But it’s true, you can fall in love with people’s souls, their gestures, their hearts and morals, with people’s smiles and people’s minds – without exchanging a single kiss and without a single word.
~ R.M. Drake
But it’s True, You Can Fall in Love with People’s Souls
5 Ways Distraction Can Be Useful for You
Is distraction good or just an excuse?
“You are always distracted, pay attention and finish your school work,” this is my daily reminder to our 10-year-old son. Since school is now based at home, he gets this reminder often, and he does listen and get back to his school work.
While reading a book that night on ‘Declutter your mind,’ I read the lines, “Distract yourself, when your mind is clouded by negative thoughts, distractions help.” While the above-mentioned scenarios are completely different from each other, what struck me is whether distraction can be useful and needed?
Let us delve deeper into this.
A person who procrastinates says, “I will finish this later, there is no hurry.” Distraction for them serves as an excuse to get away from the task at hand and that can be for any reason – because of laziness, boredom and so on.
If you are doing a job or stuck in one where you feel like you’re procrastinating always, then don’t do it, perhaps, you aren’t meant to be there in the first place.
In the above-mentioned scenario, there is a possibility that my son finds great solace in distraction because his studies are perhaps, boring, he doesn’t find it interesting. There is also a possibility that he just wants to waste his time instead of focusing on his school work. In the latter case, distraction isn’t useful.
When Distraction Can Be Useful
The reason why we crave distraction is something each one of us has to figure out for ourselves. There are moments in life when everyone needs that one distraction to take their mind off things. I have a challenging time with my mother and sometimes, it happens that I do end up losing my cool with her.
During that time I seek a distraction to move away from the present moment, but I have realised that it is not going to solve the matter at hand; it is only patch work, providing a temporary relief from a momentary situation.
But If we’ve had a heated argument with someone we love – may be your spouse – then distraction can be useful to help get your mind off the negative situation only to return to it when we have calmed down. In this case a distraction helps to settle the mind, take a breather and even gain clarity.
Healthy distraction can be a good thing (not when you are driving of course), to lead a more meaningful and fulfilling life.
How can we ensure that distraction serves its true purpose, and we do not get carried away? Here are 5 ways how distraction can be useful.
“All profound distraction opens certain doors. You have to allow yourself to be distracted when you are unable to concentrate.” ~ Julio Cortázar
Distraction can be useful to reduce pain
When children fall sick and are low on energy, distracting them with may be a play or a joke, books, or some toys, helps to ease away the discomfort and brings joy to them. This is when distraction helps, and it may also help in their recovery.
Even adults suffering from severe chronic pain, need distractions to ease their mood and bring some lightness to their day or else the mind is only focused on the pain. In some cases, healthy distractions can also help the healing process. Research too suggests that distraction reduces pain.
Distraction gives a break from doing focused work
When you are doing any kind of focused work, for example writing an article, and you want to finish this article, but you get stuck while writing, you don’t know how to proceed further.
Getting distracted will bring you out of the rut – so going for a walk in your neighbourhood or watering the plants or doing anything that you fancy, and then coming back to writing will help to refocus and finish your article.
Distraction can be useful to nourish the soul
The current times are difficult for many of us – be it emotionally, financially or mentally, and the fact that everyone is at home at all times due to the lockdown. Apart from coming to terms with the situation, there is little we can do about it. A healthy distraction helps us to figure our way out and sail through these tough times.
For us, we found solace in our daily evening hike to a hill, which is fortunately, just across the road. This daily evening ritual cleanses our mind and rejuvenates our spirit. The beautiful sunsets, wind blowing across the face and the calling of the peacocks, these varied elements put together set a new tone for the day – of hope, courage, optimism and determination.
A distraction like this is good, if it nourishes the soul, and helps you escape reality for a bit. Pick one that feeds your soul and do it regularly when you are tired of the mundane.
Distractions provide a fresh pair of eyes
When you are too much into your head, overthinking and overanalyzing everything, get out of your head and breathe. Take a conscious break from the routine and the daily stress.
