Shoo Fly!
With summer coming to an end, those of us in the Pittsburgh area will be savoring as many outdoor gatherings as we can the next 4-6 weeks before the cold weather sweeps in.
One thing we can count on whether it be at a spring picnic, summer cookout, or fall tailgate, is flies. Buzzing around. A nuisance. Landing on food. Landing on our ears, or our arms. And the common housefly has friends - mosquitoes, fruit flies, and now the spotted lantern fly.
So we have these pests that threaten to rudely land on our potato salad. We are all acquainted with the instinct of shooing a fly away with our hand. It hardly is even noticed. It doesn’t even register in most social contexts, nor does it interfere with social interaction or functioning.
But what if I find it unacceptable for there to be any flies bothering me at my fall tailgate. I don’t WANT these flies buzzing around. I want them to just GO AWAY! They shouldn’t be here! Leave me alone!
I want these flies gone!
So I shoo. I swipe. I smush. I swat.
A while later, I look up and the tailgate’s over. I was so focused on getting rid of the flies that I missed out on the whole reason I was there - I missed out on the food. I missed out on connecting with people I care about.
This is a common trap in navigating our internal world.
We get so focused on trying to manage, avoid, or get rid of thoughts and emotions that bother us that we miss out on what is important to us.
We don’t have to like unwanted thoughts and hard emotions - after all we don’t care for the flies buzzing around. We just have to be thoughtful how much focus we pay to them. The reality is that even if I smush and swat one or two flies, odds are others will just take their place. It’s like that with thoughts too, isn’t it? We can work hard to push out a thought only to find another one replace it.
So you’ve got options:
Stay inside - you avoid the flies! But you don’t get to participate in what is important to you.
Go outside and try to get rid of the flies - you’re going to work hard, get frustrated, miss out and probably not even succeed in dealing with the flies
Go outside and live - the flies will come and go, and we can strive not to let the flies’ presence (and our feelings toward flies) pull us away from what is important to us.
In ACT we focus on learning how to connect to LIFE even while the flies are buzzing around.