“I kept trying to read, but the words wouldn’t stay.”
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
That feeling when you just can’t merge the words into meaning. Not even to save your life!
They say: attention goes where energy flows. Attention is energy, and when stress is high, the body narrows its focus to what feels urgent. The brain doesn’t know the difference between a deadline and danger; it simply refuses to relax.
Reading, however, belongs to the part of us that breathes slowly. It lives in safety. So it’s not that we don’t want to read. Sometimes we simply can’t until calm returns from its announced annual leave!
And funny enough, the worst thing to do during that moment is TRYING to read!
Because nothing works if you force it. Not even your hobby. You’re going to hate your most favourite activity if you force yourself to do it.
Simply because it’ll remind you of the energy blocks that you charged it with while you tried to force it.
And you know what the brain does when you feel anxious?
SURPRISE, SURPRISE!
It “brings” you more stuff to feel anxious about.
Remember that autumn wardrobe cleaning you never did?
What about that email you were supposed to send to cancel that (boring) event?
Oh, and that parcel that hasn’t arrived yet?
All IRRELEVANT STUFF! Right?
But that’s how your brain sounds when you’re anxious. Even worse…
And imagine, in this condition, you’re trying to read.
Come on!
Do you pour hot water into a full boiling kettle?
Exactly.
Then why are you mad when your brain is simply REJECTING any new information coming in? Wrong time, my dear. Try again later.
Look, I have a huge list of book suggestions now.
But… Wrong time!
You’d be better off doing a few jumping jacks.
Get your energy flowing first.
Have a long shower, wash the bad vibes away. Visualise the anxiety leaving as the water flows.
Then light your favourite candle. Make it feel like a SPA experience, at home. At no cost.
Then take the book.
That one that feels like a painkiller to the soul.
Read that line that makes perfect sense to you aloud.
Then another.
Finish the paragraph.
Close the book.
Don’t count the pages. (Yes, see you, overachiever)
Count how rested you feel when you close it. 🪷
And the line that makes sense to me to say aloud now and every day is: We live on a floating rock spinning in space. And you, me, all of us get anxious.
A FLOATING ROCK IN SPACE!
Make it make sense!
Read “The Untethered Soul” by Michael Singer by the way… (sorry, I can’t just not recommend you anything 😶)
That’s exactly what happens to me from time to time. I just can’t finish a single page. Even though I try, it just won’t work. And then, I get mad that I can’t remember what I just read. Great advice, thanks!
You’re most welcome! Glad it resonates 🙂
As a “mood reader” I know the feeling all too well. Can’t read if my mind and emotions are not balanced, ’cause if I do, I I feel guilty and see reading more as a task then an enjoyment. So I’ve started to trick my brain that controls that part of me – make sure to vent, engage in self-care, and end the experience by reading a couple of pages to an entire chapter. Slowly build up to the right stage of mind. Allow myself a moment every night, which is just about me.
Same! I wrote every sentence reflecting my emotional state when I don’t feel like reading a sentence until the end 😅. It’s so real for many of us.