How Do You Know If You Are Just Taking A Break or Getting Lost In Distractions?

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Are you taking a break or are you distracting yourself from dealing with the things you need to face?

It can be difficult to discern one from the other, especially when we are in the think of it all.  But it is worth asking yourself. It is worth stepping aside from your daily habits and routines to gain perspective and evaluate your use of time.

Yes, take a break. You know I am a big fan of taking a break.  But just make sure you are not fooling yourself into believing you are just taking a break with 2 hours of social drinking every day after work or 2 hours of doom scrolling on your phone every evening.

As always, thank you for listening to We All Have Something.  If you wish to connect with Rick beyond the podcast:
Website: www.CoachRickSchwartz.com
YouTube: @RickSchwartz
Threads: @Coach_Rick_Schwartz
Instagram: @Coach_Rick_Schwartz
Facebook Page:  @CoachRickSchwartz
Threads: @Coach_Rick_Schwartz

***If you are having any thoughts of self harm and need someone to reach out to please call: 1-800-273- TALK (8255)
Or use the new 988 number for calling or texting for support.


Episode Music "Inspiration Corporate" by Sandra Inspiration Music
Music rights purchased through AudioJungle.

Nothing in this podcast should be taken as therapy, medical or mental health care. Topics discussed on this podcast reflect the personal experiences of the host and guests of We All Have Something and are not intended to, nor should they, replace the services of medical care, mental health care or therapy.

If you are having thoughts of self harm or ending your life, please call or text 988 - Help is available 24/7.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:22

Welcome to another episode of we All have Something a listener supported podcast, and if you want to become a supporter of this podcast, there's a link right down below in the episode notes. You'll get a personalized email of thanks for me, along with a couple of cool stickers. You can stick wherever you want to put cool stickers, and then also I'll mention your name on the air, if you give me permission to do so. That said, no one to mention this episode, but that's okay, because I've got a handful of supporters who have been with us now all season long making this podcast happen, and I just want to say thank you If you're one of my many supporters out there listening right now. You are rock stars, you are awesome and I appreciate you probably more than you know. Now, this episode let's jump right in because I've got a very busy week. I'm not going to have a lot of time to edit, so I'm not going to get too crazy with this episode. Hopefully you not go too long, and I know now, just as I said, that I hear the voice of my head doing yeah, but you ramble. So get ready, buckle up, because here we go.

Speaker 1: 1:17

I'm Rick Schwartz, life coach, public speaker and all around curious guy. My curiosity, my life and the lives of the many people I have worked with have taught me time and time again that there are challenges to overcome and successes to celebrate. You're listening to we All have Something a podcast about the human experience, a podcast about celebrating our authentic self. So let's get started. A little over a week ago, I was on a podcast called Apex Masculinity. Now this is a podcast where Nick, the host, has really spent a lot of time trying to work with and help men through all the challenges of masculinity. And I know I'll tell you right now, I know the majority of my listeners are female, and so just bear with me here, ladies, because there are a lot of challenges men are facing, especially young men in today's society, where they are being sold a bill of goods that is not good on what they should be or how they can be or be all this stuff, and then they realize that's not how society works and it is not a welcoming thing for them, and so there's a lot of challenges and confusion and it just it's a lot, and Nick was nice enough to have me on and we talked a lot about all the things he dives into. Now I know with Oula my work is and he knows he knows I'm an Oula coach we talk about seven key areas of life and that's fitness, finance, family field, faith, friends and fun. He distills it down and kind of brings a couple together. So he has five areas. We talk about those.

Speaker 1: 2:49

One of the questions he asked me has created an offline conversation in a couple of direct messages I've received where he asked me. He's like what can guys do about distractions? Like what, what can they do? And my response and I'm paraphrasing here I don't I don't remember exactly how I said it, but essentially the distractions, the things that stand in our way. And this is true not just for men, this is true for all humans.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Right now especially, we have so many distractions available to us so easily because it's in our pocket, it's in our hand all the time. We come home from a stressful day and some of us are already on our phones in the car trying to forget and not think about the stressful things that happened. So we're scrolling on our phone in our car. Some people wait till they get home, some people wait till they get to the bar and they sit there at the bar and they drink and scroll through their phones. Now, I'm not saying scrolling through your phone is a bad thing. I'm not saying going to the bar and having a drink is a bad thing, going home and having a drink not a bad thing, going home and having a snack not a bad thing, going home playing video games not a bad thing. And the reason I'm sharing this? Because the distractions are real, the stress, distractions are impactful. What happens to us is we get that hit of dopamine from the video game or from the drink that we have, or from the food that we eat or whatever it might be. And it feels good and it feels like we're dealing with and we've solved and soothed the stress, the challenges, the problems that we're facing.

