Hi there. I've been asked to answer the question, isn't it better to distract myself when I'm in pain rather than be mindful. This is a really great question because, of course, logically it would seem it's much, much better to distract yourself rather than be mindful of the pain and be experiencing the pain. Surely it's better to take your mind off it rather than to be with it. Really, really important question.

In order to answer this question what I want to do is unpack a really crucial insight that I've learned through my own experience of living with pain for many, many years. And this is the distinction between what I call compulsive distraction, on the one hand and aware distraction, on the other. I'm guessing, if you're like me, then compulsive distraction might be something that you're quite familiar with. You know the feeling. You get up in the morning, your pain's bad.

Maybe you even have an intention to stay mindful, to stay calm, collected. And before you know it, you're doing anything to try to escape your experience. It might be overworking. It might be overdoing it physically. It might be being really scatty, just kind of slithering from one thing to the next mentally, like your mind can't settle and it's a very unsatisfactory way to be.

I'm sure you all know that. I'm sure you've experienced that. And I know for myself, when I get into what I call compulsive distraction, it can feel quite hectic. It's very kind of edgy, restless, there's no calm. And although I might be managing to avoid my pain, my whole quality of life is getting quite diminished.

So much of my energy is going into avoiding the pain that I'm not actually able to enjoy what I'm doing. A good analogy for this is imagine that you're going to a party. And before you arrive at the party, you hear that somebody you really don't like is going to be at this party. So what you do is you enter the house where the party is being held and you immediately start scanning the crowd for that person because you really do not want to be in the same room as that person. So you see the person in the distance and you think, oh, I'll go into the other room.

I'll go into the lounge or the dining room or whatever it might be. And so you've managed to avoid that person, but when you're in the other room, you keep on scanning the doorway in case they come into the room, in case they come towards you. So though you're avoiding that person, you're not able to settle. You're not able to enjoy in the other room because so much of your energy and your awareness is indeed actually over-focused on the very thing that you're trying to avoid. So in this analogy, the person you're trying to avoid is dominating your awareness through avoidance.

I'm sure you know what I'm getting at. I'm sure you've had that experience. And I think when we get into compulsive distraction around pain, it's a little bit similar. So we're putting all our energy into trying to avoid the pain, but in a way, the pain is still dominating. The pain is still dominating through all these avoidance strategies.

You're doing anything to stop yourself actually just experiencing what's happening. And it's there all the time, because it is your experience. The pain is part of your experience if you're living with a pain condition at this time, So you might be kind of fooling yourself that you're avoiding the pain, but there's so much effort tied up in these avoidance strategies that you're not able to enjoy anything else. So this is what I call compulsive distraction, and it's not something I recommend. Doesn't lead to peace.

Doesn't lead to a feeling of ease, relaxation, and calm. But I think there's definitely a space for what I call aware distraction if we're living with pain. Sometimes people think that if we're bringing mindfulness to our pain experience, it means that we're focusing on the pain all the time. And who wants to do that? That is not an attractive way to live either. What mindfulness gives us is a quality of choice.

So you wake up in the morning, the pain's bad. You're aware of it. You check in on your breathing. Are you holding the breathing against the pain? You relax, you soften, you bring kindness to your experience. You notice your thoughts, you notice your emotions, you check in, and then you calm as best you can.

You release into gravity. You let go of the sort of secondary reactive habits that we have, and you just come into the body. And then you might think, I'm just going to spend some time reading a book. I'm going to go for a walk. I'm going to watch something online or listen to a podcast, something like that.

And you choose to do that quite consciously. You think, I just want to have a period of time, really relaxing and enjoying something else. And that's a positive choice that you're making. You've got the pain.. It's there with you.

You're aware of it, but you're choosing also to expand your awareness, if you like to include something else. In my own experience, maybe I'm a bit more achy at the end of the day. And I might think I'm just going to watch a movie. I lie on the sofa and I watch the movie and I'll enjoy it. And it's a conscious choice.

But what I'm doing is I'm, if you like, bringing my pain with me. So I choose a position where I'll be as comfortable as possible. I'll check in on my breathing. I'll release into the sofa. I'll let go as best as I can.

And then I'll enjoy the movie as an active choice, but I'm not putting all this effort into trying to avoid the pain. The pain's there as well. So it's a little bit like if we go back to the analogy of the party, this person that you're trying to avoid is your pain. So you go into the room, you see this person on the other side of the room and instead of going into another room and then being completely hypervigilant around whether this person's going to come into the room or not, you think, oh, there's that person over there. I'll stay in this room.

If they come up and talk to me, that's fine. If they don't, that's fine. Oh, here's this other person over here. I really like them. I'm going to go and spend some time talking to them.

And you can just relax into that because you know if the other person that you're trying to avoid happens to come towards you, that's fine. That's fine. You can have a conversation with them. But meanwhile, you can also choose to have a conversation with the person that you really like, that you find, you know, stimulating, enjoyable and you really enjoy spending time with them. So that's the main thing that I wanted to say, that I think there is definitely a place for distraction when we're living with pain, for choosing to do something with our awareness that's enjoyable, pleasant, a diversion, if you like, from the pain.

But the main thing is that there's choice. The main thing is that we're not suppressing our pain. We're not pushing it away. We're not trying to avoid it. Here it is, and I'm going to watch a movie as well.

And that's very different from being caught up in a kind of way of being where huge amounts of energy are tied up with trying to avoid the pain when the pain is here. So much better to acknowledge the pain, include the pain in your awareness. And then on the basis of that, choose to do something else as well. Read a book, watch a movie, speak to a friend, have a nice cup of coffee, whatever it might be. So as I'm talking, I'm realizing that what I'm encouraging or what I'm suggesting is something that's quite integrated and whole.

So we're looking for wholeness in our experience. There's the pain and there's this other thing as well. Rather than having fragmented awareness where we're desperately trying to avoid the pain, and then we're desperately going to something else as a kind of hectic compulsive distraction. And that's really horrible. I'm sure you've all had that experience and it's really, really unpleasant.

So I hope this is helpful. And the main tip that I'm offering is aware distraction rather than compulsive distraction. I really wish you all the very best. And maybe even today, you could play around with this distinction. If you notice yourself getting into compulsive distraction, where you're driven, hamster on a wheel, that kind of thing, just stop, ground, breathe, acknowledge the pain, and then choose something else that you might like to do as an aware distraction, if that's what you'd like.

So thank you for your practice and I wish you all the best.