Distraction Fast: You Can('t) Feel Better
22:01 Share

Good day, good people. Shout out to you for tuning in to Imperfectly Phenomenal Woman Podcast. Look at you, your imperfectly phenomenal self, coming back again for another week of personal growth and conversations with everyday women about their limiting beliefs. Look at you go.

But anyway, so I am Lauren. I'm the host and the producer of this podcast. If you're new here, hey girl, welcome. Or anyone else listening, because I know not just women listen to this podcast. I got like a 17-year-old boy who listens. Like all sorts of people. But I appreciate you for tuning in to another episode.

So this week is going to be a solo. I'm going to try to do solo episodes each month for you all because I've been told that you really enjoy those. And so for this one, I had started off by writing a bunch of notes of things that I wanted to talk about, but I was just feeling so good in the particular moment and was just like, go get the mic, just talk, see where you land. And so that is exactly what I did. What ended up coming out of my mouth was about

kind of like this one third life crisis that I feel like I experienced more recently. And this experience of January of 2024, I was in like a pretty rough place.

It got worse throughout the year around, you know, July or so. I was in a really struggling moment with intense, severe burnout only to land in January of 2025 feeling better than I probably ever have in my life. And so I want to kind of just share some of that journey with you all. Talk about distraction fasting and hopefully there is a nugget or two that you can get out of it.

And so if you're new here, what we typically do in each episode is we talk about a limiting belief that holds women back from living fully and authentically.

Limiting beliefs are like the negative stories that we tell ourselves that aren't necessarily always true. They come from society, family, friends, or even just from yourself. But in this case, I think my limiting belief that I originally had was that I can't feel better and I'm not going to feel better. I'd been searching for this feeling of better for years.

because I had gone through a lot in the last like three years, which is why I hadn't been recording this podcast for the last like year or so. But man, I'm in such a beautiful place. So let's get into the episode. Here's what happened.

October of 2023, I had just lost my grandmother. The year before that, I had just lost my grandfather. And so for a solid two years, I was grieving. I was exhausted. I was tired. I was completely disconnected from myself. And some of you listening might be in a state like that and might not even realize it.

A lot of the time, people will be grieving and not even realize that you're grieving. So I want you to check in with yourself because we can be grieving about all sorts of different things. You might be grieving about the loss of a job or getting into a situation that you thought was going to be one thing, but it's actually another. Or maybe you too did actually lose someone. Just check in with yourself about how you're feeling, really.

But I was grieving and I was making an attempt to push through. And when I say push through, I mean push, child. I was pushing. I'm making this other show right now called New Growth. And that has been a journey of its own. And as I've been making New Growth at the beginning of it, I started filming in February of 2024. Now note, that's right after the passing of my grandparents. Well, after the passing of my grandma, right?

And I just wanted to keep going. I just wanted to keep making this thing. I just finished fundraising. I was happy because she actually got to contribute to it. And so I was like, I just got to keep pushing. I got a deadline I got to meet because I got a grant for it as well. So I kept on pushing. Oh, pushing. Dear friend listening, stop pushing. Okay.

Pushing ain't healthy to an extent being determined and like consistent and grinding, you know, all that's cool. There's a time and a place for it. But there is a time and a place where it is not what you should be doing because it is not healthy. And so I was pushing.

to get this stuff done and it got done. It was real beautiful. I didn't finish it quite yet. I'm still actually working on it, but pushing led me to a severe burnout. Now friend.

Good people listening to this podcast. Burnout is not a game. It's not a game. I've heard people toss around that word burnout forever, right? And you think, okay, well, yeah, like you're tired and it's hard to work. No,

Burnout, severe burnout, you cannot function. I couldn't listen to podcasts unless it was on 0.75 speed. No multiplying, like had to completely slow it down because people were talking too fast. I had migraines for weeks, weeks straight.

Could barely open my eyes. Couldn't really get up. Couldn't focus at all. That was impossible. Did I want to eat? Absolutely not. Wondered if I was depressed. Looked into it. Possible that that was a part of it too. Who knows? But for sure.

burnout was present. And so at that point, I was forced to turn everything off. I had to turn absolutely everything off because my brain physically could not take it. I couldn't watch TV. It was overstimulating. I couldn't listen to music. It was overstimulating. Everything was overstimulating. I could not do it or it would make me feel sick.

