Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:03 Welcome to the doctor's week show where I show you how bad states of mind, difficult life issues, aren't pathological, but rather signs of personal growth trying to happen. All right, let's get into it. Greetings fellow travelers. How are you? I hope you're doing great. And are you immersed in something fantastic, but if not
Speaker 1 00:00:38 Like, if you're distracted and out of sorts, that's okay too. Because today I'm going to talk about how distraction is a meaningful and purposeful process. In episode 39, I showed you how to use the things that interfere with your attention by distracting you as a guide to discovering what's going on in your process. Your mind doesn't function in a random way. It's structured by your inner story and your attention automatically gravitates toward things that have the potential to connect you with this. The things you get distracted by attracted to, or even repelled by are meaningful processes, trying to awaken you to a new awareness of yourself. We usually think of distractions as something bad or wrong. We value our ability to focus on tasks without distraction. Of course, with the rise of the internet, our attention spans have atrophied to the point of being almost non-existent to compensate.
Speaker 1 00:01:52 We've got an epidemic of upper pills, especially Adderall studies show that a third of college students use it to study. And of course, we've got the whole crazy ADHD epidemic, which used to be called add attention deficit disorder. Now it's called attention deficit hyperactive disorder. It's a supposedly disease that was first conceived of in the early 19 hundreds, but didn't really get diagnosed much until the 1980s when suddenly everyone seemed to have it. It's no accident that this happened at exactly the same time that new medications to treat it came to market. It's really incredible. More often than you might imagine medications for so-called mental illnesses, often precede, widespread diagnoses it's so obviously criminally driven by big pharmas billion dollar enterprise. I go into detail on this topic. A few past episodes being distracted, unable to focus on something. Having a short attention span is thought of as something pathological, which is kind of funny because as time goes on, we're actually normalizing short attention spans.
Speaker 1 00:03:18 We're bringing up our children in an environment where we're being bombarded with information they can't possibly process is the norm. And then we're prescribing them drugs to deal with the bad effects. It's pretty dumb. I've worked with a fair number of children diagnosed as hyperactive, as well as adults with ADHD. And none of them, not one actually had this supposed pathology. It's a fabricated disorder. The signs are real, but the, the disease entity is a made up label that simply describes misunderstood behavior. Instead of trying to force these kids to focus, I help them amplify their distractions. Why? Because what the psyche does is a meaningful, if a child, child can't concentrate in school or gets immediately frustrated while playing there's a meaning and purpose in their behavior. And the goal is to uncover this. They call ADHD a neurodevelopmental disorder, which is laughable. Since there are zero neurological studies demonstrating this in a cogent way, it's purely a hypothesis, which really means it's just someone's idea.
Speaker 1 00:04:44 The insurance companies won't even pay for brain scans for this supposed disorder because they consider to be a behavioral problem, not a neurological problem. The fact is it's a meaningful, psychological process that can be worked with and transformed. Think of a child with heavily self-focused behavior. She can't recognize other people's needs and desires. She can't wait while they speak. And she interrupts a lot. She has trouble compromising with other children, a biochemical disorder. Oh, really? How about that? The fact that when a child doesn't get the proper kind of focus, they need, they naturally compensate by becoming self focused. I mean, who wants to compromise when you already feel over compromised? Hello, psych 1 0 1, the example of a child with frequent anger, outbursts and temper tantrums, a brain disorder. Come on, man. How about exploring why your child is so pissed off adults love to determine when it's appropriate for a child to have anger outburst.
Speaker 1 00:05:58 Now that's, self-focused in a selfish way. What about a child who fidgets and squirms in his chair and neurological impairment, right? Kids have energy. And some don't like to be corralled, explore what they need to do with their energy. Another sign is a child who has trouble playing quietly. How fricking ignorant can you get? Why should they play quietly? All these issues are really just things, adults. Don't like another big one is having an inability to focus. For example, the child has trouble paying attention. Even when someone is speaking directly to them, they say they heard you, but they won't be able to repeat back what you just said. It sounds like me a, maybe I have a brain disease. How about the fact that you're not relating to where the child is at? And so she doesn't feel like listening, or what about the issue of always having unfinished tasks?