As mentioned in the earlier point, do something that you like, absolutely anything that gets you out of your mind but in a healthy, meaningful way. In fact distractions also allows us to break the habitual patterns that have been rooted in our minds.
Distractions can be useful during workouts
Listening to music, podcast during workout sessions, jogging or running can boost your endurance levels as you end up paying less attention to the intensity of the workout.
Few ideas for healthy distraction
Here are few ideas to get purposefully distracted, only to return to the real situation feeling more charged or reset your mind.
Walking in the forest, gardening, singing, pursuing your hobby, art – drawing, painting, playing with children or pets, meditating, reading. The list is endless…
As someone rightly said, “A distraction doesn’t pull you away from your primary goal, but it reveals your true desires.”
Choose your distractions wisely, as it is too easy to get distracted by things that don’t serve you – long hours on social media, online games etc., instead always make the time to say hello to the sun, it will brighten up your day!
Do you use distractions to grow or escape? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Image Source
Perhaps You Haven’t been Told this Directly
Perhaps you haven’t been told this directly and it’s about time you begin having access to this truth:
You are enough.
You have the right to be here and take up space.
You have the right to love and be loved.
You are not too much.
You have the right to speak your truth.
You have the right to explore your curiosities, establish your individuality and transform as often as necessary.
You are allowed to be.
Just be.
And you deserve the world and everything wholesome in it.
~ Jova Ferreyra
7 Signs You May Be a Trickster God in Training
“The trickster is not a trickster by nature. He is a trickster by necessity.” ~ Malcom Gladwell
Boundary dweller. Faux shadow. Periphery keeper. Curious catalyst. Promethean prankster. Dark spark. God’s gangster. Trick lightning. Couth slayer.
The trickster is a standard archetype. Trickster myths are universal and cross-cultural. They permeate the human leitmotif. Trickster energy can be felt in the bones. It agitates mind and instigates soul. It riots the heart and challenges norms.
But true trickster goddery (like true enlightenment) is unattainable. Like the horizon, it is forever out of reach. And that’s okay. You can only ever be “in training” anyway.
The journey is only ever the thing. The destination does not matter. The path is everything and nothing. You are the existential pivot, the ontological crossroads. If you’re doing it right, you are boundaryless and everything is Horizon.
Here are seven signs you may be a trickster god in training…
1.) You are ambiguous and anomalous:
“Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides.” ~ Tony Schwartz
In Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde describes the trickster’s ability to uncover secrets as “apocalyptic in the simple sense (the Greek root means ‘an uncovering’). In this case, it lifts the shame covers. It allows articulation to enter where silence once ruled.”
The first sign that you are on the path is your ability to “lift the shame covers” and allow self-expression (art) to rule over silence.
For you, silence is the enemy. You put a muzzle on silence. Better to keep things loud and loose rather than quiet and fixed. Better to keep things strange and inconsistent rather than regular and consistent. Especially when it comes to art. And especially-especially when it comes to the art of living life well.
As such, you are methodical in your lack of method. You are valiantly vague and unequivocally equivocal. There’s a snarl in your smile and laughter in your glare. You are so absolutely uncertain of all things that Doubt has become a sword you use to cut through the false certitude of others. No idea is off limits, no belief is safe, no faith is sacred to the terrible cut of your sword.
2.) You are a deceptive sharper sharpening a dull world:
“With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.” ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
You are not a trickster with love. You are a trickster with life. You are a trickster in love with tricking life into divulging its secrets. Your trickster tactics are actually an act of love. For you bring the magic elixir back to the tribe as a gift of hard-earned love gleaned through amoral acts of lofty deception.
You don’t deceive to harm, necessarily. You deceive to awaken, to rattle, to create commotion in still waters and blow hot smoke through black and white prison bars. You deceive to stir the pot, to push the envelope, to stretch the comfort zone, to think outside the box, to shatter rigid paradigms that keep people stuck in willful ignorance. You deceive to crush out complacency.
But your deception is love-laced, flaneur-fleeced, bricoleur-backed, fortified with High Art. Indeed, you distort the line between Art and artifice with uncompromising glee.