my brain was too tired and it needed a break from pushing. I'm sharing this with you because somebody listening to this is probably pushing, especially if you have kids, especially if you're trying to do projects for yourself while you have kids. You might be a caretaker. I was caretaking with my grandparents, which I know is a huge part of this. I was often taking the 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. shift and then waking up in the morning and getting on the 9.30 a.m. meeting for work. Like,

truly exhausted, which is also why I wasn't doing this podcast, by the way, and like took off my time from that. But like I was forced to turn everything off. And once you start to turn everything off, you realize how much around you was missing. No Netflix, no Instagram, how much around you you were missing. I mean, I had to find enjoyment in things with entertainment turned off. And I remember one of the meals was

that I had during that time of forced disconnection, all of the flavors in this food that I made were just like popping out or like just being so much more connected to my body and how I was feeling and what I needed. Like that forced disconnection helped me to reconnect with myself. And I realized how much I liked being disconnected. Probably after about three weeks or so, maybe four,

I had no idea it was going to take me maybe a full month. It might've even taken two to really get back into feeling more normal and feeling like I could function again. I ended up being way more connected to God. There's an entire story behind that too. One that you honestly wouldn't believe me if I told you, but that experience of the massive low was the start of me getting to this massive high. The massive low was like about,

Might have been in like August. But now here we are in January and the tables have absolutely completely turned. And today I was just sitting in my chair listening to some music, right? And just like breathing. There have been multiple times today where my breathing just feels so good. Just so good.

And when I say that, I mean, because I am in this place of like such peace at times, I just finished another distraction fast and I'll talk about that in a second. Everything just feels so much more in depth and meaningful, honestly, than it ever has before, the different things that I do. And so with this breath, it's like the breath that I take in feels clean and

It feels nourishing. I feel it throughout my entire body and I feel just so connected to it in a way that I never really have gotten to experience before. Not even because I'm thinking about it, but just because I feel it. It feels so clean.

But I know that I feel this peace and I know that I feel this nourished right now because of how I am more intentional these days disconnecting from honestly so much of the distractions that are around me. So let's talk distraction fast a little bit.

Everything that you heard in this was all recorded before TikTok did its thing just now and before the inauguration. But after just experiencing both of those two things, it is such a reminder that disconnecting from these phones is going to be really important. And you don't have to do it all the time. But on occasion, you're going to need to check your addiction.

Seeing the way that people just reacted to a lot of this stuff, like people are addicted to these devices. I was just watching Hasan Minhaj and he called it the rectangle of sadness. He called your phone the rectangle of sadness. And yes, from your phone, you get some good dopamine hits, you get some good giggles, you get some good laughs. But then at the end of the day, like

You really wasted so much time on this thing, just scrolling. You really didn't get a chance to connect with the real outside world to get some like good clean fresh air. You didn't get a chance to connect with the family and friends around you. Like you didn't get a chance to actually work on the project that you wanted to work on. There's so many things and yes,

Our phones are a really great source of connection, a really great source of information. I'm not taking that away from any of these platforms, but I need you to weigh its benefits and its detriments to you and your mental, physical, emotional health. Just be mindful of it. That's all.

I ended up doing 12 days of a distraction fast. For me, the purpose of it was to get a better understanding of what my voice versus Holy Spirit's voice sounds like. So I just wanted to get quiet, right?

Distraction fasting looked like, and this is for me, you can choose what it looks like for you. But for me, it looked like turning off Netflix, turning off Instagram, turning off any news. And that includes on the phone. I only would look at like a headline ish and then not look at anything else very quickly. Not having any long conversations with friends. So I told them,

mostly in advance, like, "Hey, I'm about to go on this 12 days. Like, I'll talk to y'all on the other side of this."

because I just wanted to get quiet. It also looked like letting go of what I also call quenching curiosities. So quenching curiosities to me is I'm an inquisitive person, right? Anytime I look at something, I might think to myself, I wonder what the best microphone is in 2025. Google, like just immediately going and reaching for my phone to answer any question that might pop in my mind.

such a distraction. And then my phone automatically, my thumb will automatically go to Instagram distraction, just consistently distraction to numb myself, like not helpful, not productive. So letting go of all of those things, sitting in silence, what does that look like? What I have learned is my favorite place to be right now is in silence.

When I say silence, it feels so good. It is so nourishing just to sit in silence. And when I'm saying in, I mean like inside of it.

Just like breathing in a space, looking out of the window. Like right now there's so many colors of the sky. Like watching the people walk around me. It is the most beautiful feeling to just sit in silence. But so I had my goal with my distraction fast and what I was trying to do.

And it helped me to stay focused on that task. And I feel like I successfully figured out what that was. I told you it, I wanted to understand what my voice sounded like versus Holy Spirit. Well, my voice sounds very demanding. It sounds kind of critical. It sounds a little bit louder for me, Holy Spirit's voice. And if y'all don't know what Holy Spirit is, by the way, I'm a spiritual gal. Um,

You can do a distraction fast for what you need to do a distraction fast for, but for the spiritual gals or for the people who don't know what this means, Holy Spirit is a guide. It's an encourager. It's that it's a voice. It's a being a gift from God for all believers. And so Holy Spirit's voice sounded very one. It would just pop up in, in an instant, like,

had nothing to do with me. It just truly popped up and filled space. It was also very peaceful. And so in silence, I've been able to connect with God and in the ability to connect with God was peace and is peace. For the first seven days of the distraction fast, I did this going into the new year. So I was off work. So literally my entire day was just quiet. I did everything with so much more intention.

