Distraction

Distraction

You learn something new everyday.

In his workshop on Conscious Breathing last weekend, Anders Olsson challenged us to pay attention to our breathing habits in everyday activities. It was on this prompting that I noticed that when I read I hold my breath. With my taste in reading material this is rarely through excitement or suspense! This habit is a source of low level stress. The eyes are alongside the brain with their energy consumption, and reading is an activity which requires plenty ofenergy! No wonder I tire easily when I read!

If I am unaware of something as fundamental as my breathing what else am I overlooking? I seem able to give my attention to all sorts of things which challenge my thinking and mind but am I missing something in the process? We live in times where we are bombarded by information and it is easy to get distracted, and affords us every opportunity to form opinions and judgements. It would seem that ourobsession with our thoughts and feelings have been obscuring something far bigger, far more real.

My personal challenge of the moment is to let go. But let go of what? Well it seems that letting go of distraction might be a good start and so often our thoughts and feelings are little more than distractions. Just becoming aware of the spaces in between the distraction opens up a largely unnoticed world of possibility. That possibility is in fact where the thoughts and feelings emerge from.

As an example, I have found it really hard to spend time with my parents of late, getting irritated with their personalities and as I packed them off on a two week cruise last week the last thing in the world I expected was to find myself missing them. But as the space opens up in the absence of the personalities I found myself connecting to something much deeper. The stories and the feelings they evoke are a distraction, and a distraction which has obscured a very deep and powerful sense of love. 

I think it was Eckhart Tolle who said "if you think you are enlightened try spending the weekend with your family". I am sure when I pick them up next week I will very soon become distracted again but hopefully with a new appreciation of the space from which it arises!

Shit, I hold my breath when I type as well...so much to learn!

With love

Bill