's in our control. I mean, there's just so much coming at us on a daily basis that we're just trying to navigate it all. But a lot of times, we can use different forms of stimulation and what we could perceive as distraction to cover up something for us, something that we don't want to face.

And I think one of the reasons we get addicted to distraction or we intentionally distract ourselves is that it helps us float above the pain and confusion that lurks in the shadowy depths of our being. We all have this to some extent. I mean, part of being human is to try to make meaning in a world that is very confusing. And one of the ways we can avoid looking at some of that confusion or pain, maybe decisions we've made from a long time ago that we regret is to keep ourselves distracted. This is why we can get addicted to busyness or our work or climbing the ladder of success.

It gives us a carrot to chase. It gives us another rung of the ladder to climb, some sort of goal in the future that we can move toward that keeps us active, that keeps us busy, not having to be still. And maybe you've experienced this, but sometimes when you've stepped out of that, busy-ness and drop into the stillness, there's some painful things there that have been waiting. The thing is there's no amount of floating about above our pain that's going to resolve it. And if you want to transcend so to speak, you first need to descend.

You need to drop into and make space for the experiences that are there that are asking for attention that we haven't addressed. This doesn't mean you have to go into all aspects of your psyche and everything that you've, or, or dig for something that it's like, okay, I want to find all my pain. Right? That's, unless you are really inspired to do that, that's unnecessary. This stuff will arise as you deepen your own journey of growth and presence. And so when it arises organically, that's when we start to hold space for it.

And we look at it and we go, oh wow, this is what's here now. How do I want to relate to it and help to heal and integrate it? But a lot of times when that does happen, it feels uncomfortable. It feels more confusing. And our way around it is just to bring in more distractions, caffeinate and go, give myself another goal to work toward. And you can do that.

You could go another year, three years, five years doing that, but it's still lurking beneath the surface. And this is why people can get burnt out or exhausted in their work because they're running, running, running, trying not to feel something. Now the cool thing is once you do drop in and you make space in that's stillness and you do start to do that deeper healing work, well, then you can engage with your life in a way that is inspired and exciting and compassionate and, and coming from the part of you that is most aligned, rather than being driven by fear of being still, rather than being driven by a need to distract yourself. So there is a light on the other side of it. And if we can take that orientation to our healing work, it becomes opportunities for excitement.

It's like, Ooh, there's a door there that I can feel there's something on the other side, but it requires me walking through some discomfort. But know that on the other side of that discomfort is a whole new, a whole new experience of opening and depth that we get to touch into. Of course, if there's some deep things there, you want to have some support and that's where therapists can come in. But you are doing this work in a big way through the meditations here at Mindfulness.com. So as always thank you for your practice and let's settle in for today's meditation.