Speaker 1: 4:22

The reality is, all you are doing is pushing pause. Now for the older generation out there, myself included, we used to have cassette players. There was stop and there was pause. Stop retracted all of the playing equipment to read that cassette. That little tape in there, the magnetic reader, would be retracted and no longer be touching the cassette. If you push pause. It still left everything there in place to play that cassette, but it just stopped everything from moving in the moment when you lean into a distraction. You are just pushing pause. Everything is still there. All the problems, all the challenges, all the emotions it's all still there. You just pushed pause and you've been able to distract yourself with this temporary sensation of everything's good.

Speaker 1: 5:12

I've had a couple of drinks. I'm good. I'm going to go play my video game for a couple of hours. I'm going to go scroll on social media and look at cats being silly and have a good time. That makes me laugh, so that's a good thing. I am not saying any of those things are bad, as long as you recognize that is not solving what you're trying to escape from. It's not solving what you're trying to be distracted from. Is it family stress? Is it work stress? Is it friendship stress? Is it financial stress? Do you feel disconnected from your faith and your spirituality? Looking towards distractions to not have to think about those things is not helping. Now asterisk little side note here. Yes, if you've hit overwhelm, if you've hit burnout, give yourself a break.

Speaker 1: 6:00

Taking a break is different than distracting yourself. Well, my break, rick, is I want to sit on the couch and look at funny cat videos because it makes me laugh. Excellent, take that break. Take that break, laugh at those silly cats, have a drink while you're at it, play some video games afterwards I don't care. But don't come home every single day or go to the bar every single day, or go to your friend's house every single day and do the same things over and over again to soothe and or pause dealing with those things. Once you've taken a break which you know. You know if you've listened to this podcast. You've seen my stories on my runs you know for a fact, you know I'm a big fan of taking a break I'll be the first to say take a break, give yourself permission to take a break. Taking a break is not quitting. Now. These are all things I have said and I stand by that. Taking a break and giving yourself permission to take a break is very important, but make sure your break is not just a repeated distraction. You do every single day to avoid having to deal with the hard stuff, the challenging stuff, the things that are driving you mad, getting you anxious, causing you to feel sick to your stomach as you drive to work or have to drive to the family member's house or whatever it might be.

Speaker 1: 7:17

It came up in this podcast about men, because a lot of men just find ways to distract themselves because no one ever gave them the tools to work through and or deal with stuff. Or our society has painted a picture that if you're going to therapy, you're weak, or if you have a coach, you're weak. If you've asked for help, you're weak. If you have emotions around something, you're weak. One other thing that was brought up in this interview during this time with Nick in his podcast was this whole concept of alpha males and how alpha males make all this noise and they're loud and they're I'm an alpha and they're proving it in every picture, every post and everything they say, and they'll even go so far as to say that they're alpha and you're beta.

Speaker 1: 7:55

The reality of being an alpha and let me tell you, I'll tell you right now, our society has taken the concept of a alpha leader in a social dynamic of other wildlife, non-human animals, and completely, completely skewed it beyond what it really means and how it works. I will tell you this in a simplistic just distill it down real easy. When you're observing wildlife, when you're observing animals where hierarchy is important, where there is somebody in charge, whether it's matriarchal or some other form, you know, like elephants is matriarchal. You know, if you're looking at say, like I said in the podcast with Nick if you're looking at two lion, male lions, you're going to have one male lion hanging out in the shade, casually laying down like cats do, surveying his area, and you might have another male off in the distance, kind of wandering up, posturing, roaring, trying to look vicious, trying to make some noise, trying to pick on some lower level lions in the pride. You can see this in other species as well. Just using lions as an example, the one that's alpha is the one that is confident, that knows I've got this under control. This is my territory and this is my pride and I don't think that guy over there making a much noise there's nothing to worry about. Where the guy who's over there trying to tell others hey, I'm in charge, I'm the big deal, get out of my way, I'm alpha that's the one who is not and is concerned and lacks self-confidence and needs to show and tell everyone else what he is.

