Everyday Life · · 3 min read
When Your Body Is Here, but Your Mind Is Somewhere Else
I started a termite inspection today not long after a phone conversation that had given me a lot to think about.
As I began the first part of the inspection around the outside of the house, I noticed my mind was still back in that conversation.
Replaying parts of it.
Thinking about what I had learned.
Even starting to form ideas for a post about it.
Meanwhile, my body was walking around the house doing an inspection.
That was the interesting part.
I could have continued walking, looking and going through the motions while much of my attention was somewhere completely different.
Then I noticed it.
I didn't need to argue with the thoughts or force them away.
I just stopped feeding them and brought my attention back to what was actually in front of me.
The building.
The surroundings.
The places I needed to inspect.
What I could actually see.
And it made me realise something:
We can be physically doing one thing while mentally doing something completely different.
Sometimes distraction isn't obvious.
We're not necessarily scrolling our phone or stopping what we're doing.
We can still look productive from the outside.
But our attention has left the room.
Noticing gives us the opportunity to bring it back.
Not just so we can work faster.
But so we can actually see what we're doing while we're doing it.
Notice it… don't feed it.