Speaker 1 00:07:05 This is an interesting one because it's also a major sign of adult ADHD. It happens when someone's interested in lots of different things, but doesn't finish any of them. They just move on to the next thing that catches their attention, but not finishing projects. Isn't actually because they lose interest in what they're doing. And it's definitely not a brain disorder. It's because as soon as they get close to the part of their psyche, that's responsible for discipline and focus. They encounter, what's known as a negative father complex. A father complex is a group of feeling toned ideas, unconscious associations, or impulses that specifically pertain to one's experience with an image of their father. It can be positive, negative, or mixed. A negative father complex can happen. If you experienced your father as absent, emotionally unavailable, passive critical or abusive things like discipline and focus are usually conveyed through one's father.
Speaker 1 00:08:16 You can get or not get these attributes through your mother too, but they're expressions of the father archetype, meaning the psyche's universal innate image of the father figure. So if, for example, you develop good discipline in your life and you grew up with a single mother. This would be due to the fact that she not only mothered you, but fathered you two archetypes, aren't gender dependent. Another common sign is avoiding tasks that require extended mental effort, like paying attention in class or at work. This happens when the person hasn't developed a sense of their own true interests and passions. If it's a child who can't concentrate in class or on homework, it's because they have an unacknowledged passion for something that's being totally ignored by their teachers and parents. So when the adults want them to use their mental energy to focus on something they're not interested in, they simply can't sustain it for very long.
Speaker 1 00:09:19 If it's an adult, this marginalization of their deeper passions in life manifests as an inability to focus on anything, especially if it's work, they don't particularly like a child might also make lots of mistakes because she can't follow instructions that require going through a bunch of steps. Maybe the project is just fricking boring for her. Why not find out what really moves her, then she'll be more apt to also do things she doesn't like. Or how about personal hygiene? Well, yeah, when all your energy goes into dealing with adults, trying to corral you into being a way that doesn't fit who you really are, you might forget to take care of yourself. There's also a big deal made over children who have trouble getting organized, but what's totally overlooked is the fact that they're not inspired by what you want them to organize. In fact, the failure of parents and teachers to connect with the child's real interests and spirit can result in an adult who can't organize his life.
Speaker 1 00:10:35 What if your child is forgetful and always loses things? The reason they do this is because they're spaced out and why are they spaced out? Because they're chronically being forced to focus on things they don't want to focus on and rarely supported to follow what they're really into. So they get spaced out as a compensation. It's a way to get out of being forced into focusing on the wrong things so much. If you support a child to discover and cultivate their natural interests, they'll be much better at doing things they don't really want to do. Hmm. You know what? I think I'm going to space out for a minute. I'm going to play you some trippy guitar and then I'll be back. I'm following my distraction. As I was talking, I was eyeing my guitar sitting in the corner. I didn't mean to, it just happened back in a flash
Speaker 1 00:13:06 Ooh. Okay. I am back and I'm more present. Let's continue this. Talk about distraction and meaning and purpose. My all-time favorite behavior that people get falsely diagnosed with ADHD for is daydreaming staring into the other world, ignoring what's going on around them. Exactly what I do when what's going on around me. Doesn't connect with who I am. Sometimes my inner world is just way more interesting than what's going on around me. The question is what's happening in the daydream? What kind of symbolic or literal content is the child or adult psyche producing to try to guide them to a more authentic experience? I remember a six-year-old boy I worked with whose parents and doctors said he had ADHD. He had a lot of the signs I just described. I asked his parents what his worst behaviors were, which of course meant worse for them, not for him.
Speaker 1 00:14:23 And they said he selfish. He doesn't consider anyone else's needs and throws a fit. If he doesn't get what he wants after discussing this with his parents, I played with him. We made up some games with my Smurfs. And at one point he stopped, got up and looked out the window. His father said, see, he supposed to be playing the game, but he just leaves in the middle. He doesn't even excuse himself. I thought it was funny. I mean, he's six. Why do you want him to be all socialized already? I went over to the window and looked outside with him on the tree was a gorgeous little bird. Somehow he had known it was there. I have no idea how he stood there transfixed. And I said, whoa, awesome bird. He smiled. Then he went and sat on the floor by himself. I followed him and sat down beside him, but didn't say anything.
Speaker 1 00:15:27 His parents started interjecting trying to point out how antisocial he is, but I gently shushed them. After a few minutes. He said, why do they fly? I said, birds. He nodded. I said, well, they got to get away from other animals who want to eat them. And they have to go really far in the winter to get out of the cold. And then I thought for a moment, and I said, but you know, not all birds fly ostriches, don't fly. And neither do penguins. He lit up penguins penguins. He said, then we got into a whole talk about penguins. His parents were mystified. They had no idea. He was interested in penguins or birds or any of this. Why? Because they didn't know how to follow his process to find out what he was into. They just wanted him to be into what they thought he should focus on.
