Guest Post- Distractions and Joy

Happy Friday!

I am so excited to introduce my first guest blogger on Enjoying the Journey!

I met Ginny about two years ago in Seattle

One of my good friends connected us through a bible study Ginny was leading

I instantly was drawn to Ginny's heart and deep faith

I love her heart to serve others through prayer and encouragement 

I have been a recipient of her amazing gifts and we have stayed in touch 

She also has a heart to write and I cant wait to share her first blog post!

I love this post and I read it at a perfect time in my life

I think we can all relate to this post by Ginny 

Such a good reminder to be aware of the distractions in our life

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Distractions and JOY

I took a float trip down the Yakima River on a gorgeous end of summer day in Washington State.  Nothing could mar the day but I had one little problem.  

My ‘waterproof’ bag-where I stowed my iphone wasn’t waterproof.  

That led to the experience of fewer distractions! 

My phone was dead and it took almost a week to get the new improved iphone5c to replace it.

Distractions, how I love them.  

I love Instagram, and photos of every kind. 

Facebook and every video, every witty, cool blog about life with kids or being a woman of faith or a styling woman of this century.  

But now I had that antsy feeling that I was cut off.  

I really did now have time to do my house chores.  

To think about making appointments I have put off for like two years.  

I wanted my distractions via my phone to well, distract me!

Yet, lately I have been plagued by the nagging feeling that my distractions are well too distracting!  Unease and boredom are not really addressed by said posts about ‘Kid President’ (one of my favorites!)

So I have been trying to think deeper about this conundrum.  

Why are they so fun yet so unsatisfying? 

I love to learn new things, but I have a utilitarian bent that tells me I need to use what I have learned! So how do I USE those videos?  

More anstiness!  Grrrr.

I think I am really on a search for JOY.

Searching but not really locating it in my current moment of understanding my ‘worldview’. 

I got challenged and it helped me, so that is what I want to share.  

The big question I decided to think about was, get ready; Suffering!  

OK no one likes that word!!

 In fact, whole world views that are pretty popular say that all suffering in this world is really an illusion.  

That actually you can just think your way out of it.  

If you think about things in the right way, you won’t hurt!  

Sound pretty good?  I don’t want to hurt, so let me try it!  

OK, my friend for 13 years decided to leave the church we have gone to together that long.  

OUCH.  

OK, I don’t want to suffer.  I ponder my problem: 

I know!  She is ‘shallow’ and so I can’t really care about that part of her life, we can be friends, but we won’t talk about her thoughts on this part of life anymore.  Whew!  I don’t hurt anymore!  I can little by little dismiss her and the area of our lack of agreement!  We get together still; and now it’s been 7 years and guess what?  We aren’t really close any more.  But, inside I have told myself, I just can’t hurt about this, after all it was a personal decision and she gets to do whatever she wants, so stay in the present moment, don’t think about the future== it doesn’t matter to me.  I will forget the past, forget the future and just have a good time with her when we get together.  

Boom!  No pain!  I just don’t care. What-Ever! 

Only problem is that just rethinking this doesn’t really change the reality of my loss of this friendship.  It is real and while I am told I ‘need to let others do what is right for them’  if I haven’t faced the reality of this, pretending it’s no big deal.  

Consequence; that friendship is in trouble.-there is real loss and real suffering involved and I haven’t avoided anything because the way I dealt with it was not about reality. 
But majoring in the un real life is pretty much I am really good at. 

  I can fill up my day with stuff that just keeps me ‘off base’ and I just move ON. Distractions.  

No BIG DEAL!  What really is important because life sucks and I don’t control that so I need to just ENJOY life! Laugh, drink coffee! Take photos of pretty flowers, kitties and doggies! 

Maybe we are all doing that because the ‘quotient’ of prickly painful unresolved situations is getting rather full in our lives.  

Maybe there is a back log of situations where we have put off saying the hard thing in a friendship, or a marriage or to a brother or sister.  

Maybe we are just trying to medicate and distract ourselves.  In the meantime; what is going by that can’t be fixed by time passing?

How do you feel about things that cause you to ‘suffer’?  

Do you think, deep down in side that you have done so many right things that you DO NOT DESERVE to feel this way?  

That you deserve the break time, the zone out distractibility time?

OK is there another way? What about dignifying reality.  

Life on earth has suffering in it.  FACE THIS.  IF I stare into the mirror of reality, eventually I will stop lying to myself and face it.  Maybe it will rock my world.  Maybe my world needs to be rocked.  Philip Yancey wrote a book that has a title I just love 

“The truth will set you free but first it will make you miserable!

So what is the truth that I am avoiding by my distractions?  

First of all, I avoided writing this blog, for like months!!!

But, I am avoiding going to another state to visit my brother who is having a health challenge.  

I am avoiding making some preventive screening appointments.  

I am avoiding how old I REALLY am going to be at my NEXT birthday!!! 

What about you?  

Are you distracting yourself from anything?  

Does the nagging creepy feeling peek through anyway at times after you spent an hour on FB or XBOX or Pinterest?  

Are you distracting yourself? 

True story: The pharmacist just asked me today: Have you had a Flu Shoot this year?  
WHAT I THOUGHT, I WASN’T PLANNING ABOUT THINKING ABOUT THAT TODAY!!!   

‘No ‘ I said meekly.  “Want to take care of this right now???? She asked.  NO I thought , but because I had been thinking about writing this article instead out loud I said.  YES, I have been meaning to get one, why not now! (will it hurt?)

OK, so I now not only got that shot but another one that is good for me.  

You know what ? I actually feel pretty good about me.  

In fact, I think I have a tiny bit of JOY in there!  

I am a tiny bit proud of myself. 

Hey, what about you?  Where are you at on distractions?  Where are you avoiding Suffering?  

Where are you on JOY?

Let me know!

CONNECT with Ginny on EMAIL

Ginny loves to encourage others.  

She has been married for 43 years, has two sons, two daughters in love and 6 grandchildren. 

Trained as a Health Educator, she and her husband have a company that trains Health Promotion and Wellness Program professionals. One of her favorite roles was as a telephonic coach for individuals who want to make a health behavior change. Knowing how powerful words are she loves audio books, reading, singing and prayer.  She has been a Prayer Coordinator for Church Awakening, a WA State prayer network, for 10 years.  

She has led many small groups and classes on motivational topics.

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