3.) You are a shapeshifter and master of disguises:
“Very few people are artists in life. The art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts.” ~ Carl Jung
You blur the line between self and other. You are as much moon as man. As much wolf as ape. As much crow as mammal. You prove that the paradox of self is more a house of mirrors than a stable foundation, more a precarious perch than firm ground.
But, and here’s the rub, you own it. The self is masks all the way down perceiving delusions all the way up? So be it. Might as well enjoy donning and discarding masks. Might as well have fun with delusion.
Everything in life is metaphor, and you’re here to prove it. Irony is sieved through metaphor. And you are a mighty sieve. From your shapeshifting comes world making. Life becomes art, and art becomes life. Forget genes. Forget memes. You’ll carry mythemes and astonish the world.
Through their astonishment you climb to heights unfathomable. You eclipse their sun. You toss out their moon. You dangle the carrot of jest and apocalypse. And, oh, how they drool, blind and tideless. Rigid and ireful. How they slip around in the mess you’ve made. But only then do they realize they were blind before. Only now, through your filter of mirrors, do they finally see the forest for the trees.
4.) You persistently invert situation:
“We must examine everything, stir up everything without exception and without restraint.” ~ Denis Diderot
You are a contrasting contradiction. You split all heirs. Nobody “deserves” a damn thing in this life. You know this – balls to bones. You feel this – root to crown. The universe is inherently meaningless? So be it. You are here to inject meaning into it despite. But not because anyone deserves it.
You do this through stubborn inversion. You smash thesis into antithesis and come up with synthesis. You teardown outdated meaning with mercurial teeth. You bury old gods in new gardens. You plant the Yggdrasil upside down. You flip the script into flippancy. And they loathe/love you for it. Their hearts split with original angst.
Planted in thunder and rooted in cosmos, your heart is a mighty pivot that flips the world around it. Your throat is pillory and acid. Your soul is razored ratio. Your words shatter swords. Gold melts into lead when you step on powermongers necks. Nothing is safe from your sacrilegious synergy.
5.) You are a messenger and imitator of the gods:
“When destiny comes to a man from outside, it lays him low, just as an arrow lays a deer low. When destiny comes to a man from within, from his innermost being, it makes him strong, it makes him into a god.” ~ Hermann Hesse
You may not ever become a true trickster god, but your training is deep and disciplined. Part of this training is learning how to become a bridge between worlds. You link mortality with immortality through a-mortality: a kind of mythopoetic design space, a Locus Solus, a solitary or unique place, where you are free to go Meta and create the extraordinary.
In this space you receive, sieve, and sometimes even deceive the gods. You’ve been known to create gods, kill gods, and even become gods in this design space. Your Ersatz knows no bounds. You are free to ingeniously crush out.
In the end, you are the embodied message. No matter how mixed the message has become, it is you and you are it, transformed and transforming. People would be wise to question it. The inverse lesson is this: maybe they shouldn’t believe everything they hear/see/feel/smell/taste/imagine. Better to think instead. Better to reason. Better to play, dance, laugh and grin.
6.) You are a sacred and lewd bricoleur:
“If one calls bricolage the necessity of borrowing one’s concept from the text of a heritage which is more or less coherent or ruined, it must be said that every discourse is bricoleur.” ~ Jacques Derrida
The world is a playground, and you are on recess. Everything is a toy. Everything is a puzzle piece. Everything is procrastinating art. You just need to figure out how to fit it into the overall masterpiece.
You are the thousand-footed dancer, dancing betwixt and between all realms. In your mesmerizing dance you kick up dust, knock off rust, and smash through glass houses. All the while collecting truth and razors, seeds and ladders, ashes and mirrors. Your dance is hot magnetism, attracting everything in a pirouetting web of synergy.
No world is off limits. No knowledge is so sacred that it cannot be tamed by the profanity of your art. And so, you pull nails out of the palms of martyrs. You pluck arrows from the heels of heroes. You dig up ancient goddesses. You laugh at abysses. You blink at blinding light. You wear apocalyptic sunglasses. You snatch out the devil’s heart and swap it with God’s.
