Dale Stubbart

Focus, Distraction, Interruption

For those who have trouble meditating

I can&';t meditate. The moment I try, I fall asleep. Nothing wrong with that. Sleep&';s good for you. Yet, if that&';s the only way to connect with the deeper world, I&';m sunk. Luckily, it&';s not. There are many ways to connect with the deeper world, the world which puts you in touch with Paradise. And meditation is a good way to do that, but only if you can.
Some people can&';t meditate because they&';re too distracted. The moment they try to focus or give their attention to meditating, all sorts of distractions happen. Some forms of meditation say, let those distractions come. But don&';t focus on them. Some people can achieve the focus of meditation in this way. I&';m fairly certain, there are others who can&';t.
Sometimes doing a body-based (somatic) meditation can help. This way, you&';re focusing with both your mind and your body. Another form of meditation which works for me sometimes is guided meditation. The guidance helps me focus. Still, if distractions just get in your way, I have another solution which might work for you. You do want to enter that deeper state, don&';t you? You do want to get to Paradise, yes?

Getting into this deeper state, brings you into peace. It lets you experience deep love. It might allow you to communicate with animals and trees. I don&';t know that I can talk to them so much as hear them. They tend to follow me around when I&';m in that state. Well, usually not the trees.

There are distractions, and then there are interruptions. Some of those interruptions, we can&';t avoid. But, we can shut off our phone, or at least put it in airplane mode. We can try to block off time. We can put in ear-plugs and wear blindfolds. Even when we do those things, sometimes there are interruptions. These can be in the form of sirens going by.
Interruptions can also appear in the form of our mind reminding us to check our email or our phone. Background noises that are constantly going in the background, like the TV can interrupt us even when we shut them off. Our mind often thinks that they are still there, because they&';re almost always there. Checking your email and phone less often can make those interruptions less annoying. Decreasing the amount of time that TV is on can be lessen that from an interruption to a mere distraction, over time. It takes work.

But, why do we have so many distractions, whether they&';re minor or full blown interruptions? It seems they&';re constant and everywhere. Part of that is the age we live in. Everybody&';s trying to get our attention to buy something. We&';re immersed in constant messages on the internet.
Back in the old day, when there was no phone and nothing to read, were we so distracted then? Maybe. But, I&';m guessing that there was plenty to distract us. Why is that? If we&';re meant to focus so that we can drop into this deeper state, why are there so many distractions?
Perhaps it&';s in our genes. I&';m thinking it has something to do with Great Aunt Lucy. You know, that early Hominim Australopithecus afarensis? Possibly one of our ancestors. Anyway, Aunt Lucy swears that one day she was distracted by something and it saved her life. The problem is that she can&';t remember what that something was. So, we&';re always paying attention to anything that distracts us, just in case it might save our life.
Whatever the case, some distractions are probably there for a reason. One reason they&';re there, is that they can help us drop into that deeper state.

How does that work? Well, if focus can&';t drop you into that deeper state, try mixing focus with distractions. Focus on letting go of this state so that you can enter that deeper state. When you&';ve gone a ways that way, let the distractions come. They just want to play. So, let your mind wander ever so slightly towards them while you keep focusing.
It took me a few tries before anything happened with this. But I knew there was something to it. So I kept at it. Somewhere between focus and distraction, I fell into that deeper state. I knew, because the tree next to me said, Hello. If you have trouble meditating, try this method. What have you got to lose?

Another thing about distractions. Sometimes we feel like we have an obligation to distractions, at least to certain ones. This may be that genes&'; thing again. Or it may be something else. Are you obligated to keep up on the news? Are you obligated to know everything there is to know about celebreties? What about gossip or beauty-image? What about that program or that story I was writing? What about something that you want to remember, so that you don&';t forget? For that last one, write it down, then go back to meditating. Big ones for me include: I might miss an opportunity, or: I might get bored.
Why do we feel obligated to these things? Why do they want our attention?

If you want to change up your distractions from more stressful ones to ones which might help you meditate, you might try surrounding yourself with fractals. These will help you drop into that deeper state called Paradise. Fractals are complex geometric patterns repeated at different scales. These are often found in nature. Cauliflower is very fractal. Doesn&';t matter. I&';m not eating it. If you want to learn more about fractals, google it.