The secret addictions no one talks about- part 4: the addiction to distractions. Blog #28
This is the penultimate article in my series of secret addictions. This week I want to talk about a popular and widespread one: the addiction to distractions.
We are born happy, complete, perfect and enough
At birth for the vast majority of us and for a short time only we are blessed with pure happiness in our heart. Happiness is a birth right. Happiness is health. Happiness is our natural state of being. As long as we have shelter, food, warmth and connection with at least one person in the world life is great and we don't need anything to justify our happiness or our existence. Many years down the road we are depressed, anxious and addicted to all things. What went wrong ?
We have been led to believe the terrible lie that happiness, balance, unconditional love and perfection were no longer ours anymore. We observed the adults around us and we learnt through them how we must get these things back in order to be enough. How we must have, own, be, behave and achieve certain things in order to deserve a safe and honourable place in the world. We learn that we are unhappy. So we go searching for happiness outsideand because happiness was never to be found outside the more we seek happiness the more miserable, lost and confused we end up.
A brave new world
Technology is the crown jewel of the human race. It allows us more. More options, more interactions, more speed and possibilities. More of everything. The human nature is addictive by design. We access and use daily a bigger than life cornucopia of distractions in shape of endless informations, entertainment, pornography, gaming and shopping... And when we are not chasing the distractions ourselves they come to us. We get bombarded incessantly by pings, alerts, notifications, rings and vibrations of all sorts all day long.
Our mind is synced to our devices and screens. The social medias interactions, the emails and messages, the updates about our eBay transactions or our favourite Cryptocurrencies fluctuations, the latest flash news about everything and anything, etc... We do that in queues, at home, at work, in public places, when we cross the road, when we are on the loo or in front of the television, surrounded by people or alone, from the moment we wake up and even in bed in the middle of the night...
Distraction is casual escapism from the place of unhappiness we have become. We don’t enjoy silence, stillness or our own company anymore because we feel empty and confused and we don’t even like that person in the mirror. It was never because of the evil of technology but because of the evil feeling of helplessness we need to drown in a world of noise and distractions...
I had many clients who find any attempt at keeping their mind still difficult. For some even terrifying. We get so used to the noise that chaos and cacophony become company. Distraction provides not only temporary relief but also blissful avoidance for as long as we keep the noise going, just like when we were a child and didn’t want to hear what someone had to say to us so we would stick our fingers in our ears and go lalalalalalalaaa...
Procrastination and self sabotage at a superficial level
Humans are naturally attracted to immediate pleasure. From an evolutionary perspective, when we were mammals, that gave us an extra incentive to become very good at finding food. With the infinite amount of instant gratifications at hand it is easier than ever to succumb to procrastination and become slave to technology instead of remaining the master of it. Self sabotage is an addiction to fear of failure AND distractions.
All addictions are distractions
With the more classical forms of addiction, when we smoke, drink alcohol, take drugs, eat sweets, gamble or shoplift, the chemical highs our brain produces as we indulge serve the same purpose: to keep us away from feeling unhappy. People who are workaholic or addicted to the gym understand that the mind can only do one thing at a time so if they keep it busy exercising or working relentlessly and until exhaustion they never need to be reminded that they are unhappy.
And that could explain so many famous and talented people committing suicide despite their seemingly desirable life. They became very good at the skill that would make them rich and famous by being obsessed with it in order to escape the pain of unhappiness. And then one day they have it all but they still feel empty and they have no place left to go. The ghost that has been haunting them for years comes back with a revenge and says:"No amount of success, fame and fortune can ever make up for the fact that you are not enough. You will never be enough and there is nothing in the world that can ever change that". And the pain is unbearable...
Under the silence lies the music
There is a place inside all of us where lies happiness, love and purpose. Buried deeply under tons of noise, fear and bad habits is a treasure. I often tell my clients at the first meeting that happiness and freedom are there. They have been looking at the wrong place all along. Once we get acquainted with the silence of inner peace we can hear the sweet music of happiness again...
We get addicted because we have disconnected from happiness, we have disconnected from self and we are hardwired to connect with something. Anything. I spent more than 25 years battling, understanding and overcoming mine. I did find peace and freedom eventually and I have created a mentorship over the course of 3 sessions combining RTT (Marisa Peer's Rapid Transformational Therapy) and Mindset and Mindfulness Coaching. My program has proven tremendously successful with my clients and I am happy to discuss it with anyone who has tried everything and still suffers from any type of addiction at any level of gravity.