7.) You are your own worst enemy:
“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His mistakes are volitional and are the portals of discovery.” ~ James Joyce
Trickster Gods have made mistakes. More than most people, actually. But ever since you surrendered to the path of trickster training, you’ve given your heart up to Fate. You’ve gone beyond right and wrong, good and evil, black and white, life and death. You dance between all that tripe. If you have a god, it is Destiny. But not even Destiny is immune to your vital virulence.
Having left “Being for-itself” and “Being in-itself” behind, you’ve launched yourself into Being-in-fate. Full surrender. Full disclosure. Full of courage and vulnerability, you have learned how to improvise through the vicissitudes of life.
You’re ahead of the curve precisely because you know how to strategically shoot yourself in the foot. You adapt to and overcome unexpected change. You roll with the punches and learn from the bruises, licking your sacred wounds like a cat nursing its eight deaths.
This is your Ninth Death. So you better get busy living.
Image Source
Self-Forgiveness: 5 Steps to Free Yourself from Past Mistakes
“Forgive yourself. The supreme act of forgiveness is when you can forgive yourself for all the wounds you’ve created in your own life. Forgiveness is an act of self-love. When you forgive yourself, self-acceptance begins and self-love grows.” ~ Don Miguel
Understanding what is self-forgiveness:
In this plane of human existence each one of us has made mistakes. A parable comes to mind of Jesus asking those who have not sinned to cast the first stone at the sinner, ultimately only the sinner was standing and the crowd disappeared.
What I’m getting at is, do not feel that mistakes and wrongdoings are only limited to you, some of us may have cheated, stolen, unintentionally hurt someone or done things that are worse. Self-forgiveness is by no means an excuse for what has been done, but to open up a doorway for healing once you have held yourself responsible for your mistakes.
We can’t change the past, so instead of drowning in sorrow or guilt that our behavior has caused, it’s time to shift our perspective by forgiving ourselves and letting go of the baggage that comes with it.
“I have learned, that the person I have to ask for forgiveness from the most is: myself. You must love yourself. You have to forgive yourself, everyday, whenever you remember a shortcoming, a flaw, you have to tell yourself “That’s just fine”. You have to forgive yourself so much, until you don’t even see those things anymore. Because that’s what love is like.” ~ C. JoyBell C.
Why is self-forgiveness important
Self-forgiveness is the way we can move out of the clasp that guilt has over you because of the past. As Alfred Korzybski said, “God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won’t.”
Dr. Fred Luskin, the Forgiveness Project at Stanford University, in his book, Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness, being unforgiving increases our stress levels and takes a toll on our well-being.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and depression can be caused by guilt, where you have recurring thoughts and actions that are uncontrollable. Replaying past mistakes actually enforces this behaviour and are detrimental to our wellbeing. Instead, we need to learn skills such as positive reinforcement and thinking to get past the guilt.
Those who have shame buried deep within them usually feel that they’re not good enough and this leads us to either become more competitive or completely isolated. One also tends to assign themselves negative labels and thinks of others as more dynamic, outgoing and likeable.
According to research those who forgive themselves have a more positive outlook on life and healthier relationships. While self-compassion brings about higher success levels and productivity.
“Forgive yourself for not knowing better at the time. Forgive yourself for giving away your power. Forgive yourself for past behaviors. Forgive yourself for the survival patterns and traits you picked up while enduring trauma. Forgive yourself for being who you needed to be.” ~ Audrey Kitching
Here are 4 steps one can take to get on the path to self-forgiveness
1. Acknowledging your mistakes
“The most important thing in self-help is self-forgiveness: it’s when we relax into the vulnerability of our humanity and find compassion for our own internal struggles.” ~ Debbie Ford
Self-forgiveness cannot begin until the realization occurs that a mistake has been made. If one does not acknowledge that a mistake has been committed the process of healing cannot begin, the mistake may also recur when one shifts the blame onto others and does not take onus for their own wrong doing.
Every one makes mistakes, as a matter of fact making mistakes is a way that each of us grow, gain new perspective and skills to better ourselves. When one acknowledges that they have made a mistake, the next step would be best to apologize to the person who has been hurt by that mistake.
