Does Distraction Protect You? Or Create a Cycle of Avoidance?

Distractions protect by shutting down awareness. It quiets the realities of your life--your desire for perfectionism, or obsessive habits like overeating, and overworking, but also shuts down self-care. It creates anxiety and gives more power to the self-critic since we all worry over time lost to distractions. 

When we distract ourselves with numbing activities we may protect our psyche temporarily. Still, we chip away at the ability to take care of ourselves--to NOTICE where we need to care for ourselves and boost our self-esteem. Self-care activities like journaling, meditating, learning new things, and exploring our capacities to learn by playing, are avoided.

Distraction is avoidance. 

Avoidance numbs self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-support which shuts down basic feelings.

 Distraction stops you from living your life. 

Be an observer. Notice what the true cost of distraction is.

Rennett Stowe from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Here's an interesting link from Harvard Business Review:

Are You Stuck in the Anxiety-Distraction Feedback Loop?