I often have a hard time reigning in my focus. It comes with the territory of ADHD.
When I’m in a creative thought process or working on an essay, I need to stay in flow with it. Once I get thrown off, getting back on track might take hours, or never happen at all.
For this reason, I set strict rules for myself around my creating process. One of those rules is to avoid social interaction or conversation — online or offline — before I’ve written an essay.
Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible, especially because I start my day with a workout. My current gym has more of a community vibe; I’m not anonymous there.
And I also thrive on social interaction; it’s one of the reasons I go there. If other people engage me in conversation I don’t want to rudely blow them off.
My perspective regarding online interaction has also been in flux. For many years I put social media on the back burner to focus on my blog. But this came at a cost of interaction and visibility.
Lately I’ve been rethinking my parameters and my rules around it. On one hand, I need to create space for my best work — and that space is ideally before I’ve ventured into online spaces.
On the other hand, I thrive on social engagement.
For many years I was too good at keeping myself off of social media and out of distracting environments. While great for the blog, it left me feeling disconnected from friends and communities.
This is the nuance of the sphere of Gevurah on the Tree of Life. Specifically, the sub-sphere of Gevurah of Gevurah, restraining the restraint.
The sphere of Gevurah is about creating space through boundaries and structure. Staying away from distractions like social media, email, meetings, or conversations that can disrupt our energy all fall within Gevurah.
When we are so focused on where we need to go and what we need to do, anything that seems to get in our way can feel like a distraction.
Whether it’s social media or your kids needing you for something, there might be a desire to push it all away. You might even believe you’re doing a good thing by taming the distraction.
And yet sometimes our restraint can go too far. The things we see as distractions may, in fact, be our destination — the thing that is calling for our attention.
The element of Gevurah of Gevurah invites us to consider where we need to temper our restraint to serve our bigger goals.
Ultimately, the relationships we nurture are our best work.
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