Speaker 1 00:16:30 He was just an incredibly sensitive creative child. I think he heard the bird rustling. The leaves that none of us adults could hear. The rest of the session was meat, educating the parents on supporting his spontaneous focus and encouraging him to follow it. Instead of trying to prevent it in order to make him adhere to their programs for him over time, they were able to do this and his withdrawn, supposedly antisocial selfish behavior went away and he was able to engage in activities, even if he wasn't super into them. But first he needed support for what he was into attention. Deficit disorder really means the adults don't give the child the right attention. The child's natural process is to stay true to himself. His behavior only gets extreme because of the extreme lack of the right attention from the adults. If this is a chronic condition, a child can grow up and carry these issues into adulthood.
Speaker 1 00:17:45 They develop a cognitive style that forbids them from knowing and being able to follow where their attention really wants to go. So their process compensates by rebelling, in a sense, it goes Ari. It escapes their control and just spaces around being distracted is meaningful exercise. In episode 39, you explored the things that distract you and unfolded your process with them. Like I did with the young boy, the aim is to integrate. What's trying to force itself into your awareness, not just kill it. Being pulled by something that takes you away from your intended focus, contains valuable information for your process. Now, of course you don't want to just follow every little thing that grabs your attention. If you did this, you'd lose your fricking mind or you'd be diagnosed and medicated. It's a process of being able to develop your natural, authentic passions as a child.
Speaker 1 00:18:53 So you can learn how to choose when to follow a distraction. And when not, if you don't develop this foundation, your psyche will continually mess with your focus to try to distract you from whatever isn't in line with your true needs. But as I said earlier, having a fickle focus is actually becoming normalized in our society. A gazillion things to view on the internet, hundreds of TV stations, constant texting, and the whole digital craziness we live in is making it more and more difficult to go deep into something. Our minds are developing in such a way that we know a little bit about everything, but nothing extensive about anything. We're becoming surface dwellers, where we experienced lots of things, superficially, but nothing in depth. I remember my reaction when people first started making music playlists, one song from each artist, I was dumbfounded. An album is like a movie or a novel.
Speaker 1 00:20:02 It's a narrative that takes you on a journey through the artists process. A friend took me through his playlist and it felt schizophrenia like reading the introduction to 20 different novels, but not finishing any of them or like going to 20 different movie theaters and watching the first three minutes of each movie and then walking out, it's like speed dating or having many friends, none of whom you can be real with. It's surfing the TV channels and watching a few minutes of this and that show all very seductive and endorphin producing. But vapid did you end up nowhere? It's like the, who wants to change sex positions every minute? Can't we just experience something.
Speaker 1 00:20:55 Some things obviously take more focus than others. The more inspiring and compelling an endeavor, the better you can focus. You want to be there. You want to immerse yourself. One of the first places I really experienced deep immersion was in music. I could practice guitar for 10 hours straight and not even realize the time had passed. I hadn't eaten and the world had changed and I was still jamming. This carried over into songwriting and recording, which not only takes me into a deep focused realm. It actually requires it. If you get on a track, writing a song or recording something, you can't just pause and continue the next day because you'll lose it. There's a time window and you have to get it all down or poof, it's gone if I hear a melody or a lyric, but it's remote. Like I just sense it.
Speaker 1 00:21:57 And, and I have to spend time reeling it in. I won't even get up to pee because the muse says bodily functions. Forget it, bud. I'm a spirit. Take me now. Or I'm gone. Musical inspiration is a gift from the world beyond it visits you. And then it goes away. In fact, music visits me even when I don't invite it in it's like that annoying friend who just shows up at your door when you're super busy and says, here I am, let's party at first, you might resist. But then you come to your senses because what wise human says no to a party.
Speaker 1 00:22:42 I might be talking to someone and simultaneously writing a song in my head. How's that for ADHD? It's not like I'm writing the tune. It's just playing in my head. I can still follow the conversation, but I'm making sure to download what I'm hearing inside. Some of my best songs got written standing in the middle of a crowd with people yelling and screaming. So music is definitely one of the areas I totally immerse myself in. Nothing can distract me from it except musical distractions, like unintended melodies or words that insert themselves into my brain and interrupt what I'm trying to play. But when that happens, I don't try to push them out. I explore them. See you next time, stay away.
Speaker 0 00:23:37 You can follow me on social media at doctors awake and you can sign up on the mailing list at doctor's wake.com, where you'll receive discounts, private coaching events and merchandise starting 20, 21 weekly personal growth tips, and lots more be well.
