Focusing on a Distraction

Someday maybe I’ll write a book about The Importance of Focus and the Power of Distractions.

After all, it is what you focus on that determines almost everything.

And allowing yourself not to be distracted or carefully picking a good distraction can sometimes be the smartest thing you could do.

I believe The Power of Distraction can be very powerful.  For good OR for bad.  Some distractions can be bad, sure, but some are very practical and can be very wonderful.

Distracting yourself with TV when you’re sick can get your mind off how bad you feel.  A night out at the movies may distract us from the difficult week at work.

Focus on living within your means, and you create a debt-free reality.  Focus on what the Joneses have and your discontent can tempt you otherwise.

A Sunday drive can distract you from something crummy that happened, displace it out of your brain and help you get over it.  And if an ice cream cone happens to join you along the way… well, that may just be a necessary bonus.  :)

Focus also determines your reality.  Perhaps it is their choice of what they focus on that make the optimists so positive.  They continually focus on what they have, not on what they lack.  Half-full.

(Personally, I tend to be a bit too cheerful for some…!!   Some of it is in my genes, but also perhaps it’s because I am constantly thinking in relative terms.  Compared to X, Y isn’t so bad.  It could be a lot worse.  That sort of thinking.)

In the Winter, when I am lying on my back on an ice pack, I also have a sock full of hot dry rice on my tummy, warming me so I don’t turn into a popsicle.  (!!)  Now I feel delicious warmth when I consider the one, and bitter cold when I concentrate on the other.  Both are true at the same time.  How I feel actually depends upon which one I focus on.

When I am in pain, however, my focus is usually totally on that.  If it’s a lot of pain, it is just in your face.  It is truly the pits.  And pain is such a thief.  Pain can not only steal all your attention, but your joy, your energy and your very essence.  Not that it can’t be helped sometimes.  Sometimes it just is.  Pain stinks.  Thank heavens the pain-filled times in my life are not very extreme.

And not just pain.  Sometimes it's just what happens in life, and it's horrible.

But if I can shift…  If I can be *distracted* by something, then I am a few degrees freer.  Freer from pain, or freer from temptations, or freer from my crazy brain...

And the greater attention I pay to what my focus is, and the more aware I am of the distractions I allow or choose, the more I am rewarded.  It helps you live with intention, doesn’t it?

I think that’s why the Bible says, focus on things above, not things here on the earth.  It knows that something is going to occupy our brain, so why not make it the good stuff?

And I believe that to a great extent we actually create the reality we live in.  So, as much as we can, why not make it a wonderful one??

Your thoughts are your choice.

Brainwash yourself with good ones!!

XOXO,

Lucky Dog

♥