Unfortunately, Malachi has started following my friction practices. I sleep with socks on. If my feet are cold, I am cold. If my feet are warm, I am warm. If I have no socks on and feel too lazy to uproot myself from my bed, I proceed to horizontally sprint in place to create friction and warmth. In the beginning, Kyle would look at me as you would suspect he would look at me after observing this behavior and I would respond to his questioning eyes with “I’m creating friction, love!”
Friction is the action of one surface rubbing against another or the resistance that one object or surface encounters when moving over another. It’s a tension that tells us something is changing or maybe needs to change. It begs us to pay attention.
The past two months have consisted of me climbing out of the deep work hole I flung myself into back in May. Many times when I have work piled sky high, I refrain from writing because it doesn’t “have” to be done. I stood at the edge of my hole, grabbed the laptop and thought finally, I can write!
Crickets.
What do I write?
Junk.
Boring.
Seriously after months, you’ve got nothing?
Too heavy.
Too insignificant.
Heck no.
Hmmm.
Friction. The words written over the past seven years have not come from clarity, they have come from friction. They’ve not come from a clear idea or topic, they’ve come from a desire to understand, frustration, confusion, a question, discomfort, pain, appreciation, gratitude; all of which asks me to pay attention.
Over the course of a marathon, a body and mind experience many physical sensations and a variety of emotions. One of these is the sudden twinge of noticing. It may not bring pain at that moment, but one knows eventually this is going to hurt! If I continue, it will only get worse.
Around mile 18 of my first and only marathon to date, I noticed the ball of my foot; upon noticing I regretted my sock and shoe choice…and not running over six miles in the last month of my training. There wasn’t pain yet, but with 8.2 miles to go I knew that by the end, pain was inevitable. A blister. As friction does, it begged me to pay attention.
Around mile 25, I took a Twizzler from a spectator and walked for a few moments next to a man who looked like he’d just run 25 miles. I asked, “What hurts the most?” He replied, “everything.” I laughed because at that point, everything was funny. While laughing, I also realized somehow even my uterus hurt. Yes, I agree, everything hurts.
So in the midst of everything aching, my attention continued going back to the ball of my foot. Every single step for the last several miles, there was a burning sensation. Friction. It caused me to pay attention. Something needed to shift; to change.
As I was waiting for clarity, direction, an idea – something to write, I was reminded that it is through the friction that clarity comes. It brings awareness and focus.
In sport psychology, the topics of awareness and attention come up often. Let’s get textbook-like for a moment. (Bear with me for just a bit, but skip them if you’re like “nope, nerd-Brooke go away.”)
When thinking about attention, we can break this down into several different strategies (Weinberg & Gould, 2019). 1) Associative attentional strategies are when we monitor bodily functions and feelings like heart rate, muscle tension, and breathing. 1a) This is broken down further into internal sensory monitoring, such as muscle soreness, fatigue, and thirst; 1b) and active self-regulation (technique, cadence, strategy). 2) Then there are dissociative attentional strategies (distraction and tuning out, focusing on distant scenery, counting, doing math, calculating pace, chatting with a friend, and counting steps or breath). When we avoid focusing on our body’s signals, our brain registers the effort as less intense and disconnects our mind from the physical strain and makes the task we are participating in feel less hefty.
All of these strategies can be helpful and in long races, we often shift from types of focus along a continuum. According to Weinberg & Gould (2019), dissociation can decrease the fatigue and monotony of training or distract from the physical pain – like blisters or muscle soreness. We might distract ourselves from the pain during a race, but when the race is over, the socks and shoes fly off, our attention goes straight to the area where the constant friction has been all along.
Outside of sports and in life, there is a time and place for distraction. For numbing. For dissociation. But there comes a time when friction shouts, pay attention. Change the sock. Change the shoe. Take the rock out because there’s a problem here.
Recently the idea of culture has been on my mind. Not the grand scheme idea, but the culture within homes, work, communities, schools, teams.
A noticing. A twinge. A friction.
Sometimes this friction shows up as disengagement, burnout, frustration, knowing that what once fit nicely no longer fits. The culture is no longer aligned with the human in it. It’s as if when friction is noticed, conversations get honest; the burning sensation builds. Culture doesn’t change because someone redefines the expectations or policies or rules. It changes when a gap between what we say or aim for or trust or hope for and what we actually experience becomes impossible to ignore.
Impossible to ignore.
It begs us to pay attention.
Listen to the friction; it’s telling us something.