Speaker 1: 9:28

Our society, unfortunately, has created a situation where we start to believe that's what we need to do. We need to be loud and obnoxious and tell everybody we're in charge and we're a big deal, and we don't deal with the fact that we don't feel that way. You know, I hear a lot of people talk about imposter syndrome. You know, I got that job, I didn't feel qualified and I feel like an imposter. And so we start to BS our way. We feel we have to act a certain way and, yes, there is a certain degree to step into the role that you want to have. There's a certain degree of be that person you want to be. Sometimes you have to do things. You have to do things, you have to do actions to get the rest of it to follow into place. I get that.

Speaker 1: 10:08

But this idea that we have to fictionalize ourselves, we have to become a character that's not even us, and then, all of a sudden, we find ourselves having to create that every day, we find ourselves having to make believe who we really are to the point where we lose our authenticity. We lose who we are in this idea that I need to be a certain way to be accepted, I need to be a certain way to be the person everyone thinks I am, or I need to be a certain way so I can accept myself. Are you being a certain way so you can accept yourself? Do you know somebody who's doing that? It all goes back to the original thing I was talking about is that once we get home or we get in a space where it's just us, we need to distract ourselves. It's all too much Too much stress, too much inauthenticity, too much pretending to be something we aren't, too much of dealing with everything else and we feel we can't confront it. We don't have the tools to do it. No one showed us how. We never learned how Then ask for help, step up and say this is no longer how I want to live my life. This is not comfortable. Just going from sleep to work, to my phone, to a PlayStation, to a bar, to my glass of wine, back to sleep, to wake up and do it all over again.

Speaker 1: 11:22

We sometimes share of the midlife crisis. We sometimes share of people just blowing everything up in their life because they're dissatisfied with who they are. That is the extreme. Now, sometimes a midlife crisis can be something as simple as just getting a new haircut right, growing a mustache when the guy never had one before, or whatever it might be. A lot of times we get to the point where we don't recognize ourselves or our life anymore. So we feel we need something to disrupt it. Therefore, we create that disruption and sometimes yeah, sometimes it's needed. Sometimes you just need to shake everything up. I get it. I get it. But there are a lot of people who, when they get to that point where they have created a situation where they have put themselves in a corner, where they feel they no longer even know who they are, they feel just to find their own identity they have to blow everything up. They look back and go. I wish I wouldn't have done that. That is an extreme and that is that volcano being capped for a very long time and suddenly boom.

Speaker 1: 12:15

If you can take the time to recognize I don't like where I am and I don't know how to get out of this. Ask for help, start looking for Coaches, start looking for spiritual leaders, start looking for other people doing what it is you think you might want to do, or just start Asking the question of hey, I'm feeling really lost and miserable and I don't know how I got here. I need to find someone to help me work through. This Could be therapy, could be therapy, god love. Therapy. Could be a coach. Yay, coaches, I love me. Some coaches, I've got a coach. I coach people. I meet with coaches every other week. Coaches are awesome, but it's not for everybody. But what we do need to do is we need to be thoughtful about how we are existing right now in this life.

Speaker 1: 13:06

How are you showing up for you? Why are you Showing up the way you are? What is that? Is it? And it might be a great thing, and even if even if you're like listening to this going, rick, none of this, none of this applies to me. My life is all unicorns and rainbows. I don't know what you're talking about. I would still ask you why are you showing up that way? What is it that got you there? And not to question it in the sense of I don't believe you, I think you're faking it so much as why not be consciously aware of that? Why not lean into that? Why not share that? Why not celebrate that? And if you are someone where some of these things I mentioned today in this episode they do resonate with you, it does feel like I'm talking about you or maybe somebody you know. Then again, ask yourself why are you there? How did you get there? And and wouldn't it be cool if you had a life that you could celebrate. Maybe it's not all unicorns and rainbows, maybe it's just like one rainbow and a and a white goat Not a unicorn, I don't care. I'm just saying what if, though, you had a life worth celebrating, one where, yeah, there's ups and downs, but it's really awesome experience?

