Distract yourself or develop yourself?

Painful things are hard to think about.  I notice myself pushing them to one side in my mind, and focussing on something more pleasurable instead.   Quite a natural way to prevent anxiety, but at what stage does this become ‘problem, what problem?  Let’s party!’  i.e.  the stage at which pleasure is used to avoid engagement with stressful circumstances.  Virginia Satir identified this type of reaction to stress as the ‘distractor’ response.

I have found successful projects much easier to engage with than less successful ones.  My way of dealing with this has been to notice it and ensure that I give the things I enjoy less, but which nevertheless deserve attention, the time they need.  Tackling them first in the day when I am fresh works well.

When do we give ourselves permission to engage with pleasures that distract us?  This is easier to answer when our days are well structured and there are clear times for ‘work’ and ‘play’.  Working for myself,  I have to self-motivate and organise my own time.  I find that I have to set myself rules, targets and manage myself so that I tackle the things that are necessary but less fun.

This makes me think about personal development.  Many people say that it is our failures we learn from, but thinking about them in order to learn is painful, so we will often slip into defensive ways of thinking – projecting blame onto others, distracting ourselves with pleasures, ascribing a failure to the context.  The other thing we do is distract ourselves, which also means we fail to learn.

For me a great way of spotting where I should be learning/changing is when I give myself permission for a ‘treat’ – am I trying to distract myself from something I need to engage with?  I’m not talking about some hair shirt approach to life, but about noticing when I think ‘let’s have an hour off now and go for a walk in the sun’ at a time I would normally be working.  Is this because everything is under control and I can enjoy this, or is it to avoid tackling something unpleasant?

Procrastination is another good indicator of what we are avoiding.  Last week I found myself grateful for a day of DIY as a way of avoiding dealing with other tasks.  In themselves those tasks were not unpleasant, but they had a negative emotional charge for me.

Noticing what is going on can help us make conscious choices, learn from errors and engage with areas of our work and lives which need to change.

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