Distracting the Distraction
It is the last day of November, and the end-of-year holiday celebrations have already started. In the dark days of winter, the tradition is to celebrate the return of the light, but the holidays can also mean that there are many shiny objects all around you vying for your attention. There are holiday lights and music, invitations, social gatherings, food and drink, and all of these things are taking place against a backdrop of worldly stories of political unrest and real tragedy perhaps affecting you and those you love directly and indirectly. The world wants your attention and your getting distracted by the world are “part and parcel” of the times we live in, but this kind of thing can also be fuel for your mind-body practice.
In mind-body practice sometimes I talk about the useful concept of distracting the distraction.
Distracting the distraction is a practice of noticing the external forces that are clamoring for attention, and then seeing them, feeling them, experiencing them as a big wall or cloud of stuff or energy that simply exists somewhere near you. Then, in that moment of gently sensing that big cloud or wall, and not pushing it away, you actively decide to turn your attention away from it so that you make a little space between you and it. For this visualization exercise, I find that slowly turning the head to bring the chin over one shoulder can help you feel yourself actually turning away from that big cloud of distraction. You can decide to turn away and shift your focus, and decision is power. Then, that space between you and that cloud of perceived distraction can get bigger and bigger.
When you distract the distraction, you shine the light of awareness back on itself. There is a great phrase of “turning the light around” from an obscure book on Daoist practices called The Secret of the Golden Flower, where you can think of your attention as light that you can shine on things. What happens when you turn that same light of awareness around? When you actively “turn the light around,” you shine the light on yourself, on your own awareness. Even if very brief in duration, when you turn the light around with all your heart, you may gently encounter a wide open space of pure awareness where everything exists and has its being. It is a moment of peace.
These moments are absolutely golden.
A Really Simple Practice to Turn the Light Around In a Day
The book called Golden by Justin Zorn and Leigh Marz, which was published in 2022, features many simple and powerful practices for experiencing silence, space, and awareness. The authors say we can experience the power of silence in a world of noise, but they also note that silence is not just the absence of noise. Your conscious participation (your choosing to turn the light around) is what brings you to an awareness of silence and pure being right there where you are, right in the middle of all that is happening. You can prime your mind and body to not just seek peace and silence, but to be peaceful and silent at will and on cue. Holding an intention to do this is what mind-body practice is about.
One of my favorite practices featured in the Golden book mentioned above is this one:
Take 3 breaths before you do something ordinary in your day.
You might take these three breaths just before you do any of the following:
as you pick up your phone or device to check your messages or social media
as you sit down at your desk to work
as you leave the house
as you take the first bite of your meal or take that first sip of a hot beverage
as you begin to text back a loved one or colleague
as you make your bed
as you put away dishes or laundry
when you decide to do a Yoga, Tai Chi or Qigong practice session
You might think of other simple things to add to this list, but you get the idea that there are so many things you can choose from in an ordinary day. The practice takes commitment. But it can also be a fun game to try to remember to do this little breath practice at least once during an ordinary day. Actually remembering to squeeze in the “take three breaths practice” into your day, and then experiencing and observing what happens in your mind and body when you do it, can then prime you to “turn the light around” when the distractions come.
I encourage you to turn the light around during this holiday season.