Silence the Screen, Still the Dread: How to Live in the Present Moment
For high-achieving women, the greatest challenge isn't the workload—it's the constant feeling that you should be doing more, anticipating the next crisis, or checking for the next notification. This relentless mental state keeps you stuck between the past and the future, preventing you from ever truly resting in the moment.
This guide dives into the essence of Week 11’s challenge: Reducing Distractions and Altered Mind-States to fully engage with your present reality.
Challenge Week 11: Life Distracted & The Power of the "Phone Fast"
The first step to living in the moment is eliminating the external forces that constantly pull your mind away. The digital world is the biggest culprit.
Your challenge this week is simple but profound:
Institute a “Phone Fast” for 30 minutes a day. Put your phone in a drawer, on silent, in another room, and let it stay there. [cite_start]Use that time to do something physical, creative, or restful.
Why Disconnecting Matters (The Science)
Constant distraction keeps your prefrontal cortex (the thinking brain) perpetually on high alert.
Context Switching Costs: This continuous switching between tasks and notifications, known as "context switching," taxes your cognitive load and leads to a measurable increase in mistakes and a decrease in deep, focused attention.
Preventing Overwhelm: By giving yourself a full 30 minutes of uninterrupted focus, you are teaching your brain to breathe and giving a gift to both your efficiency and your peace.
Mind-Body Connection: This is vital Soul Work. When you stop chasing the external notification, you hear the quiet, steady wisdom of your inner voice, connecting you to your authentic self.
Beyond the Brain Fog: The Life-and-Death Cost of Distraction (CDC Data)
Distraction isn't just about feeling overwhelmed in your work life; it is a critical public safety issue with fatal consequences, emphasizing how dangerous it is when the brain is not present in the moment.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and related data:
Nine people in the United States are killed every single day in crashes that are reported to involve a distracted driver.
In 2019, over 3,100 people were killed and about 424,000 were injured in crashes involving a distracted driver.
About 1 in 5 of the people who died in these crashes in 2019 were not in vehicles—they were walking, riding their bikes, or otherwise outside a vehicle.
Anything that takes your attention away from driving—whether it's using a cell phone, texting, or eating—is a potential distraction that increases your risk of crashing.
If you cannot maintain focus for a mere 30-minute Phone Fast, consider the catastrophic risk of taking your attention away from a high-stakes task like driving. This underscores that being present is not a luxury; it is a necessity for survival and safety.
The Core Conflict: Distraction & Fear of the Future
If you find the Phone Fast difficult, it's often because you are using the screen to escape an internal struggle: chronic dread and the fear of the future.
Stop Living in a Day Dream: Distraction as Avoidance
Oftentimes, the fear we feel in the moment is the anticipation of a future event that hasn't happened yet. This anxiety is never resolved because there is always another day ahead to worry about. This chronic foreboding manifests as:
A constant bad gut feeling or dread.
Hypervigilance, where you constantly look for (and consequently find) warning signs along the road.
Physical symptoms like an upset stomach, tight shoulders, trouble relaxing, and poor sleep.
This dread leads to avoidance, which can manifest as:
Avoiding social settings.
Letting emails clog up your inbox.
Postponing customer service calls.
Becoming convinced that something bad will happen if you attend a party or go to the grocery store.
When you constantly get a bad feeling about everything, you can no longer differentiate between a perceived intuition of danger and a real intuition of danger.
Common Causes of Chronic Dread
To heal the anxiety, you must understand its roots:
PTSD or Trauma: This destroys your overall sense of safety, leaving you with lingering, persistent dread.
Overactive Imagination: This is particularly common in high-achievers. Your creativity can lead you to vividly create new, imagined worries, like seeing yourself driving off a bridge before you've even reached it.
Inherited from Role Models: You can unintentionally learn an emotional response of dread from a parent or caregiver, only to have it surface years later in a similar situation, like Jane associating the stress of managing people with her father's modeled anxiety.
Insecure Attachments: Feeling that a loved one (partner, friend, parent) could "blow up" in unprovoked emotions at any moment, leaving you constantly walking on eggshells in anticipation.
What To Do About It: Self-Soothe and Act Wisely
If you struggle with chronic dread and constant anticipation, here are the steps to reclaim your presence and peace:
1. Check the Facts (Pause the Emotion)
When the foreboding feeling hits, pause your emotions for a minute to ask these questions and orient yourself to the present time and space:
Am I really in danger?
How likely is this to happen?
Is this feeling justified by concrete evidence?
2. Practice Self-Soothe (Address the Emotion Directly)
Bring awareness to the foreboding emotion and take direct action to soothe your nervous system:
Mindfulness: Ground yourself in the present moment by noticing your five senses.
Breathing Techniques: Use the techniques you learned in Week 2, focusing on making your out-breath longer than your in-breath.
Therapy or HRV Training: Seek professional help to dive deeper into the causes and practice physiological self-regulation.
3. Assess Risk Effectively (Build Confidence)
Stop worrying about potential dangers and instead do things that will actually combat them. This builds your confidence to act on knowledge rather than just foreboding emotions:
Take a self-defense class or a winter driving course.
Get certified in First Aid training.
4. Be Responsible for You (Set Loving Boundaries)
Stop taking responsibility for things that are not within your circle of influence (like trying to control the weather for someone else's comfort). Set good boundaries and focus your energy only on what you can and can’t do.
Your Path to Healing
If you find yourself relating to these struggles, please know that you are not alone. As a high-achieving woman, your competence can often mask the true internal exhaustion. Ignoring these symptoms is not a long-term solution.
Remember the wisdom of Buddha:
"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly."
By committing to the Phone Fast and learning to Check the Facts and Self-Soothe, you are choosing to live wisely and earnestly in the present.
If you are ready to dive deeper into the root causes and practices needed to resolve anxiety symptoms, please consider reaching out to us for therapy services! or exploring the ZenHikr Challenge for somatic, embodied healing.