I made it to the bottom of my laundry basket. Child, I'll never go all the way down there. Like never. When I say I enjoyed this kale, like this piece of kale, I took one bite of one little piece of kale and was like, whoa.

this is delicious. Like, wow. Like I was mind blown or like from meals that I would cook, I would be mind blown by how many flavors there were. I took the longest bath of all time and did the deepest scrub ever. When I had so much more time that wasn't consumed by Netflix, Instagram, quenching curiosities, long conversations on the phone. Like I

I could be thorough. You can be thorough when you're not distracted. And when I tell you being able to be thorough with things that you actually care about and want to do, that is so nourishing. So, so nourishing. So I had that ability to be thorough during that first week. Then that second week comes along and I got to go back to work. I work a nine to five outside of doing this podcast. When I tell you,

That was so hard. Going back to work and being quiet, very, very difficult.

not an option between my nine to five to be quiet in the way that I want to be quiet quite yet I haven't figured it out quite yet I've been talking to a friend about it getting some thoughts on it but I haven't gotten that part quite yet but what I'm thinking is that during the week because I love the silence so much now during the week I'm still going to continue to keep everything turned off for the most part I'm going to try my best I'll get on every once in a while if I want to but

I know that for the most part, my joy is when I'm disconnected from those things. I'm aware that I have a platform and so I need to connect to those things on occasion. But I just want to be thoughtful about my energy, my time and how I spend it.

And on weekends, I'll allow myself to indulge a bit more. But truthfully, my joy isn't in them anyways. I've especially found that anytime something uncomfortable happened, I would run to those distractions for numbing so that I didn't have to face the discomfort in whatever may have happened. And that wasn't so healthy. But I share all of this to say, you might be in a place that doesn't feel exactly like where you want to be, but there's absolutely hope.

I was in such a deep place. Like I feel like it was a, I was calling it my one third life crisis because wow. And so if you are truly in a state of struggle where you feel like you can't function or feel like things aren't going right around you, like give it some time because with intention, with sometimes things like disconnection, you might have to let some things go with God and

there is this massive opportunity for you to just be wowed. Like I am in awe of where I have landed. When I say in awe, I mean, I am genuinely in awe of where I am right now and how I'm currently feeling in life. And that I tell you is absolutely possible for you.

I tell you with everything that I know in me that everything,

Living a life in awe where things happen for you that are beyond your imagination is absolutely possible for you. I am where I am because of God. When I say beyond imagination, the things that have happened to me in the last year, I never could have dreamed of and I will never again limit myself to the confines of my imagination. And so I recommend that for you too.

As you go from point A to point B, from struggle to nourished, from struggle to joy, from struggle to peace, like don't limit yourself to the confines of your imagination on how you might land on the other side of that thing. So usually at the end of the episodes, we reframe whatever limiting belief we were talking about.

And I think one of the limiting beliefs that I might've had in my like one third life crisis and my intense severe burnout was that you can't feel better. But now that I'm out of it in January of 2025, we'll reframe that to say, you absolutely can feel better to a point that's beyond what you could have ever imagined. Not because you made a ton of money,

Not because you accomplished all your goals. Not because you got validation from anybody else. For me, feeling better has completely been through God. Feeling better has come from being in silence. Feeling better has come from connecting to myself and being aware of everything that is around me. And honestly, just everything that is. You can feel better

and you will feel better. And man, I'm just so grateful for that. I'm so grateful.

Be so grateful for where you're going to be. If you are in that, oh, child, if you are in that deep, dark place, if you are in your one third life crisis or wherever you're at, even now in this struggle, just knowing that you're going to get out, just be so grateful. Can you just imagine what's down the road when there's an opportunity for peace and joy and nourishment? I hope you can see it. Like, I want you to see that.

I want you to like be able to close your eyes and envision the peace and nourishment that you actually want. Just do that. Like close your eyes and envision what you want and just know that you can receive it. You can walk towards it. Start walking towards it. And as you're walking towards it, just be so grateful. Be excited. Celebrate it because you're going. I'm so excited for you to go.

I'm so excited. So excited for you to go. You are on your way. So look, you know where you can find me. I am at lauren.e.will on Insta. So I encourage you to go have yourself an imperfectly phenomenal week. Give yourself grace. Have hope that you're going to get out of it. Don't limit yourself to the confines of your imagination. And I will talk to you in the next episode. Farewell, friends.