Speaker 1: 14:10

I would encourage you to Experiment with where are you right now in life versus when do you want to be. Experiment with asking yourself that question. I should say, let me clarify experiment with asking yourself that question when am I right now versus where I want to be? I was challenged by my coach last week to Look at that, look at where I am in my life versus where I want to be, and what does it look like in that where I want to be World? And it was a really fun exercise because, like I can, I generally look around, go, yeah, life was good, I'm happy, things are firing all cylinders and I know I'm still growing and learning. But that's the cool part of it is experience in the process. But then to be challenged with, okay, but what would it look like If you were further along in that process? I go, oh, hmm, let me think about that. So I challenge you.

Speaker 1: 14:59

I challenge you, no matter where you feel like you are, ask yourself when am I in my life right now versus where do I want to be? And what does that look like If it's, if it's a real hard like oh dude, the gap is like the Grand Canyon, the gap between where I am Versus where I want to be. It's like. It's like California coast of Japan, like the whole Pacific's between us, it can feel overwhelming. But don't lose sight of where you want to be. Don't lose sight of the fact that you can bridge that gap. You can lessen that distance. You can start taking action and there's gonna be setback, sure, but get rid of the distractions. To tie it back to the beginning of this, get rid of the distractions. Start being your authentic self and if you don't know who that is, start finding someone who can help you unearth that and dig through that. It's gonna be so important, so valuable. To goodness gracious, I've already gotten, like I said.

Speaker 1: 15:55

So the whole idea behind this, this episode, is that I've been getting some messages, direct messages, offline, about that episode on apex masculinity with Nick and it's resonated with some people very much. And the other side of it was well, you're saying don't, don't go out for drinks and don't play video games and don't scroll on my phone. But you also say take breaks, and I wanted to create an episode that really defined of the difference between Leaning into and constantly playing in the world of distractions versus taking a break. But you can see, as you know, this episode went a little bit further than that, and that's okay. It's the organic way this episode is supposed to play out. So with that we are going to wrap it up.

Speaker 1: 16:34

I, you know, I appreciate you being here and thank you again to my supporters. You all are making such a big difference for this podcast. I'm at the point now where I'm saving a little bit of money instead of losing money on this, and I'm going to buy a better mic and I can't wait for that. That might be for next season. We'll see how soon I can get to that. But either way, no matter what, you know, I truly hope you found value in this episode. As always.

Speaker 1: 16:57

Please share this. If you know somebody who can get something out of this, whether it's the first part, the middle part, whatever it may be, share this episode. It's the sharing that shows you're caring right. It's the ripple effect. You know I talk about it all the time. How do we make a difference in this world? How do we make a difference? We create a ripple and we get to see the first couple of ripples sometimes, but then it's the fourth, fifth, sixth and so on. We don't always see, and that's okay. That is okay. That's the goal, right To make a difference period, whether I see it or not. So share these episodes, and I appreciate everyone who's already been doing that, and I appreciate those who've left reviews or stars.

Speaker 1: 17:33

Wherever you listen to your podcast, if there's a way you could leave a review, it makes a big difference. When people are scrolling through looking for a podcast that might resonate with them, they see your review like okay, a lot of people said this is cool. I guess I'll check it out too. Of course, if you haven't already subscribe, wherever you listen to your podcast, to this podcast, we all have something that's available all over the place. And then you can find me, of course, on social media.

Speaker 1: 17:54

Been really enjoying the slow growth of threads. It's even fun conversations over there. If you haven't been on threads yet, you should check it out. You can find me, though, anywhere on social media. Just search for search for, excuse me, coachrickschwarz, and of course, you can always go to my website for more information, coachrickschwarzcom. You can sign up for a discovery call there, free 30-minute Zoom, where we can discuss what's going on in your life and I'll share with you what my coaching is. And if you and I both agree, yeah, that's a good deal, I want you as my coach and I'm like, yeah, good deal, I think you'd be a great client for my coaching and we'll go on from there and if not, cool 30-minute conversation about what's going on, if I can offer any insider assistance to you in that 30 minutes, then that's what it is about. So, again, go to my website, coachrickschwarzcom, for more information about my coaching, how to sign up for a discovery call and all the links to my social media. Thanks again for listening. I really do appreciate it all. Good one everybody.