by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
The Wages of Distraction is an Unreal Life
In a world overflowing with entertainment, stimulation, and endless options for distraction, it’s never been easier to lose yourself in empty and meaningless activities that have nothing to do with your real purpose (and not the ‘good’ kind of “losing yourself” where you eventually find yourself):
One moment you’re checking your phone, the next you’re deep down the YouTube rabbit hole or bingeing a Netflix series for the three-thousandth consecutive evening.
You know it feels ‘wrong’ at some level because you know that you’re really only doing it to escape from your life or because you’re not quite sure what to do with it – either way, you attempt to justify it to yourself by saying that you “deserve a break”, that it’s “harmless”, or that “everyone’s doing it” (so it must be the ‘right’ thing to do – given the world is in such a great state and all).
Deep down, though, a quiet voice nags at you from down there in the Shadow Territory:
“Is this really the life I want?“, “Is this the REAL me?“, “Is my life really supposed to be like this?“.
What you don’t want to accept in those moments of endless doom scrolling and bingeing is that this voice is real and it’s asking the right questions.
It’s trying to wake you up and call you back home because the truth is that distraction isn’t just about relaxing or having a break.
It’s about wasting your life.
The Void Behind the Distraction
Every man carries the Void within him at some point in life – that sense of hollowness, of something missing – an itch that can’t be scratched or a restless feeling that something indescribable needs shaking up in a big way.
We often try to patch the void up with dopamine hits in an attempt to overcome it:
Social media, porn, video games, processed food, alcohol, drugs, mindless scrolling, gossip, even overworking or anything else you can think of.
(Literally anything can be used as a substitute for the truth (the only thing that can really fill the Void) – see my book which talks about this in detail: Trust: A Manual for Becoming The Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace).
Despite our best effort to fill the void with these things, our efforts prove to be fruitless and the void lingers in our lives like a dark cloud. It doesn’t even shrink. It just keeps growing.
And the reason is simple:
Distractions offer a release from being unreal with ourselves, not the relief of our own REALNESS.
In other words, they give us a momentary escape from the tension we feel when we’re living a life disconnected from the truth about ourselves, the world, and reality but they do nothing to resolve the cause of that tension – a detachment from realness.
And why are we detached from our realness in the first place?
It’s always because of shame.
Shame makes us hide behind the mask of the Ego. It makes us pretend. It convinces us that who we really are isn’t ‘enough’ and so we start constructing a false self in order to to ‘survive’ in the world without ever really feeling connected to it.
This may protect us in the short-term but the mask can’t feel real love, real joy, real meaning and so – instead – we chase substitutes in the form of distractions.
We do this so we don’t have to feel the grief of what we’ve lost: our REALNESS.
Addiction by Another Name
In my opinion, distraction is soft addiction.
It’s insidious because it doesn’t always look dangerous but over time distraction can eat away at our lives until we’re totally off course and have become detached from our own flow and potential:
Watching TV, scrolling Instagram, or even endlessly researching self-help tips doesn’t feel bad but what it costs you when you add up all those hours spent on such activities is enormous: your presence, your power, and your potential.
We simply don’t realise how much these small, daily habits keep us locked in stasis:
They might numb us from the friction we feel – the discomfort of living out of alignment with truth but even this is a small irony because we need that friction because it shows us where the work is to be done and where there’s room to grow.
It’s a compass pointing us back home but if we’re too busy distracting ourselves to look at it then we’ll just get more-and-more lost – only to find ourselves looking back at our lives one day and wondering where it all went wrong (there wasn’t a singular event – it was a death by a thousand cuts caused by years of distraction and escape instead of facing reality head-on and building with it).
The World Wants You Distracted
Let’s be honest: we live in a culture that profits off your pain, disconnection, and shame. It keeps you pacified and passive so that you’ll stay in your emotions, never really solve any of your problems, but keep endlessly scrolling and clicking on things to give you that temporary release.
Free entertainment isn’t really free. Free porn isn’t free. Free social media isn’t free.
As they old saying goes: “If the product is free, then YOU’RE the product”.
‘Free’ distraction always costs you something: your vitality and your purpose.
And the longer you choose escapism over embodiment, the harder it becomes to find your way back.
But the way back is always there because what’s real is always real.
The Real Choice: Become the Void
When you’re feeling the void, you’ve got two basic choices:
- Distract yourself from it and stay stuck.
- Become it and transform your life.
What does it mean to become the void?
It means you stop running and sit with the discomfort so that you can face what’s underneath and start to reconnect to your own raw humanity.
It means letting go of the mask and, in doing so, reconnecting to the natural drive toward wholeness that’s always unfolding as you unconscious mind tries to make itself conscious and connects you to life as a whole.
This isn’t a one-time moment. It’s a lifestyle that involves putting yourself in the process of life as a whole and building flow (rather than just distracting yourself with tiny fragments).
