Popping the “distractor” bubble -How to avoid being derailed by negative emotions
This post addresses emotional states that make you feel like you're in a tizzy, and lead to self abuse and destructive impulses.
There are days when our minds get stuck in loops. We obsess and ruminate and replay an event that has an emotional charge to it that we can’t seem to let go. It is like touching a live wire and not being able to release it due to the electrical current. In these instances we have been “triggered.” Triggers attach to our memories and activate an emotional response.
I have a memory like this. When I was five, my mother woke me up to go to the beach. While I was rubbing the sleep from my eyes she rushed me out the door in only my underwear. She put a bag in my hands with towel and swim suit, a container of apple sauce and a spoon. The people waiting in the jeep outside laughed fondly as I came out the door. They were delighted to have me on the 2 hour ride to the beach, I’m sure, but for me, this is a memory of shame and embarrassment, shyness, vulnerability, and being exposed.
We all have moments of uncomfortable emotion, and that emotion gives us important messages about our self worth and boundaries, but what if some of the emotions we’re feeling are not true messages about self?
Recall a memory of shame. It feels very real (and excruciating) in the moment. But notice this: the journey it takes you on doesn’t actually lead you anywhere. When you feel shame, you then feel more shame, which leads to more shame. Author Brene Brown calls these moments a “shame spiral.”
I’ve come to know shame as one of the emotional DISTRACTORS: a form of energetic manipulation that causes you to feel an unreal feeling. Shame, fear, guilt, anger, rage, doubt are a few of these artificial influencers.
By contrast, a "real" feeling is of the present moment, feels fresh and enlivening (even sadness). It brings you into being present. You feel real. False emotions and distractors make you disappear. Our energy can be manipulated by outside influences.
These distractors operate like a storm cell. Once we are in them, we can feel lost inside that storm until we realize what it is. Please let this post challenge the notion that these negative energy states are self generated.
Consider the rage tornado. Like all the distractors, this emotional state spirals. Rage depends on an addiction to itself. Some people become addicted to this feeling, so they enter this state repeatedly. That is why we’ve coined the term rageaholic. When you begin to feel it, you are tossed out of your center, and you begin to ruminate and obsess over an issue and it is actually like a thorn that gets into your thumb, it just digs deeper and then you hate your thumb, instead of realizing it hurts because something artificial has been embedded in it.
Yes, we experience real emotions, but these artificial negative influences that feel like a circular storm in your energy field, are NOT a contribution to you.
Distractors cause a sense of destruction, by causing your mind to connect the feeling with a negative story you may have about yourself. This is fuel to keep you in that disempowered state. At this time we are collectively challenged to decide what is real for us and what has been artificially implanted in our lives. We must sort out unreal information from relevant information.
Unlike a real emotion, when a distractor enters our consciousness, we feel pulled into a weird, helpless vortex of helplessness. Rather than feel empowered in the present moment, we find ourselves disappearing into a negative state.
Distractors can deliver whole "stories"about our reality that may not be real. One of the distractor messages currently circulating is that we as a species are doomed and any day now the other shoe is going to drop. Doubt, shame, fear, guilt, anger, rage, money, love- each of these can be one of these distractive influences. When it enters our consciousness we feel pulled into a weird, helpless vortex of helplessness. Suddenly we are at the effect of something, not the cause of it. We fall OUT of power. The cure is to notice when you have been influenced by an energetic distractor.
The next time you have a moment of embarrassment or shame, simply pause while noticing the feeling and say, destroy and uncreate that! And feel it disappear. The ONLY thing that causes distractor influences to exist is how we attach a story to the artificial energy pattern. If instead you can notice it for what it is, it is immediately detachable.
How to know if you’re affected by a distractor.
-Is the feeling shame, guilt, fear, doubt, unresolved anger or rage?
-Is the feeling taking me in a circle or loop? -Is it making me feel powerless?
-Is it attaching to a negative story about myself?
-Am I experiencing a sense of self destruction with this feeling?
-Am I feeling obsessed; the more I feel it, the stronger it gets?
-Do I feel electrified, as if I can’t detach at will?
The distractors are fascinating! When you play with destroying them, you will quickly notice they are not real, or self generated. Please try it! Your happiness and inspiration depend on it.
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