Listen instead:
We all know, just by virtue of being alive in the US in 2024, that the interruptions and distractions in our daily lives are officially next-level.
You can’t hop online without being advertised to in a moving video, pop-up windows everywhere. You can’t go into public without hearing someone’s notifications or phone calls cracking into your lunch conversation.
But have you thought about the health effects of these distractions? (Science has! Here’s a paper. Here’s another.)
When our attention isn’t our own, when it’s splintered and captured by every chiming, dinging, insistent notification or voice around us, we quickly become jumbled, stressed, and disconnected.
Much of the current conversation surrounding reclaiming our mental space from relentless attention grabs and distractions is in service of increasing productivity and focus. This post isn’t about that.
Today let’s take look at how to reclaim your infringed-upon mental space for healing’s sake, and what it means in Chinese medicine terms.
Mental Space and Clarity in Chinese Medicine
Chinese medicine, a natural medicine based in part on Daoist philosophy, takes self-awareness and mental space seriously. Because the mind and body aren’t discrete entities, mental clutter can have very direct effects on overall human health. This is why we have volumes of study and oral traditions on meditation.
Our modern orientation to interruptions and distractions is brand new in its scope. In terms of technology and its effects on our brains and lives, we’re all basically living out an experiment — but that part’s nothing new. Humanity has always been part of an experiment. Sometimes it works out great, other times we get lead toxicity and thalidomide.
Self-awareness and focus are big contributors to healing within Chinese medicine. When we’re constantly distracted and led around by the nose by external factors, we can develop physical problems.
Explained in Chinese medicine terms, these problems include blood stagnation and phlegm. (Sound a little strange? For more information about how we use terms in Chinese medicine, check this out.) Blood stagnation and phlegm are pathological processes that can each lead to a variety of undesirable outcomes.
Chinese medicine asserts that these processes can, in part, be interrupted by lifestyle moves. I want to teach you one today; we call it Coming to Your Senses.
Coming to Your Senses: Attention Reclamation
Coming to Your Senses is really about using your attention to crack through denial. When our attention isn’t within our command, it becomes much easier to fall prey to denial. Denial is a type of cognitive shutdown that short-circuits our ability to actively know stuff, make changes, and connect into our experience.
Attention dissolves denial. Ergo, we can use our senses to anchor our experience and attention back into our lives.
How you do this, and how it lands for you, will depend on your unique preferences. Some people will gravitate somewhere specific when it comes to choosing between sensory, smell, taste, sound, or sight.
Below, I’ll lay out the how-to of it all, with the reminder that this is about exploration and discovery. Don’t worry about “doing it wrong.” That’s not really a thing in this case.
Practice Clear Perception
When we’re able to see the unique in the commonplace, something shifts in our perception capacity. Clear perception, in turn, reveals what needs to heal. It’s the kind of thing you can’t unsee.
Here are some suggestions:
- Take a closer look at common objects. Or taste something you’ve tasted a million times before. Or listen to a song you already know.
- What’s your first impression?
- Can you find something you’ve never noticed before?
3 In-Roads for Greater Mental Space
There are three main in-roads in this process, and — great news! — each one is pleasant. They are: laughter, beauty, and wonder.
Through laughter, beauty, and wonder, we can see past our expectations. We can shift our perspective and our physiology. (Biomedicine is aware of laughter’s ability to do this.)
When you’re shaking up your perceptions, do it through the lenses of laughter, beauty, and wonder. Can you:
- Laugh at your old impression or have fun with this?
- Find beauty somewhere quotidian or unexpected (like the bubbles on your cappuccino)?
- Observe something wonderful (like awe at the fact that bridges exist)?
Reclaim and Retain Mental Space
Time, as they say, is a non-renewable resource. But you can tend to your attention, and increase its bounty and benefits.
In today’s world, retaining control over your mental space is no small feat. Simple, daily reconnections to your senses can help you remember what it is to be human.
Enjoy.
by Mary Beth Huwe
These writings are an exploration of what it means to be human – to be sick, to be well, and to heal – viewed through the lens of classical Chinese medicine. My words aren’t medical advice, and these essays don’t constitute a practitioner-client relationship. They also aren’t meant to be the final word on… well, anything. Rather, I hope they are the beginning of a conversation you have with someone in your life. Thanks for reading!