Becoming the void means trusting that your realness is enough, that your emotions are not your enemy (just e-motion, energy in motion), and that purpose is found not in escaping tension, but in walking through it and growing a little more real day-after-day.
Your Distractions Are a Mirror
A lot of the time, the things you reach for in times of stress or boredom are showing you what you’re avoiding:
That compulsion to pick up your phone when you’re alone? That’s a clue. That third coffee you didn’t need? Clue. That endless string of YouTube videos you’ve watched this week? Clue.
Ask yourself: What am I avoiding right now?
And more importantly: What would I be doing if I was living from my realness?
The gap between those two answers is the work.
(If you’re interested in coaching then, book a free call with me if you want to start resolving this tension within yourself).
How to Break Free from the Grip of Distraction
If you want to stop using distractions to avoid your pain, you’ll need to rewire how you relate to discomfort, identity, and purpose by learning to better manage your thoughts, regulate your nervous system, and create a sense of purpose in your life.
Here are three powerful strategies to help you get started:
1. Master Your Mind: Learn to Distinguish Real from Unreal Thoughts
Believe it or not, not every thought in your head belongs to you:
Many of them come from the conditioned self – the ego trying to protect you from feeling exposed as your unconditional self (realness). The more you believe these thoughts, the more power they have over you because they affect the way that you feel and act (which leads to whatever results you get).
Use tools like the Thought Log (a tool I use with coaching clients) to separate the lies from the truth. You can also just write down some of your thoughts throughout the day, label them as ‘real’ or ‘unreal’ and practice focusing only on the ones aligned with your purpose.
You’ll be shocked at how much mental clutter dissolves simply by getting your mind right.
2. Regulate Your Nervous System: Get Comfortable with Discomfort
If your body is always tense, you’ll always be looking for a quick release and distractions (and addictions) offer the fastest route to that.
Training your nervous system to feel safe in discomfort by engaging in activities like breathwork, cold exposure, yoga, and meditation can help you to stay regulated so that you’re way less likely to suffer the negative effects of carrying physical tension.
Take daily pauses. Breathe deeply. Practise slowing down. The calmer your nervous system becomes, the less you’ll crave artificial stimulation and the easier it is to avoid distractions.
3. Cultivate Purpose: Find the Thing Worth Suffering For
When your life has purpose, you don’t need distractions – you’re too busy living fully and you also know what you want and so it’s easier to stay disciplined.
Start by asking yourself: What kind of man do I want to be? What kind of impact do I want to have?
Then reverse-engineer your daily habits to align with that vision and create a routine for yourself that supports your growth from one day to the next.
Purpose isn’t found in your head – it’s found through action:
Serve others. Build something real. Move your body. Speak truthfully. Get uncomfortable.
Rinse and repeat.
The Voice of Distraction vs. The Voice of Truth
You’ve got two voices inside you:
- One whispers, “Just one more episode. One more scroll. One more hit”.
- The other says, “This isn’t who you are. I’m more real than this”.
The first is a Gremlin – a parasite feeding off your stagnation and keeping you where you don’t wanna be (by feeding on your unexpressed potential every time you choose distraction over opportunity).
The second is your Real Voice and your job is to listen for it and act on it.
Your real voice won’t shout or beg – it’s calm, clear, and true.
The more you obey it, the stronger it becomes.
Keep asking yourself: “Who am I becoming with this behaviour?” – the answer to this will show you if it’s real or not.
Final Thoughts: Becoming a Man Who Doesn’t Need to Escape
You weren’t born to live a life of avoidance or escapism.
Nor were you born to be tame, compliant, or endlessly entertained and pacified.
You were born to live with courage and purpose.
Escapism is just a habit that can be unlearned and on the other side of it lies a life that’s actually worth living…your REAL life.
Don’t settle for a life that gives you temporary relief from being fake; create a life that gives you lasting freedom by being real.
The void isn’t your enemy. It’s your invitation.
Stay real out there,
If you’re struggling with distraction, interested in coaching, and want to shift back into your real life, then book a free call with me to get moving again.
Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.
It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.
This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).
Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
It contains 166 practical ‘Revolutions’ for awareness and over 8,000 Self-Guidance Questions for you to uncover new insight about yourself, the world, and reality that you can translate into action and start building your real life on the realest possible foundation.
Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst we’re still around.
The Flow Builder Journal has everything you need to make the next 21-weeks of your life a turning point.
It has monthly, weekly, and daily (morning and evening) check-ins, tools and reflections to keep you in the zone and keep you flowing with zest and momentum.
If you want to get unstuck and grow REAL then check it out.
Download EGO/SHADOW/TRUST - a free guide to transformation that will walk you through the vital stages of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action with practical strategies to implement right away.
Join the 7-Day Bare Ass Minimum (BAM) Challenge and start to implement foundational health habits and a powerful life vision only a week from now.
