Distraction.

Even just the word can cause us cringe. It calls to mind that something isn’t ok, things aren’t quite right, and that we need something else.

Within the word, there seems to be a disowning, a falling out with the present moment, a desire for something more which seems to imply that what is, isn’t enough or good enough.

How does this play out in our relationships?

I don’t believe distraction is inherently bad. A healthy distraction is many times the difference between being balanced or neurotic.

What I can say is that a distracted mind often leads to an absent heart.

When our phones are constantly buzzing, our need to be entertained, and the unresolved energies of trauma and such are swirling within our bodies and being, how can we possible be in the moment or with those who are sharing it with us?

The need for something else creates a dynamic where it becomes difficult to actually love and connect with each other when we cannot love and be with themselves. Almost as if all the love that is poured into each other finds no ground.

I’ve been guilty of this, all too often. With friends, loved ones, lovers, and even Life itself.

I run to distraction, renouncing the present moment in front of me. Moments that could be shared with another who in their purest heart often desires nothing more than my presence.

For most of us, the greatest joy in being with someone is when all of them is with all of us. When the phones are away, the screens turned off, and the only thing that fills the void between two hearts is the totality of one another.

And yet, as wonderful as all this sounds, why is it so hard for us?

I believe it stems from unprocessed emotions and trauma.

Animals in their natural state rarely hold trauma in their bodies. Instinctually when somethings happens, they shake, bark, run around, or find some way to “get it out.”

Humans, on the other hand, through conditioning and perhaps through needing the approval of others, are much more willing to stuff things down, to suppress, and to avoid.

These emotions and energies often “live” in our bodies creating dis-ease, anxiety, and a slew of mental challenges that instead of getting rattled and shaken out, cause havoc within our minds and psyches.

Without being aware, we carry and accumulate these energies within us and continually cause the stress, inflammation, and agitation that invariably lead us to reach for something, at times anything, to ease our suffering.

The problem of course with our modern ways of dealing with unresolved energies is that while they may ease the pain temporarily, they create deep weights upon our hearts and souls causing us to hurt ourselves, and others, often in indirect ways.

When we are unable or unwilling to process these unmet aspects of our experience, we arrive to partnership a shadow of what we could be.

Instead of full, present, and available, we arrive guarded, afraid, and filled with beliefs of being not good enough and perhaps in more ways than one, not ok.

Sometimes merely the awareness of this dynamic is enough to begin the unwinding process.

Sometimes acknowledging how so many of us are conditioned to hide and stuff down our shame and guilt is enough to allow the energies to dissipate as we are very much not alone in these experiences.

And sometimes, it will take more of a focused effort to release and let go of the aspects of our past that no longer serve.

From this, perhaps then for all times, we can find ourselves a bit more free, willing, and able to be with all that is here for us, in the now.