The consequences of the mistake has to accepted and faced. One has to understand what was the driving force behind that mistake.
“Turning our attention to the part of the self which chose to act in the way that led to the present situation, we ask ourselves, “When I behaved in the way which I now regret, what need of mine was I trying to meet?” I believe that human beings are always acting in the service of needs and values. This is true whether the action does or does not meet the need, or whether it’s one we end up celebrating or regretting.” ~ Marshall B. Rosenberg
Acknowledging your mistake nips the problem in the bud, it stops issues from getting bigger. When one apologises it helps mend relationships and brings people closer together.
Not only does one learn from mistakes, it helps people grow into better and more pleasant human beings. Once this step is complete, we can move onto a ritual of your choice to assist with the process of self-forgiveness.
2. Letting go rituals to aid self-forgiveness
“Take a walk through the garden of forgiveness and pick a flower of forgiveness for everything you have ever done. When you get to that time that is now, make a full and total forgiveness of your entire life and smile at the bouquet in your hands because it truly is beautiful.” ~ Stephen Richards
Sometimes the simplest acts can help us let go of our guilt or shame that has been a burden we have been carrying through life. It’s now time to let go of the baggage, to stop the guilt and shame from beating yourself up. Here are a few of the letting go rituals that you can use to help forgive yourself.
- Burning to let go
Take some pieces of paper and write down everything you want to get to let go off. Place these papers in a bowl and burn them. As they burn visualize that you are losing these patterns or habits / parts / memories of yourself and once burnt you can put these ashes to fertilize a plant to symbolize the feeding of your own growth.
- Blowing to let go
Depending on where you are and the season you’re bound to find some cotton silk pods on trees or dandelions growing. Make the process of finding these itself an act where walking becomes the path of introspective realization. When you have gathered enough dandelions and have found all emotions, guilt and shame you need to realize. Pull out a dandelion and blow watching the breeze carry your troubles away.
- Breathing to let go
This method isn’t dependent on anything apart from you which makes it easily accessible. Start with slow long breaths just to centre yourself, then with each slow long breath in let your mind ponder on everything that has been holding you down.
With each long breath out visualize letting go of it, as the air comes out of your body the negative is being released. The process of conscious breathing itself is so relaxing and calming and using it to help affirm the process makes it a powerful tool in the kitty.
- Bathing to let go
When you take a shower or even a bucket bath, each mug you pour on yourself or when the water flows from your head to toe remember that water is cleansing. Visualize it washing away everything that needs to be let go of, baths are refreshing and the ones where you totally give in to the purity of water, are just magical.
To be honest, you can come up with your own ritual that will fit in with your lifestyle. You can consciously hold the intent which you desire to achieve, and let the healing begin. Good luck!
4. Practicing self-love
“Turn down the volume of your negative inner voice and create a nurturing inner voice to take it’s place. When you make a mistake, forgive yourself, learn from it, and move on instead of obsessing about it. Equally important, don’t allow anyone else to dwell on your mistakes or shortcomings or to expect perfection from you.” ~ Beverly Engel
Perhaps the most important step in the part of self-forgiveness is self-love, without loving oneself it will be impossible to forgive oneself and let go of the shame completely.
It’s not that self-love is difficult, it’s just that most of us don’t end up making the time to love ourselves. No matter how compassionate and kind we are to others, we need to take the time to refill our cup.
There are many ways to practice self-love, but nothing works better than doing what you enjoy consciously – gardening, dancing, meditation, exercise and so on, it’s up to you how you show yourself love.
5. A guided meditation for self-forgiveness
This guided meditation will help bring self-forgiveness for past mistakes. Many people feel regret and guilt for events from their past. Their lives can be weighed down or even dictated by it. Now is the time to let go and be free of these burdens.
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and realize that prisoner was you.” ~ Lewis B. Smedes
Resources:
Signs of Guilt
The Benefits of Self-forgiveness
Fred Luskin Explains How to Forgive
Image Sources:
Forgiveness by Mario Sánchez Nevado
Photo by leo abdelnaby
