Attention, Not By Charlie Puth

I had a class activity a couple months ago where I was told for 1 minute to turn off all devices, and count my breath.

I couldn’t even keep track of my numbers in this exercise. My mind kept racing. I trying praying, that immediately make me think of writing worship music and I felt a hole opening up of all the things I wanted to do this summer and it reminded me of how limited I was.

I usually bring my phone every where. It’s how I am connected to the people I work with as a community advisor on campus, how my boyfriend get’s in touch with me, and how I get my daily dose of corgi pictures off of Pintrest. I used to be very good at sectioning off my time of how I use my phone. For example, my first junior year, I would listen to the Bible when I walked across campus to my car before work, so I wouldn’t have to do a bible study when I got home.

I learned a lot of what attention meant and what it is over this summer in speech therapy. I made great strides in my physical and occupational therapy but I knew that I needed speech therapy to continue, but have yet to have the time to find someone close to my new home. Lately I have felt so consumed my this syndrome. I have been sleeping all the time, unmotivated and I feel like I have too much going on. When I did this activity, it was only the second week of classes.

I found my attention shifted in the way I use social media as well. It seemed as though social media can either really help or really hurt my motivation and my condition. When I find something super motivating or something on Pintrest that makes me want to clean, I can sometimes get right to it. But that same Pin can make me feel bad that I haven’t been able to clean and do everything like before. I find myself a lot of the time just zoning out to Grey’s Anatomy because it gives my mind a break from working so hard (to do the simplest tasks). Even going out with friends and being in large groups is still hard when I have the comfort of my home to stay in. I also haven’t been creating content for my social media as much as I used to. Putting yourself out there after a concussion is hard when you have school, two jobs and a life outside of your phone. I found a pretty cool article about social isolation here! I think you can easily relate this to social media isolation, not being as engaging online vs. just consuming info.