TGIM: Disengage From Distraction

Welcome back to Thank God It’s Monday! I’m writing this ahead of time because I am heading out to the woods for the week. As some of you know, I’ve section-hiked the Appalachian Trail almost annually for the last nine years barring covid and PA school summers. So I’m all packed up and heading back out for another 100 miles to eventually piece together the 2,190-mile trek.
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tl;dr We spend most of our time distracted by our phones, work, loved ones… and then people wonder why when they have to confront their own emotions and thoughts they’re anxious and stressed. Find space in your day to be free of distraction. No music, no podcasts, no phone, no news, not even a book. Just you, and your thoughts, sitting, walking, existing.
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Usually, when people ask what you’re doing for vacation and find out you’re packing your food and shelter up in a backpack and heading out to the woods for a week, there’s a mixture of concern, horror, surprise, and many other confused emotions. While I enjoy sitting at an all-inclusive resort on a beach in 80-degree weather just as much as the next person, this trip is wonderful in other ways.

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The thought of doing nothing but walking, eating, and sleeping all day for a few days sounds amazing. No texts from work, no assignments due for school, no client appointments, no sleep-deprived nights in between 13-hour day shifts, or sleep-deprived days between 13-hour night shifts. Just movement, fresh air, and recovery.

People think the hardest part of the trip is physical. Carrying 25-30 pounds on your back for 15 miles is hard but it’s not the worst thing. And, as they call it on the trail, Vitamin I (ibuprofen) gets you a long way. I’ve never thru-hiked (when people do the whole thing, Georgia to Maine, in one straight shot, but I’ve heard your legs adapt at some point too! With section hiking (doing smaller chunks at a time) your legs adapt right at the end when you’re ready to get off the trail.
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But the hard part about the trip is the mental tenacity. Like any physical challenge, your mental tenacity usually gives out long before your body does. Fortunately, on the trail, the only option really is to keep walking so it doesn’t give your mind a lot of pull in the matter. Although, it will continue to fight you sometimes despite the unchanging circumstances. However, when you’re walking for 10+ hours in the day, it’s a whole lot of time to just think.
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In our usual day-to-day lives, we wake up and spring into action. Maybe you’re better than I am and consistently do your meditation practice every morning for a few minutes before you start your day and then it’s off to the races. Before you even reach the first item on your agenda, you already went through all of the things you had to do in your head, thought about the plans later this week that you’re looking forward to, and probably checked the list of notifications on your phone. It’s go, go, go until your head hits the pillow before you sleep and start all over.
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If there are a few minutes of downtime, you usually try to fill the space by calling someone, checking your phone, turning on some music, or thinking more about the thing you have to do. Rarely do we purposefully make the time to just be still.
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But stillness is the space where we can process what’s going on in our brains. We can process our emotions, be creative, and resolve the busyness that’s always rushing through our minds. It helps provide a reprieve from the constant noise and improve our ability to think when we need to be sharp.

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It’s uncomfortable. It’s a crummy feeling when you’ve never done it before. It feels unsettling when you first sit in silence like you want to adjust and fidget which leads to looking for a distraction.
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But it’s a superpower to be able to think through your thoughts. Follow them to the end of the story, dig deeper, and keep asking yourself why the previous thought arose. And this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to sit on a pillow with your legs crossed in the traditional “meditation” picture kind of way.
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This can be while you go on a walk, while you exercise, or even just sitting in your car. You will probably go to pick up your phone, or put your headphones on, or turn the volume up in the car. But when that feeling arises, see if you can sit with it. Just sit in that discomfort until you reach a conclusion one way or the other. Don’t try to numb with distraction.

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We’re amidst a distracted generation with the highest rates of depression that we’ve ever seen despite the safest and best quality of life provided by years of innovation and development. And it’s not just Gen Z. Everyone is suffering from the distractions. We have the highest rates of obesity and they continue to climb because people distract themselves with food. Our political system is a joke because people blindly follow party dogmas instead of thinking through problems and working towards resolution. Kids are fighting a war on mental health because we’re just not educated yet on how to limit technology. After all, it developed so fast and it’s a cheap and legal drug. Distractions are killing us.

So for your health and happiness, find time to be with your thoughts. If you’ve made it this far reading this week, take a few minutes before you swipe to your next app or webpage to consider what changes you can make today to give yourself time to be with your thoughts. How can you make space in your day and your life to fight the distractions? You’re more than welcome to come join me in the woods! Or you can just take a walk in your neighborhood and leave your phone behind.

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If you found some value in this, please share it with a friend you think would enjoy it! And let me know if you’d like to be added to get TGIM. Or visit https://walshwellness.weebly.com/ for older editions and if you’d like to subscribe.

This week, my podcast recommendation this week is from Brendan Burchard’s Motivation, “How Fatigue is Killing Your Dreams.” One of my favorite lines from this episode (and everything Brendan says is a powerful line) is something along the lines of fatigue is a feeling. You feel fatigued but your body is not fatigued, it’s in your mind because your distractions take up so much of your mental capacity. If you can prune your distractions, you will feel less fatigued in your decision making freeing up your mind to do the work that’s important.
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With that, have a wonderful week everyone! I always copy and paste my last segment here for format from the prior week and I laughed when I read that last week I said if you’re feeling anxious or stressed the best remedy is movement and fresh air which is exactly what I’m doing for the next week. Get up and get out there!

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Until next time,

Shannon