Saturday, May 10, 2014

DISTRACTION!!!!

A few weeks ago, I got into a bit of a….. we’ll call it a discussion…. with someone on Facebook. I won’t go into the details, but feelings were hurt, people picked sides, more feelings were hurt, and it became a HUGE thorn in my side.

I couldn’t write.

I was so distracted by the emotions of the issue, that when I sat down to write, all my brain wanted to do was write a litany of clever comebacks and points about how right I was and how everyone else needed to be ashamed for not being on my side.  This was a problem. I was in the middle of writing a historical fiction piece for a teen magazine, something I hadn’t done before. I needed to be on my game.  I had a deadline. I did not have time to be worrying about this stupid tiff and dang it I was right and how dare they not see my point of view and I should just write something on Facebook right now or I can just unfriend all of them and maybe I don’t want to even be associated with them anyway and and and….. yeah. THAT kind of distracted.

Honestly, it didn’t end for a few days. I’m not sure what happened, but late one night, something just clicked. It didn’t matter if I was right anymore, I just wanted the negative feelings and the distraction to end, so I took care of it. I sent it off into the internet abyss, and even when something else happened that could have blown the little dying embers of my indignance right back up again, I chose to ignore it. It was liberating.

I was talking to my husband about the whole thing, and he suggested, “Hey, you should write about that for your next blog post.” We talked about how things can distract us, not just the usual dishes and toddlers and carpools and laundry, but internal things that just block our ability to concentrate on the important things. I’m not even necessarily talking about writing, here. How often do little petty “tiffs” cause us to not be able to feel the Spirit? That person, you know, that person, gets up in testimony meeting to share what you are sure is going to be another travelogue or thankyoumony, and your inward eye rolling distracts you from an important message the Lord would have you hear.

Or the worrying about the mortgage distracts you from seeing service opportunities, or missionary opportunities. The argument you had with your teenager distracts you from seeing more than all the “and it came to pass” and “verily” in your scripture study.

Or, sitting at your desk and trying desperately to finish an article about chiropractic care for infants so that you can try and get an assignment writing for decent pay, distracts you from holding your little one, who just really wants to show mommy how awesome this banana is and maybe put some in your number pad for you.

That last one may have been a true story.

The point is, in life, and in writing, we have things that distract us from what is important. I have a friend who talks about “blocked energy” which sounds like a silly new-agey thing, but in a way, it’s totally true—if we let things block us, they stop us. We have to figure out how to move the roadblock out of the way, whether it is a favorite sin, our Facebook addiction (guilty), or whatever our own personal “energy block” is. For me, it meant apologizing and eating crow (no BBQ sauce or anything), and honestly putting it away. There are a million other little things distracting me, like self-esteem demons, taking on too many things without doing well at any of them, sleep, stupid freakin’ Facebook, the list goes on. Little by little, I will clear these energy blocks. I will obliterate these distractions.

I. Will. Write.



So what about you? What’s YOUR favorite distraction?  

5 comments:

  1. Wow, I think I could have written this post. I actually had a similar experience not too long ago when I got into an ongoing discussion on Facebook with an atheist. We kept it very civil, but as the days of our discussion wore on I found myself feeling just like you described- distracted and irritable. It was affecting my whole life, and I realized it was because of the ongoing discussion. I was allowing a spirit of negativity to sneak into my heart through a back door that looked like missionary work, but somewhere along the way it had turned into something else.

    I had another situation that did something similar- someone had decided that their pride was more important that one of my kids’ tender hearts and it really ticked me off. As much as I had worked through it in my brain, I realized my heart was still hung up on the situation. The only thing I could do was pray for forgiveness for my inability to forgive and ask for help to release that anger and truly forgive.

    Prayer always helps me to see where I fall short and to know what the Lord would have me do in those moments of distraction. Thanks so much for this post. :-)

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  2. Your hubby was right, writing a blog post about such things can make us feel better and we can get it all off our chest. There have been some Facebook fights in my family, thankfully we are not ones to hold grudges and it all blows over and at the next family event it is all forgotten and we all all happy again. However, not all families are like that and some will let a simple fight blow up and destroy friendships.

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  3. Well said, Leann! Writing takes a lot of thought and emotion. If we are dividing our thoughts and emotions to things that aren't very important, we aren't giving our talents the full measure of our efforts. But we also need to be careful not to spend too much of our thoughts and emotions beating ourselves up for allowing ourselves to get distracted. We recognize the distractions in our lives, commit to do our best to avoid as many as we can, then get to work writing!! Good luck with your writing endeavors, Leann! I hope you were able to push through it all and write the articles you are meant to write.

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  4. I'm distracted by family needs. Not that they aren't valid, they certainly are, I'm just selfish and want to write 24-7. :-)

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    Replies
    1. Amen, Mare! I find myself wishing I could clone myself.... but then take the clone back into myself at the end of the day, so I could experience all the stuff I missed that my clone didn't... like a clone jump drive, if you will. Hey, there's a story idea in there somewhere.

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